Search arXiv⌕ Search

arXiv subjects

Michael Unser

Publications and source records attributed to Michael Unser.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources
arXiv2017

Approximation of Non-Decaying Signals From Shift-Invariant Subspaces

In our recent work, the sampling and reconstruction of non-decaying signals, modeled as members of weighted-$L_p$ spaces, were shown to be stable with an appropriate choice of the generating kernel for the shift-invariant reconstruction space. In this paper, we extend the Strang-Fix theory to show that, for $d$-dimensional signals whose derivatives up to order $L$ are all in some weighted-$L_p$ space, the weighted norm of the approximation error can be made to go down as $O(h^L)$ when the sampling step $h$ tends to $0$. The sufficient condition for this decay rate is that the generating kernel belongs to a particular hybrid-norm space and satisfies the Strang-Fix conditions of order $L$. We show that the $O(h^L)$ behavior of the error is attainable for both approximation schemes using projection (when the signal is prefiltered with the dual kernel) and interpolation (when a prefilter is unavailable). The requirement on the signal for the interpolation method, however, is slightly more stringent than that of the projection because we need to increase the smoothness of the signal by a margin of $d/p+\varepsilon$, for arbitrary $\varepsilon >0$. This extra amount of derivatives is used to make sure that the direct sampling is stable.

math.FA↗
arXiv2017

Learning Convex Regularizers for Optimal Bayesian Denoising

We propose a data-driven algorithm for the maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation of stochastic processes from noisy observations. The primary statistical properties of the sought signal is specified by the penalty function (i.e., negative logarithm of the prior probability density function). Our alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM)-based approach translates the estimation task into successive applications of the proximal mapping of the penalty function. Capitalizing on this direct link, we define the proximal operator as a parametric spline curve and optimize the spline coefficients by minimizing the average reconstruction error for a given training set. The key aspects of our learning method are that the associated penalty function is constrained to be convex and the convergence of the ADMM iterations is proven. As a result of these theoretical guarantees, adaptation of the proposed framework to different levels of measurement noise is extremely simple and does not require any retraining. We apply our method to estimation of both sparse and non-sparse models of Lévy processes for which the minimum mean square error (MMSE) estimators are available. We carry out a single training session and perform comparisons at various signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) values. Simulations illustrate that the performance of our algorithm is practically identical to the one of the MMSE estimator irrespective of the noise power.

cs.LG↗
arXiv2017

Exact algorithms for $L^1$-TV regularization of real-valued or circle-valued signals

We consider $L^1$-TV regularization of univariate signals with values on the real line or on the unit circle. While the real data space leads to a convex optimization problem, the problem is non-convex for circle-valued data. In this paper, we derive exact algorithms for both data spaces. A key ingredient is the reduction of the infinite search spaces to a finite set of configurations, which can be scanned by the Viterbi algorithm. To reduce the computational complexity of the involved tabulations, we extend the technique of distance transforms to non-uniform grids and to the circular data space. In total, the proposed algorithms have complexity $\mathscr{O}(KN)$ where $N$ is the length of the signal and $K$ is the number of different values in the data set. In particular, the complexity is $\mathscr{O}(N)$ for quantized data. It is the first exact algorithm for TV regularization with circle-valued data, and it is competitive with the state-of-the-art methods for scalar data, assuming that the latter are quantized.

math.NA↗
arXiv2017

Gaussian and Sparse Processes Are Limits of Generalized Poisson Processes

The theory of sparse stochastic processes offers a broad class of statistical models to study signals. In this framework, signals are represented as realizations of random processes that are solution of linear stochastic differential equations driven by white Lévy noises. Among these processes, generalized Poisson processes based on compound-Poisson noises admit an interpretation as random L-splines with random knots and weights. We demonstrate that every generalized Lévy process-from Gaussian to sparse-can be understood as the limit in law of a sequence of generalized Poisson processes. This enables a new conceptual understanding of sparse processes and suggests simple algorithms for the numerical generation of such objects.

math.PR↗
arXiv2016

Splines are Universal Solutions of Linear Inverse Problems with Generalized-TV regularization

Splines come in a variety of flavors that can be characterized in terms of some differential operator L. The simplest piecewise-constant model corresponds to the derivative operator. Likewise, one can extend the traditional notion of total variation by considering more general operators than the derivative. This leads us to the definition of the generalized Beppo-Levi space M, which is further identified as the direct sum of two Banach spaces. We then prove that the minimization of the generalized total variation (gTV) over M, subject to some arbitrary (convex) consistency constraints on the linear measurements of the signal, admits nonuniform L-spline solutions with fewer knots than the number of measurements. This shows that non-uniform splines are universal solutions of continuous-domain linear inverse problems with LASSO, L1, or TV-like regularization constraints. Remarkably, the spline-type is fully determined by the choice of L and does not depend on the actual nature of the measurements.

math.FA↗
arXiv2016

Deep Convolutional Neural Network for Inverse Problems in Imaging

In this paper, we propose a novel deep convolutional neural network (CNN)-based algorithm for solving ill-posed inverse problems. Regularized iterative algorithms have emerged as the standard approach to ill-posed inverse problems in the past few decades. These methods produce excellent results, but can be challenging to deploy in practice due to factors including the high computational cost of the forward and adjoint operators and the difficulty of hyper parameter selection. The starting point of our work is the observation that unrolled iterative methods have the form of a CNN (filtering followed by point-wise non-linearity) when the normal operator (H*H, the adjoint of H times H) of the forward model is a convolution. Based on this observation, we propose using direct inversion followed by a CNN to solve normal-convolutional inverse problems. The direct inversion encapsulates the physical model of the system, but leads to artifacts when the problem is ill-posed; the CNN combines multiresolution decomposition and residual learning in order to learn to remove these artifacts while preserving image structure. We demonstrate the performance of the proposed network in sparse-view reconstruction (down to 50 views) on parallel beam X-ray computed tomography in synthetic phantoms as well as in real experimental sinograms. The proposed network outperforms total variation-regularized iterative reconstruction for the more realistic phantoms and requires less than a second to reconstruct a 512 x 512 image on GPU.

cs.CV↗
arXiv2016

Multidimensional Lévy White Noises in Weighted Besov Spaces

In this paper, we study the Besov regularity of d-dimensional Lévy white noises. More precisely, we describe new sample paths properties of a given white noise in terms of weighted Besov spaces. In particular, the smoothness and integrability properties of Lévy white noises are characterized using the Blumenthal-Getoor indices. Our techniques rely on wavelet methods and generalized moments estimates for Lévy white noises.

math.PR↗
arXiv2015

On The Continuous Steering of the Scale of Tight Wavelet Frames

In analogy with steerable wavelets, we present a general construction of adaptable tight wavelet frames, with an emphasis on scaling operations. In particular, the derived wavelets can be "dilated" by a procedure comparable to the operation of steering steerable wavelets. The fundamental aspects of the construction are the same: an admissible collection of Fourier multipliers is used to extend a tight wavelet frame, and the "scale" of the wavelets is adapted by scaling the multipliers. As an application, the proposed wavelets can be used to improve the frequency localization. Importantly, the localized frequency bands specified by this construction can be scaled efficiently using matrix multiplication.

cs.CV↗
arXiv2015

On the Besov Regularity of Periodic Lévy Noises

In this paper, we study the Besov regularity of Lévy white noises on the $d$-dimensional torus. Due to their rough sample paths, the white noises that we consider are defined as generalized stochastic fields. We, initially, obtain regularity results for general Lévy white noises. Then, we focus on two subclasses of noises: compound Poisson and symmetric-$α$-stable (including Gaussian), for which we make more precise statements. Before measuring regularity, we show that the question is well-posed; we prove that Besov spaces are in the cylindrical $σ$-field of the space of generalized functions. These results pave the way to the characterization of the $n$-term wavelet approximation properties of stochastic processes.

math.PR↗
arXiv2015

Isotropic inverse-problem approach for two-dimensional phase unwrapping

In this paper, we propose a new technique for two-dimensional phase unwrapping. The unwrapped phase is found as the solution of an inverse problem that consists in the minimization of an energy functional. The latter includes a weighted data-fidelity term that favors sparsity in the error between the true and wrapped phase differences, as well as a regularizer based on higher-order total-variation. One desirable feature of our method is its rotation invariance, which allows it to unwrap a much larger class of images compared to the state of the art. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method through several experiments on simulated and real data obtained through the tomographic phase microscope. The proposed method can enhance the applicability and outreach of techniques that rely on quantitative phase evaluation.

physics.optics↗
arXiv2015

A Learning Approach to Optical Tomography

We describe a method for imaging 3D objects in a tomographic configuration implemented by training an artificial neural network to reproduce the complex amplitude of the experimentally measured scattered light. The network is designed such that the voxel values of the refractive index of the 3D object are the variables that are adapted during the training process. We demonstrate the method experimentally by forming images of the 3D refractive index distribution of cells.

physics.optics↗
arXiv2015

Joint Image Reconstruction and Segmentation Using the Potts Model

We propose a new algorithmic approach to the non-smooth and non-convex Potts problem (also called piecewise-constant Mumford-Shah problem) for inverse imaging problems. We derive a suitable splitting into specific subproblems that can all be solved efficiently. Our method does not require a priori knowledge on the gray levels nor on the number of segments of the reconstruction. Further, it avoids anisotropic artifacts such as geometric staircasing. We demonstrate the suitability of our method for joint image reconstruction and segmentation. We focus on Radon data, where we in particular consider limited data situations. For instance, our method is able to recover all segments of the Shepp-Logan phantom from $7$ angular views only. We illustrate the practical applicability on a real PET dataset. As further applications, we consider spherical Radon data as well as blurred data.

math.OC↗
arXiv2014

Ellipse-preserving Hermite interpolation and subdivision

We introduce a family of piecewise-exponential functions that have the Hermite interpolation property. Our design is motivated by the search for an effective scheme for the joint interpolation of points and associated tangents on a curve with the ability to perfectly reproduce ellipses. We prove that the proposed Hermite functions form a Riesz basis and that they reproduce prescribed exponential polynomials. We present a method based on Green's functions to unravel their multi-resolution and approximation-theoretic properties. Finally, we derive the corresponding vector and scalar subdivision schemes, which lend themselves to a fast implementation. The proposed vector scheme is interpolatory and level-dependent, but its asymptotic behaviour is the same as the classical cubic Hermite spline algorithm. The same convergence properties---i.e., fourth order of approximation---are hence ensured.

math.NA↗
arXiv2014

On the Continuity of Characteristic Functionals and Sparse Stochastic Modeling

The characteristic functional is the infinite-dimensional generalization of the Fourier transform for measures on function spaces. It characterizes the statistical law of the associated stochastic process in the same way as a characteristic function specifies the probability distribution of its corresponding random variable. Our goal in this work is to lay the foundations of the innovation model, a (possibly) non-Gaussian probabilistic model for sparse signals. This is achieved by using the characteristic functional to specify sparse stochastic processes that are defined as linear transformations of general continuous-domain white noises (also called innovation processes). We prove the existence of a broad class of sparse processes by using the Minlos-Bochner theorem. This requires a careful study of the regularity properties, especially the boundedness in Lp-spaces, of the characteristic functional of the innovations. We are especially interested in the functionals that are only defined for p<1 since they appear to be associated with the sparser kind of processes. Finally, we apply our main theorem of existence to two specific subclasses of processes with specific invariance properties.

math.PR↗
arXiv2013

Optimality of Operator-Like Wavelets for Representing Sparse AR(1) Processes

It is known that the Karhunen-Loève transform (KLT) of Gaussian first-order auto-regressive (AR(1)) processes results in sinusoidal basis functions. The same sinusoidal bases come out of the independent-component analysis (ICA) and actually correspond to processes with completely independent samples. In this paper, we relax the Gaussian hypothesis and study how orthogonal transforms decouple symmetric-alpha-stable (S$α$S) AR(1) processes. The Gaussian case is not sparse and corresponds to $α=2$, while $0<α<2$ yields processes with sparse linear-prediction error. In the presence of sparsity, we show that operator-like wavelet bases do outperform the sinusoidal ones. Also, we observe that, for processes with very sparse increments ($0<α\leq 1$), the operator-like wavelet basis is indistinguishable from the ICA solution obtained through numerical optimization. We consider two criteria for independence. The first is the Kullback-Leibler divergence between the joint probability density function (pdf) of the original signal and the product of the marginals in the transformed domain. The second is a divergence between the joint pdf of the original signal and the product of the marginals in the transformed domain, which is based on Stein's formula for the mean-square estimation error in additive Gaussian noise. Our framework then offers a unified view that encompasses the discrete cosine transform (known to be asymptotically optimal for $α=2$) and Haar-like wavelets (for which we achieve optimality for $0<α\leq1$).

cs.IT↗
arXiv2013

Operator-Like Wavelet Bases of $L_2(\mathbb{R}^d)$

The connection between derivative operators and wavelets is well known. Here we generalize the concept by constructing multiresolution approximations and wavelet basis functions that act like Fourier multiplier operators. This construction follows from a stochastic model: signals are tempered distributions such that the application of a whitening (differential) operator results in a realization of a sparse white noise. Using wavelets constructed from these operators, the sparsity of the white noise can be inherited by the wavelet coefficients. In this paper, we specify such wavelets in full generality and determine their properties in terms of the underlying operator.

math.CA↗
arXiv2013

Harmonic Singular Integrals and Steerable Wavelets in $L_2(\mathbb{R}^d)$

Here we present a method of constructing steerable wavelet frames in $L_2(\mathbb{R}^d)$ that generalizes and unifies previous approaches, including Simoncelli's pyramid and Riesz wavelets. The motivation for steerable wavelets is the need to more accurately account for the orientation of data. Such wavelets can be constructed by decomposing an isotropic mother wavelet into a finite collection of oriented mother wavelets. The key to this construction is that the angular decomposition is an isometry, whereby the new collection of wavelets maintains the frame bounds of the original one. The general method that we propose here is based on partitions of unity involving spherical harmonics. A fundamental aspect of this construction is that Fourier multipliers composed of spherical harmonics correspond to singular integrals in the spatial domain. Such transforms have been studied extensively in the field of harmonic analysis, and we take advantage of this wealth of knowledge to make the proposed construction practically feasible and computationally efficient.

math.CA↗