On decomposition-based block preconditioned iterative methods for half-quadratic image restoration

Image restoration is a fundamental problem in image processing. Except for many different filters applied to obtain a restored image in image restoration, a degraded image can often be recovered efficiently by minimizing a cost function which consists of a data-fidelity term and a regularization term. In specific, half-quadratic regularization can effectively preserve image edges in the recovered images and a fixed-point iteration method is usually employed to solve the minimization problem. In this paper, the Newton method is applied to solve the half-quadratic regularization image restoration problem. And at each step of the Newton method, a structured linear system of a symmetric positive definite coefficient matrix arises. We design two different decomposition-based block preconditioning matrices by considering the special structure of the coefficient matrix and apply the preconditioned conjugate gradient method to solve this linear system. Theoretical analysis shows the eigenvector properties and the spectral bounds for the preconditioned matrices. The method used to analyze the spectral distribution of the preconditioned matrix and the correspondingly obtained spectral bounds are different from those in the literature. The experimental results also demonstrate that the decomposition-based block preconditioned conjugate gradient method is efficient for solving the half-quadratic regularization image restoration in terms of the numerical performance and image recovering quality.     

A preconditioning proximal newton method for nondifferentiable convex optimization

We propose a proximal Newton method for solving nondifferentiable convex optimization. This method combines the generalized Newton method with Rockafellar’s proximal point algorithm. At each step, the proximal point is found approximately and the regularization matrix is preconditioned to overcome inexactness of this approximation. We show that such a preconditioning is possible within some accuracy and the second-order differentiability properties of the Moreau-Yosida regularization are invariant with respect to this preconditioning. Based upon these, superlinear convergence is established under a semismoothness condition. This work is supported by the Australian Research Council.     

基于分数阶微积分正则化的图像处理

全变分正则化方法已被广泛地应用于图像处理,利用此方法可以较好地去除噪声,并保持图像的边缘特征,但得到的优化解会产生"阶梯"效应.为了克服这一缺点,本文通过分数阶微积分正则化方法,建立了一个新的图像处理模型.为了克服此模型中非光滑项对求解带来的困难,本文研究了基于不动点方程的迫近梯度算法.最后,本文利用提出的模型与算法进行了图像去噪、图像去模糊与图像超分辨率实验,实验结果表明分数阶微积分正则化方法能较好的保留图像纹理等细节信息.     

A new trust region algorithm for image restoration

The image restoration problems play an important role in remote sensing and astronomical image analysis. One common method for the recovery of a true image from corrupted or blurred image is the least squares error (LSE) method. But the LSE method is unstable in practical applications. A popular way to overcome instability is the Tikhonov regularization. However, difficulties will encounter when adjusting the so-called regularization parameter a. Moreover, how to truncate the iteration at appropriate steps is also challenging. In this paper we use the trust region method to deal with the image restoration problem, meanwhile, the trust region subproblem is solved by the truncated Lanczos method and the preconditioned truncated Lanczos method. We also develop a fast algorithm for evaluating the Kronecker matrix-vector product when the matrix is banded. The trust region method is very stable and robust, and it has the nice property of updating the trust region automatically. This releases us from tedious fi     

A splitting primal-dual proximity algorithm for solving composite optimization problems

Our work considers the optimization of the sum of a non-smooth convex function and a finite family of composite convex functions, each one of which is composed of a convex function and a bounded linear operator. This type of problem is associated with many interesting challenges encountered in the image restoration and image reconstruction fields. We developed a splitting primal-dual proximity algorithm to solve this problem. Furthermore, we propose a preconditioned method, of which the iterative parameters are obtained without the need to know some particular operator norm in advance. Theoretical convergence theorems are presented. We then apply the proposed methods to solve a total variation regularization model, in which the L2 data error function is added to the L1 data error function. The main advantageous feature of this model is its capability to combine different loss functions. The numerical results obtained for computed tomography (CT) image reconstruction demonstrated the ability of the proposed algorithm to reconstruct an image with few and sparse projection views while maintaining the image quality.     

A modified quasi‐Newton diagonal update algorithm for total variation denoising problems and nonlinear monotone equations with applications in compressive sensing

In this paper, we present a new algorithm to accelerate the Chambolle gradient projection method for total variation image restoration. The new proposed method considers an approximation of the Hessian based on the secant equation. Combined with the quasi‐Cauchy equations and diagonal updating, we can obtain a positive definite diagonal matrix. In the proposed minimization method model, we use the positive definite diagonal matrix instead of the constant time stepsize in Chambolle's method. The global convergence of the proposed scheme is proved. Some numerical results illustrate the efficiency of this method. Moreover, we also extend the quasi‐Newton diagonal updating method to solve nonlinear systems of monotone equations. Performance comparisons show that the proposed method is efficient. A practical application of the monotone equations is shown and tested on sparse signal reconstruction in compressed sensing. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

一类不可微二次规划逆问题

本文求解了一类二次规划的逆问题,具体为目标函数是矩阵谱范数与向量无穷范数之和的最小化问题.首先将该问题转化为目标函数可分离变量的凸优化问题,提出用G-ADMM法求解.并结合奇异值阈值算法,Moreau-Yosida正则化算法,matlab优化工具箱的quadprog函数来精确求解相应的子问题.而对于其中一个子问题的精确求解过程中发现其仍是目标函数可分离变量的凸优化问题,由于其变量都是矩阵,所以采用适合多个矩阵变量的交替方向法求解,通过引入新的变量,使其每个子问题的解都具有显示表达式.最后给出采用的G-ADMM法求解本文问题的数值实验.数据表明,本文所采用的方法能够高效快速地解决该二次规划逆问题.     

Modular solvers for image restoration problems using the discrepancy principle

Many problems in image restoration can be formulated as either an unconstrained non‐linear minimization problem, usually with a Tikhonov‐like regularization, where the regularization parameter has to be determined; or as a fully constrained problem, where an estimate of the noise level, either the variance or the signal‐to‐noise ratio, is available. The formulations are mathematically equivalent. However, in practice, it is much easier to develop algorithms for the unconstrained problem, and not always obvious how to adapt such methods to solve the corresponding constrained problem. In this paper, we present a new method which can make use of any existing convergent method for the unconstrained problem to solve the constrained one. The new method is based on a Newton iteration applied to an extended system of non‐linear equations, which couples the constraint and the regularized problem, but it does not require knowledge of the Jacobian of the irregularity functional. The existing solver is only used as a black box solver, which for a fixed regularization parameter returns an improved solution to the unconstrained minimization problem given an initial guess. The new modular solver enables us to easily solve the constrained image restoration problem; the solver automatically identifies the regularization parameter, during the iterative solution process. We present some numerical results. The results indicate that even in the worst case the constrained solver requires only about twice as much work as the unconstrained one, and in some instances the constrained solver can be even faster. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mesh independent superlinear convergence of an inner–outer iterative method for semilinear elliptic interface problems

We propose the damped inexact Newton method, coupled with preconditioned inner iterations, to solve the finite element discretization of a class of nonlinear elliptic interface problems. The linearized equations are solved by a preconditioned conjugate gradient method. Both the inner and outer iterations exhibit mesh independent superlinear convergence.     

求解带Toeplitz矩阵的线性互补问题的一类预处理模系矩阵分裂迭代法

针对系数矩阵为对称正定Toeplitz矩阵的线性互补问题,本文提出了一类预处理模系矩阵分裂迭代方法.先通过变量替换将线性互补问题转化为一类非线性方程组,然后选取Strang或T.Chan循环矩阵作为预优矩阵,利用共轭梯度法进行求解.我们分析了该方法的收敛性.数值实验表明,该方法是高效可行的.     

An improved inexact Newton method

For unconstrained optimization, an inexact Newton algorithm is proposed recently, in which the preconditioned conjugate gradient method is applied to solve the Newton equations. In this paper, we improve this algorithm by efficiently using automatic differentiation and establish a new inexact Newton algorithm. Based on the efficiency coefficient defined by Brent, a theoretical efficiency ratio of the new algorithm to the old algorithm is introduced. It has been shown that this ratio is greater than 1, which implies that the new algorithm is always more efficient than the old one. Furthermore, this improvement is significant at least for some cases. This theoretical conclusion is supported by numerical experiments.      

An improved Newton projection method for nonnegative deblurring of Poisson-corrupted images with Tikhonov regularization

In this paper a quasi-Newton projection method for image deblurring is presented. The image restoration problem is mathematically formulated as a nonnegatively constrained minimization problem where the objective function is the sum of the Kullback–Leibler divergence, used to express fidelity to the data in the presence of Poisson noise, and of a Tikhonov regularization term. The Hessian of the objective function is approximated so that the Newton system can be efficiently solved by using Fast Fourier Transforms. The numerical results show the potential of the proposed method both in terms of relative error reduction and computational efficiency.     

Convex constrained optimization for large-scale generalized Sylvester equations

We propose and study the use of convex constrained optimization techniques for solving large-scale Generalized Sylvester Equations (GSE). For that, we adapt recently developed globalized variants of the projected gradient method to a convex constrained least-squares approach for solving GSE. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach on two different applications. First, we apply it to solve the GSE that appears after applying left and right preconditioning schemes to the linear problems associated with the discretization of some partial differential equations. Second, we apply the new approach, combined with a Tikhonov regularization term, to restore some blurred and highly noisy images.     

Sylvester Tikhonov-regularization methods in image restoration

In this paper, we consider large-scale linear discrete ill-posed problems where the right-hand side contains noise. Regularization techniques such as Tikhonov regularization are needed to control the effect of the noise on the solution. In many applications such as in image restoration the coefficient matrix is given as a Kronecker product of two matrices and then Tikhonov regularization problem leads to the generalized Sylvester matrix equation. For large-scale problems, we use the global-GMRES method which is an orthogonal projection method onto a matrix Krylov subspace. We present some theoretical results and give numerical tests in image restoration.     

NPTool: a Matlab software for nonnegative image restoration with Newton projection methods

Several image restoration applications require the solution of nonnegatively constrained minimization problems whose objective function is typically constituted by the sum of a data fit function and a regularization function. Newton projection methods are very attractive because of their fast convergence, but they need an efficient implementation to avoid time consuming iterations. In this paper we present NPTool, a set of Matlab functions implementing Newton projection methods for image denoising and deblurring applications. They are specifically thought for two different data fit functions, the Least Squares function and the Kullback–Leibler divergence, and two regularization functions, Tikhonov and Total Variation, giving the opportunity of solving a large variety of restoration problems. The package is easily extensible to other linear or nonlinear data fit and regularization functions. Some examples of its use are included in the package and shown in this paper.     

Nonnegative tensor factorizations using an alternating direction method

The nonnegative tensor (matrix) factorization finds more and more applications in various disciplines including machine learning, data mining, and blind source separation, etc. In computation, the optimization problem involved is solved by alternatively minimizing one factor while the others are fixed. To solve the subproblem efficiently, we first exploit a variable regularization term which makes the subproblem far from ill-condition. Second, an augmented Lagrangian alternating direction method is employed to solve this convex and well-conditioned regularized subproblem, and two accelerating skills are also implemented. Some preliminary numerical experiments are performed to show the improvements of the new method.     

求解带线性约束的凸优化的一类自适应不定线性化增广拉格朗日方法

增广拉格朗日方法是求解带线性约束的凸优化问题的有效算法.线性化增广拉格朗日方法通过线性化增广拉格朗日函数的二次罚项并加上一个临近正则项,使得子问题容易求解,其中正则项系数的恰当选取对算法的收敛性和收敛速度至关重要.较大的系数可保证算法收敛性,但容易导致小步长.较小的系数允许迭代步长增大,但容易导致算法不收敛.本文考虑求解带线性等式或不等式约束的凸优化问题.我们利用自适应技术设计了一类不定线性化增广拉格朗日方法,即利用当前迭代点的信息自适应选取合适的正则项系数,在保证收敛性的前提下尽量使得子问题步长选择范围更大,从而提高算法收敛速度.我们从理论上证明了算法的全局收敛性,并利用数值实验说明了算法的有效性.     

Analysis on Newton projection method for the split feasibility problem

In this paper, based on a merit function of the split feasibility problem (SFP), we present a Newton projection method for solving it and analyze the convergence properties of the method. The merit function is differentiable and convex. But its gradient is a linear composite function of the projection operator, so it is nonsmooth in general. We prove that the sequence of iterates converges globally to a solution of the SFP as long as the regularization parameter matrix in the algorithm is chosen properly. Especially, under some local assumptions which are necessary for the case where the projection operator is nonsmooth, we prove that the sequence of iterates generated by the algorithm superlinearly converges to a regular solution of the SFP. Finally, some numerical results are presented.     

Preconditioning Indefinite Systems in Interior Point Methods for Optimization

Every Newton step in an interior-point method for optimization requires a solution of a symmetric indefinite system of linear equations. Most of today's codes apply direct solution methods to perform this task. The use of logarithmic barriers in interior point methods causes unavoidable ill-conditioning of linear systems and, hence, iterative methods fail to provide sufficient accuracy unless appropriately preconditioned. Two types of preconditioners which use some form of incomplete Cholesky factorization for indefinite systems are proposed in this paper. Although they involve significantly sparser factorizations than those used in direct approaches they still capture most of the numerical properties of the preconditioned system. The spectral analysis of the preconditioned matrix is performed: for convex optimization problems all the eigenvalues of this matrix are strictly positive. Numerical results are given for a set of public domain large linearly constrained convex quadratic programming problems with sizes reaching tens of thousands of variables. The analysis of these results reveals that the solution times for such problems on a modern PC are measured in minutes when direct methods are used and drop to seconds when iterative methods with appropriate preconditioners are used.     

A “Nonconvex+Nonconvex” approach for image restoration with impulse noise removal

In this paper, we propose a new method for image restoration problems, which are degraded by impulsive noise, with nonconvex data fitting term and nonconvex regularizer.The proposed method possesses the advantages of nonconvex data fitting and nonconvex regularizer simultaneously, namely, robustness for impulsive noise and efficiency for restoring neat edge images.Further, we propose an efficient algorithm to solve the “Nonconvex+Nonconvex” structure problem via using the alternating direction minimization, and prove that the algorithm is globally convergent when the regularization parameter is known. However, the regularization parameter is unavailable in general. Thereby, we combine the algorithm with the continuation technique and modified Morozov’s discrepancy principle to get an improved algorithm in which a suitable regularization parameter can be chosen automatically. The experiments reveal the superior performances of the proposed algorithm in comparison with some existing methods.