We propose an independence criterion based on the eigenspectrum of covariance operators in reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces (RKHSs), consisting of an empirical estimate of the Hilbert-Schmidt norm of the cross-covariance operator (we term this a Hilbert-Schmidt Independence Criterion, or HSIC). This approach has several advantages, compared with previous kernel-based independence criteria. First, the empirical estimate is simpler than any other kernel dependence test, and requires no user-defined regularisation. Second, there is a clearly defined population quantity which the empirical estimate approaches in the large sample limit, with exponential convergence guaranteed between the two: this ensures that independence tests based on HSIC do not suffer from slow learning rates. Finally, we show in the context of independent component analysis (ICA) that the performance of HSIC is competitive with that of previously published kernel-based criteria, and of other recently published ICA methods.

We introduce two new functionals, the constrained covariance and the kernel mutual information, to measure the degree of independence of random variables. These quantities are both based on the covariance between functions of the random variables in reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces (RKHSs). We prove that when the RKHSs are universal, both functionals are zero if and only if the random variables are pairwise independent. We also show that the kernel mutual information is an upper bound near independence on the Parzen window estimate of the mutual information. Analogous results apply for two correlation-based dependence functionals introduced earlier: we show the kernel canonical correlation and the kernel generalised variance to be independence measures for universal kernels, and prove the latter to be an upper bound on the mutual information near independence. The performance of the kernel dependence functionals in measuring independence is verified in the context of independent component analysis.

We review recent methods for learning with positive definite kernels. All these methods formulate learning and estimation problems as linear tasks in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS) associated with a kernel. We cover a wide range of methods, ranging from simple classifiers to sophisticated methods for estimation with structured data.

While kernel canonical correlation analysis (CCA) has been applied in many contexts, the convergence of finite sample estimates of the associated functions to their population counterparts has not yet been established. This paper gives a mathematical proof of the statistical convergence of kernel CCA, providing a theoretical justification for the method. The proof uses covariance operators defined on reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces, and analyzes the convergence of their empirical estimates of finite rank to their population counterparts, which can have infinite rank. The result also gives a sufficient condition for convergence on the regularization coefficient involved in kernel CCA: this should decrease as n −1/3, where n is the number of data.