 Spline roughness penalty matrix

Let $b_i=N{e}_i$ be the interpolating cardinal basis and set ${\Gamma }_{ij}={\int }_a^b{b}_i^{\prime \prime }{b}_j^{\prime \prime }dx$. Linearity gives $J(N\mathbf{v})={\mathbf{v}}^T\Gamma \mathbf{v}$, and this Gram matrix is a positive semidefinite matrix. Its null space consists precisely of vectors $(\alpha +\beta x_i{)}_i$, by the null-space statement for the second derivative roughness penalty. Thus its rank is $n-2$, including the zero matrix when $n=2$.