Approximate message passing (AMP) is an algorithmic framework for solving linear inverse problems from noisy measurements, with exciting applications such as reconstructing images, audio, hyper spectral images, and various other signals, including those acquired in compressive signal acquisiton systems. The growing prevalence of big data systems has increased interest in large-scale problems, which may involve huge measurement matrices that are unsuitable for conventional computing systems. To address the challenge of large-scale processing, multiprocessor (MP) versions of AMP have been developed. We provide an overview of two such MP-AMP variants. In row-MP-AMP, each computing node stores a subset of the rows of the matrix and processes corresponding measurements. In column-MP-AMP, each node stores a subset of columns, and is solely responsible for reconstructing a portion of the signal. We will discuss pros and cons of both approaches, summarize recent research results for each, and explain when each one may be a viable approach. Aspects that are highlighted include some recent results on state evolution for both MP-AMP algorithms, and the use of data compression to reduce communication in the MP network.

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PILGRIM, RYAN ZACHARY. Source Coding Optimization for Distributed Average Consensus. (Under the direction of Dror Baron.) Consensus is a common method for computing a function of the data distributed among the nodes of a network. Of particular interest is distributed average consensus, whereby the nodes iteratively compute the sample average of the data stored at all the nodes of the network using only near-neighbor communications. In real-world scenarios, these communications must undergo quantization, which introduces distortion to the internode messages. In this thesis, a model for the evolution of the network state statistics at each iteration is developed under the assumptions of Gaussian data and additive quantization error. It is shown that minimization of the communication load in terms of aggregate source coding rate can be posed as a generalized geometric program, for which an equivalent convex optimization can efficiently solve for the global minimum. Optimization procedures are developed for rate-distortion-optimal vector quantization, uniform entropy-coded scalar quantization, and fixed-rate uniform quantization. Numerical results demonstrate the performance of these approaches. For small numbers of iterations, the fixed-rate optimizations are verified using exhaustive search. Comparison to the prior art suggests competitive performance under certain circumstances but strongly motivates the incorporation of more sophisticated coding strategies, such as differential, predictive, or Wyner-Ziv coding.

Distributed averaging, or distributed average consensus, is a common method for computing the sample mean of the data dispersed among the nodes of a network in a decentralized manner. By iteratively exchanging messages with neighbors, the nodes of the network can converge to an agreement on the sample mean of their initial states. In real-world scenarios, these messages are subject to bandwidth and power constraints, which motivates the design of a lossy compression strategy. Few prior works consider the rate allocation problem from the perspective of constrained optimization, which provides a principled method for the design of lossy compression schemes, allows for the relaxation of certain assumptions, and offers performance guarantees. We show for Gaussian-distributed initial states with entropy-coded scalar quantization and vector quantization that the coding rates for distributed averaging can be optimized through generalized geometric programming. In the absence of side information from past states, this approach finds a rate allocation over nodes and iterations that minimizes the aggregate coding rate required to achieve a target mean square error within a finite run time. Our rate allocation is compared to some of the prior art through numerical simulations. The results motivate the incorporation of sideinformation through differential or predictive coding to improve rate-distortion performance.