Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 205 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Use the normalizationThis is ridge regression; the penalty is the squared Euclidean norm. The centering removes the need for an intercept. Differentiating gives the normal equationFor every nonzero , . The coefficient matrix is therefore a positive-definite matrix, even if the design matrix has deficient matrix rank. The objective is a strictly convex function, so the unique minimizer is the closed-form ridge regression estimator, with fitted values
For the primal-dual identity for ridge regression, put and observeBoth parenthesized matrices are positive-definite matrices. Multiplying by their inverses givesThus the same fitted vector has the dual expressionNo inverse of or alone was needed. This is also the kernel-ridge hat matrix for the linear kernel.
Here a positive-definite kernel means a symmetric real-valued function whose every finite kernel matrix is positive semidefinite: for all , and ,This is the usual positive-semidefinite kernel convention; strict positivity for distinct points is not required. In particular . Write , and . Positivity of the two-point kernel matrix impliesIf , substitute to obtain . If , the affine expression can be nonnegative for every only if . Both cases give the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality for positive-semidefinite kernels:The zero-diagonal case is essential when the positive-definite kernel is not strictly positive.
To construct a feature map, let be the real vector space of finite formal linear combinations of symbols , one for each . Define a symmetric bilinear form byThe positive-definite kernel property makes this a positive semidefinite bilinear form. It need not yet be an inner product: distinct formal vectors can have zero squared length. The same quadratic-polynomial argument, now applied to , provesTherefore implies for every . The setis the radical of a bilinear form, hence a linear subspace. SetThe quotient vector space has a well-defined inner product: changing representatives by elements of changes no pairing, and a zero-length class is exactly the zero class. It is therefore an inner product space.
Define . By construction,Every positive-definite kernel thus has a feature representation, including degenerate kernels and the zero kernel. This is its canonical feature space of a positive-semidefinite kernel. The construction already gives the requested inner product space.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 iii Paper 205 1 d Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
PutThe numerator is the linear kernel, while the reciprocal of the denominator is the kernel from part c applied to and . The product of positive-semidefinite kernels therefore shows that is a positive-semidefinite kernel. The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality and the arithmetic-geometric mean inequality give , soEach power is positive semidefinite by the Schur product theorem, and the convergent sum is positive semidefinite.
Moreover . If is its canonical feature map, thenThe feature-space norm gives symmetry and the triangle inequality. Finally, implies , hence andwhich is equivalent to . Thus is a metric rather than merely a pseudometric.
Primal-dual identity for ridge regression Created 2026-10-06 Updated 2026-10-07
For any real design matrix and , . Multiplication by identifies the primal ridge regression fitted values with , , the kernel-ridge hat matrix for the linear kernel. No rank assumption is needed.