Questions tagged [eigenvalues]

For questions involving calculation or interpretation of eigenvalues or eigenvectors.

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Making sense of principal component analysis, eigenvectors & eigenvalues

In today's pattern recognition class my professor talked about PCA, eigenvectors and eigenvalues. I understood the mathematics of it. If I'm asked to find eigenvalues etc. I'll do it correctly like ...
claws's user avatar
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56 votes
3 answers
73k views

How does centering make a difference in PCA (for SVD and eigen decomposition)?

What difference does centering (or de-meaning) your data make for PCA? I've heard that it makes the maths easier or that it prevents the first PC from being dominated by the variables' means, but I ...
Zenit's user avatar
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54 votes
3 answers
64k views

Why does correlation matrix need to be positive semi-definite and what does it mean to be or not to be positive semi-definite?

I have been researching the meaning of positive semi-definite property of correlation or covariance matrices. I am looking for any information on Definition of positive semi-definiteness; Its ...
Melon's user avatar
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47 votes
7 answers
30k views

Why does Andrew Ng prefer to use SVD and not EIG of covariance matrix to do PCA?

I am studying PCA from Andrew Ng's Coursera course and other materials. In the Stanford NLP course cs224n's first assignment, and in the lecture video from Andrew Ng, they do singular value ...
DongukJu's user avatar
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33 votes
1 answer
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If I generate a random symmetric matrix, what's the chance it is positive definite?

I got a strange question when I was experimenting some convex optimizations. The question is: Suppose I randomly (say standard normal distribution) generate a $N \times N$ symmetric matrix, (for ...
Haitao Du's user avatar
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31 votes
2 answers
19k views

Why are there only $n-1$ principal components for $n$ data if the number of dimensions is $\ge n$?

In PCA, when the number of dimensions $d$ is greater than (or even equal to) the number of samples $N$, why is it that you will have at most $N-1$ non-zero eigenvectors? In other words, the rank of ...
GrokingPCA's user avatar
17 votes
1 answer
2k views

What is the meaning of the eigenvectors of a mutual information matrix?

When looking at the eigenvectors of the covariance matrix, we get the directions of maximum variance (the first eigenvector is the direction in which the data varies the most, etc.); this is called ...
kmace's user avatar
  • 777
16 votes
1 answer
6k views

What is principal subspace in probabilistic PCA?

if $X$ is observed data matrix and $Y$ is latent variable then $$X=WY+\mu+\epsilon$$ Where $\mu$ is the mean of observed data, and $\epsilon$ is the Gaussian error/noise in data, and $W$ is called ...
user3086871's user avatar
15 votes
2 answers
20k views

Why does PCA maximize total variance of the projection?

Christopher Bishop writes in his book Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning a proof, that each consecutive principal component maximizes the variance of the projection to one dimension, after the ...
michal's user avatar
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14 votes
1 answer
3k views

Why eigenvectors reveal the groups in Spectral Clustering

According to Handbook of Cluster Analysis Spectral Clustering is done with following algorithm: Input Similarity Matrix $S$, number of clusters $K$ Form the transition matrix $P$ with $P_{ij} = S_{...
jakes's user avatar
  • 195
14 votes
1 answer
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Explain how `eigen` helps inverting a matrix

My question relates to a computation technique exploited in geoR:::.negloglik.GRF or geoR:::solve.geoR. In a linear mixed model ...
qoheleth's user avatar
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13 votes
3 answers
12k views

Is every correlation matrix positive definite?

I'm talking here about matrices of Pearson correlations. I've often heard it said that all correlation matrices must be positive semidefinite. My understanding is that positive definite matrices must ...
user1205901 - Слава Україні's user avatar
13 votes
2 answers
9k views

Why are PCA eigenvectors orthogonal and what is the relation to the PCA scores being uncorrelated?

I'm reading up on PCA, and I'm understanding most of what's going on in terms of the derivation apart from the assumption that eigenvectors need to be orthogonal and how it relates to the projections (...
Pavan Sangha's user avatar
12 votes
2 answers
6k views

Quadratic form and Chi-squared distribution

It's about the demostration of the quadratic forms and chi-squared distribution. Let's split the problem: We have a $n$ vector with n standardized normal distribution called $z={[z_1,z_2...z_n]}$. ...
Mario Migliaccio's user avatar
12 votes
1 answer
3k views

Why are eigen and svd decompositions of a covariance matrix based on sparse data yielding different results?

I am trying to decompose a covariance matrix based on a sparse / gappy data set. I'm noticing that the sum of lambda (explained variance), as calculated with svd, ...
Marc in the box's user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
10k views

What exactly is the procedure to compute principal components in kernel PCA?

In kernel PCA (principal component analysis) you first choose a desired kernel, use it to find your $K$ matrix, center the feature space via the $K$ matrix, find its eigenvalues and eigenvectors, then ...
Chives's user avatar
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11 votes
1 answer
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A paper mentions a "Monte Carlo simulation to determine the number of principal components"; how does it work?

I'm doing a Matlab analysis on MRI data where I have performed PCA on a matrix sized 10304x236 where 10304 is the number of voxels (think of them as pixels) and 236 is the number of timepoints. The ...
chainhomelow's user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
7k views

Visualizing PCA in R: data points, eigenvectors, projections, confidence ellipse

I have a dataset of 17 people, ranking 77 statements. I want to extract principal components on a transposed correlation matrix of correlations between people (as variables) across statements (as ...
maxheld's user avatar
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10 votes
2 answers
1k views

Why cannot I obtain a valid SVD of X via eigenvalue decomposition of XX' and X'X?

I am trying to do SVD by hand: ...
failedstatistician's user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
1k views

Confused about the visual explanation of eigenvectors: how can visually different datasets have the same eigenvectors?

A lot of statistics textbooks provide an intuitive illustration of what the eigenvectors of a covariance matrix are: The vectors u and z form the eigenvectors (well, eigenaxes). This makes sense. But ...
Sue Doh Nimh's user avatar
9 votes
3 answers
699 views

Eigenvalues/Eigenvectors of Correlation and Covariance matrices

Suppose $\Sigma$ is a covariance matrix $P$ is its corresponding correlation matrix. Let $\lambda_1, \dots, \lambda_p$ and $\tau_1, \dots, \tau_p$ denote the ordered eigenvalues of $\Sigma$ and $P$, ...
Greenparker's user avatar
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9 votes
2 answers
704 views

Why is the amount of variance explained by my 1st PC so close to the average pairwise correlation?

What is the relationship between the first principal component(s) and the average correlation in the correlation matrix? For example, in an empirical application I observe that the average ...
Student's user avatar
  • 93
9 votes
1 answer
2k views

In PCA, why do we assume that the covariance matrix is always diagonalizable?

In Principal Component Analysis, what is the justification for the assumption that the covariance matrix is always a diagonalizable matrix? What happens when the covariance matrix is not ...
elliotp's user avatar
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9 votes
1 answer
8k views

Confused about Cholesky and eigen decomposition

I'm looking to generate correlated random variables. I have a symmetric, positive definite matrix. So I know that you can use the Cholesky decomposition, however I keep being told that this only works ...
user2350366's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
753 views

Estimated distribution of eigenvalues for i.i.d. (uniform or normal) data

Assuming I have a data set with $d$ dimensions (e.g. $d=20$) so that each dimension is i.i.d. $X_i \sim U[0;1]$ (alternatively, each dimension $X_i \sim \mathcal N[0;1]$) and independent of each other....
Has QUIT--Anony-Mousse's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
531 views

Theoretical link between the graph diffusion/heat kernel and spectral clustering

The graph diffusion kernel of a Graph is the exponential of its Laplacian $\exp(-\beta L)$ (or a similar expression depending on how you define the kernel). If you have labels on some vertices, you ...
highBandWidth's user avatar
9 votes
0 answers
677 views

Why are the discriminant axes in linear discriminant analysis (LDA) not orthogonal?

This may be a quite silly question and please correct me if I'm wrong. The discriminants (discriminant axes) are essentially eigenvectors of $\mathrm{Cov}_\mathrm{within}^{-1} \mathrm{Cov}_\mathrm{...
Xiaoxiong Lin's user avatar
8 votes
3 answers
1k views

Get accurate eigenvectors, when eigenvalues are minuscule

I have a symmetric matrix A. I'm not able to compute all the eigenvectors accurately, and I believe it is due to the last few eigenvalues for ...
Mich55's user avatar
  • 117
8 votes
2 answers
2k views

Why does the first eigenvector in PCA resemble the derivative of an underlying trend?

I am using PCA to analyze several spatially related time series, and it appears that the first eigenvector corresponds to the derivative of the mean trend of the series (example illustrated below). I ...
paul j's user avatar
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8 votes
1 answer
421 views

Distribution of eigenvalues given one is known

I'm familiar with using insights from Random Matrix Theory to determine the number of principal components from the PCA of a covariance/correlation matrix to use to form factors. If the eigenvalue ...
John's user avatar
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8 votes
1 answer
977 views

Why do we use the eigenvectors of the Laplacian and not the Affinity matrix in spectral clustering?

In spectral clustering, it's standard practice to solve the eigenvector problem $$L v = \lambda v$$ where $L$ is the graph Laplacian, $v$ is the eigenvector related to eigenvalue $\lambda$. My ...
felipeduque's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
3k views

Pagerank vs Eigenvector centrality

What are the practical differences between PageRank and Eigenvector centralities? I don't mean the differents in how to compute the centralities, but the information they provide of a set of nodes in ...
Paco el Cuqui's user avatar
8 votes
0 answers
3k views

Appropriate negative eigenvalue correction for PCoA of genetic distances

I am trying to find the best way to represent genetic distances in a plane so that they may use them as response variables in canonical redundancy analysis (using ...
Xavier GB's user avatar
  • 116
7 votes
3 answers
10k views

Is centering a valid solution for multicollinearity?

Let's assume that $y = a + a_1x_1 + a_2x_2 + a_3x_3 + e$ where $x_1$ and $x_2$ both are indexes both range from $0-10$ where $0$ is the minimum and $10$ is the maximum. I found by applying VIF, CI and ...
mosib74's user avatar
  • 71
7 votes
1 answer
3k views

nearPD function in Matrix package

Does anyone know how the eigenvalues are adjusted to make a non-positive definite matrix into a positive definite matrix in Matrix package? I mean in nearPD function.
shani's user avatar
  • 651
7 votes
1 answer
3k views

Do the principal components change if we apply PCA more than once (recursively) on data?

Consider a set $X=(X_1; \dots; X_n)$ of $n$ data points such that $X_i \in \mathbb{R}^d$ is a column vector. Let $Y = \text{pca_proj}(X)$ denote the projection of points in $X$ according to the PCA ...
Sobi's user avatar
  • 2,221
7 votes
1 answer
899 views

Multiplying vectors by the covariance matrix?

I thought I knew covariance but I'm starting to think that there's more to it. For example, what happens when you multiply observations by their corresponding covariance matrix? ...
jbuddy_13's user avatar
  • 2,185
7 votes
1 answer
5k views

How is PCA applied to new data?

I understand the basic intuition behind PCA: reducing the dimensionality of data by finding the eigenvectors along which there is most variance in the data, and projecting the data along these ...
PyRsquared's user avatar
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7 votes
1 answer
787 views

How to prove positive (semi-)definitness in matrix notation without numbers

I'd like to show that $$V[\hat\beta_{OLS}]-V[\hat\beta_{GLS}]=\sigma^2(X'X)^{-1}(X'\Omega X)(X'X)^{-1}-\sigma^2(X'\Omega X)^{-1}\geq 0$$ is positive (semi-) definite. $\Omega$ and $X$ are square-...
Phil's user avatar
  • 109
7 votes
1 answer
923 views

Shrinkage of the eigenvalues

Assume we have $n$ samples $X_1,..., X_n$ which are independent and identically distributed with mean = 0 and unknown non-singular covariance matrix $M$. Each sample $X_i$ is a vector of size $p\times ...
Christina's user avatar
  • 765
7 votes
1 answer
3k views

Correlation between principal components

I have two matrices a, b of dimensions (100x500), (100x15000) and I am trying to find associations between sets of variables in both matrices. When I perform principal component analysis on matrix a,...
gazwb's user avatar
  • 159
7 votes
0 answers
327 views

What is the precise relation between the eigenvalues of a covariance *function* and the eigenvalues of a covariance *matrix*?

Assume we have a temporal Gaussian Process $\mathcal{GP}(t;\ m,k)$ (GP) with mean $m$ and covariance function (aka. kernel) $k$ on some compact time interval $[0,T]$. Then, the eigenvalues $\lambda$ ...
hbrix's user avatar
  • 71
6 votes
2 answers
32k views

How does eigenvalues measure variance along the principal components in PCA? [duplicate]

I understand that eigenvalues measure variance along the principal components. Questions How are eigenvalues and variance same for PCA? What is the intuition behind this being the same? What is ...
GeorgeOfTheRF's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
4k views

PCA: Eigenvectors of opposite sign and not being able to compute eigenvectors with `solve` in R

I'm learning PCA in R language. I met two problems right now that I don't understand. I am performing a PCA analysis in R on a 318×17 dataset using some custom code. I take eigen function in R to ...
Kroll DU's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
18k views

Does the sign of eigenvectors matter? [duplicate]

I had an matrix ((2,1,1),(-11,4,5),(-1,1-0)) I got the eigen values to be -1,1,2 for the eigenvalue -1 I got an eigenvector (0,1,-1) on the answers it says the answer is (0,-1,1). Is there an actual ...
Alex's user avatar
  • 61
6 votes
1 answer
878 views

Interpretation of eigenvectors of Hessian inverse

I'm reading a paper in which they use the eigenvectors of the inverse Hessian of a continuous probability distribution to characterize dimensions along which the distribution is most and least ...
Vivek Subramanian's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
4k views

Eigenvalues of correlation matrices exhibit exponential decay

I have a data-set of $P$ samples of size $N$, and noticed that the eigenvalues of the correlation matrices $A^TA$, when presented in descending order, can in many cases be described as an exponential ...
Uri Cohen's user avatar
  • 427
6 votes
4 answers
7k views

Condition number of covariance matrix

I am interested in generating a covariance matrix of dimension say 100. I managed to get a correlation matrix with finite condition number. To construct a covariance matrix I need to have standard ...
shani's user avatar
  • 651
6 votes
1 answer
714 views

Second directional derivate and Hessian matrix

I am reading the following from the book Deep Learning, and I have the following questions. I don't quite understand second directional derivatives. The first directional derivative of a function $f:\...
Supreeth Narasimhaswamy's user avatar
6 votes
2 answers
2k views

Why do the leading eigenvectors of $A$ maximize $\text{Tr}(D^TAD)$?

Given a matrix $X\in\mathbb{R}^{m\times n}$, I am trying to maximize $\text{Tr}(D^TX^TXD)$ over $D\in\mathbb{R}^{n\times l}$ ($n<l$) subject to $D^TD=I_l$, where $\text{Tr}$ denotes the trace, and $...
Supreeth Narasimhaswamy's user avatar

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