Sparse Inverse Covariance Selection (SICS) is a popular tool identifying an intrinsic relationship between continuous random variables. In this paper, we treat the extension of SICS to the grouped feature model in which the state-of-the-art SICS algorithm is no longer applicable. Such an extended model is essential when we aim to find a group-wise relationships between sets of variables, e.g. unknown interactions between groups of genes. We tackle the problem with a technique called Dual Augmented Lagrangian (DAL) that provides an efficient method for grouped sparse problems. We further improve the DAL framework by combining the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM), which dramatically simplifies the entire procedure of DAL and reduce the computational cost. We also provide empirical comparisons of the proposed DAL---ADMM algorithm against existing methods.
['Satoshi Hara', 'Takashi Washio']
Group sparse inverse covariance selection with a dual augmented lagrangian method