A null-space approach for large-scale symmetric saddle point systems with a small and non zero (2, 2) block

Null-space methods have long been used to solve large sparse n × n symmetric saddle point systems of equations in which the (2, 2) block is zero. This paper focuses on the case where the (1, 1) block is ill conditioned or rank deficient and the k × k (2, 2) block is non zero and small (k ≪ n). Additionally, the (2, 1) block may be rank deficient. Such systems arise in a range of practical applications. A novel null-space approach is proposed that transforms the system matrix into a nicer symmetric saddle point matrix of order n that has a non zero (2, 2) block of order at most 2k and, importantly, the (1, 1) block is symmetric positive definite. Success of any null-space approach depends on constructing a suitable null-space basis. We propose methods for wide matrices having far fewer rows than columns with the aim of balancing stability of the transformed saddle point matrix with preserving sparsity in the (1, 1) block. Linear least squares problems that contain a small number of dense rows are an important motivation and are used to illustrate our ideas and to explore their potential for solving large-scale systems.

GM(1,1;λ) with Constrained Linear Least Squares

The only parameters of the original GM(1,1) that are generally estimated by the ordinary least squares method are the development coefficient a and the grey input b. However, the weight of the background value, denoted as λ, cannot be obtained simultaneously by such a method. This study, therefore, proposes two simple transformation formulations such that the unknown parameters, and can be simultaneously estimated by the least squares method. Therefore, such a grey model is termed the GM(1,1;λ). On the other hand, because the permission zone of the development coefficient is bounded, the parameter estimation of the GM(1,1) could be regarded as a bound-constrained least squares problem. Since constrained linear least squares problems generally can be solved by an iterative approach, this study applies the Matlab function lsqlin to solve such constrained problems. Numerical results show that the proposed GM(1,1;λ) performs better than the GM(1,1) in terms of its model fitting accuracy and its forecasting precision.