When Locally Linear Embedding Hits Boundary

Hau-Tieng Wu, Nan Wu.

Year: 2023, Volume: 24, Issue: 69, Pages: 1−80


Abstract

Based on the Riemannian manifold model, we study the asymptotic behavior of a widely applied unsupervised learning algorithm, locally linear embedding (LLE), when the point cloud is sampled from a compact, smooth manifold with boundary. We show several peculiar behaviors of LLE near the boundary that are different from those diffusion-based algorithms. In particular, we show that LLE pointwisely converges to a mixed-type differential operator with degeneracy and we calculate the convergence rate. The impact of the hyperbolic part of the operator is discussed and we propose a clipped LLE algorithm which is a potential approach to recover the Dirichlet Laplace-Beltrami operator.

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