Digital Signal Processing Reference
In-Depth Information
Concavity of the geometric mean. In the preceding discussions we found that
the geometric mean of two positive numbers is concave in the positive or-
thant x i > 0 . Similarly it is true that the geometric mean of P numbers
g ( x 0 ,x 1 ,...,x P− 1 )=
x k 1 /P
P− 1
(21 . 21)
k =0
is concave in the positive orthant x k > 0 . To see this we first compute the
Hessian matrix, which turns out to be G = c H , where c =( P− 1
k =0
x k ) 1 /P /P 2 >
0 , and
y 0
0
...
0
y 1
0
...
0
T
H = yy
P
,
.
.
.
. . .
y P− 1
00 ...
where y =[ y 0 y 1 ... y P− 1 ] T , is a real column vector with y k =1 /x k .
To prove concavity of the geometric mean, it therefore su ces to prove that
the real Hermitian matrix H is negative semidefinite, that is, v
T
Hv
0for
all real v .Now,
v
y 0
0
...
0
0
y 1
...
0
T
T
T
T
v
Hv =( v
y )( y
v )
P v
.
.
.
. . .
y P− 1
00 ...
which can be rewritten as
Hv =
k
v k y k 2
P
k
T
v k y k
v
(21 . 22)
v P− 1 y P− 1 ] T , z =[1 1 ...
1] T ,
Defining the real vectors u =[ v 0 y 0
...
and applying the Cauchy-Schwartz inequality, we get, ( u
T
z ) 2
( u
T
u )( z
T
z ) ,
that is,
v k y k 2
P
k
v k y k .
k
T
Using this in Eq. (21.22) shows that v
Hv 0 for all real v .So H is
negative semidefinite, proving that the geometric mean is a concave function
in the positive orthant x k > 0 .
21.2.5 Composite functions
If f ( x )and h ( x ) are convex, can we say h ( f ( x )) is convex as well? If h ( x )is
an increasing function, this is indeed true. More precisely we have the following
(see Marcus and Minc [1964] p. 102):
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