We present structured data fusion (SDF) as a framework for the rapid prototyping of knowledge discovery in one or more possibly incomplete data sets. In SDF, each data set—stored as a dense, sparse, or incomplete tensor—is factorized with a matrix or tensor decomposition. Factorizations can be coupled, or fused, with each other by indicating which factors should be shared between data sets. At the same time, factors may be imposed to have any type of structure that can be constructed as an explicit function of some underlying variables. With the right choice of decomposition type and factor structure, even well-known matrix factorizations such as the eigenvalue decomposition, singular value decomposition and QR factorization can be computed with SDF. A domain specific language (DSL) for SDF is implemented as part of the software package Tensorlab, with which we offer a library of tensor decompositions and factor structures to choose from. The versatility of the SDF framework is demonstrated by means of four diverse applications, which are all solved entirely within Tensorlab’s DSL.
