Nonlinear nonnegative matrix factorization based on Mercer kernel construction

Generalizations ofnonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) in kernel feature space, such as projected gradient kernel NMF (PGKNMF) and polynomial Kernel NMF (PNMF), have been developed for face and facial expression recognition recently. However, these existing kernel NMF approaches cannot guarantee the nonnegativity of bases in kernel feature space and thus are essentially semi-NMF methods. In this paper, we show that nonlinear semi-NMF cannot extract the localized components which offer important information in object recognition. Therefore, nonlinear NMF rather than semi-NMF is needed to be developed for extracting localized component as well as learning the nonlinear structure. In order to address the nonlinear problem of NMF and the semi-nonnegative problem of the existing kernel NMF methods, we develop the nonlinear NMF based on a self-constructed Mercer kernel which preserves the nonnegative constraints on both bases and coefficients in kernel feature space. Experimental results in face and expressing recognition show that the proposed approach outperforms the existing state-of-the-art kernel methods, such as KPCA, GDA, PNMF and PGKNMF.

► We point out that the existing kernel NMF methods are essentially nonlinear semi-NMF.
► We indicate that semi-NMF cannot learn the parts of object theoretically and experimentally.
► Nonlinear NMF is introduced based on a self-constructed Mercer kernel.
► A novel nonnegative kernel mapping is proposed.