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Kernel PCA — when and how?

hard

Answer

  • Apply the kernel trick to PCA: implicitly map data to a feature space Φ(x) via kernel K(x, y) = ⟨Φ(x), Φ(y)⟩, then do PCA there.
  • Captures non-linear structure without explicit feature construction.
  • Common kernels: RBF, polynomial, cosine.
  • Cost O(n2)O(n^{2}) memory (kernel matrix) — doesn't scale beyond ~10k.
  • Modern replacement: autoencoders / UMAP for larger data.
Check yourself — multiple choice
  • Same as PCA
  • Kernel-trick PCA in RKHS via K(x,y); captures non-linear structure without explicit features; O(n2)O(n^{2}) memory → replaced by autoencoders/UMAP at scale
  • Random
  • Not real

Kernel PCA: PCA in RKHS via kernel; O(n2)O(n^{2}) memory limits scale.

#dimensionality-reduction#pca

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