Making matrix factorization (more) useful

Matrix factorization features in many high dimensional data analysis problems. Typically, factorization methods are used to reduce the dimensionality of data and to visualize its structure. Factorization methods can also be viewed as models for whatever process is actually generating the data represented by the matrix. However, unlike for dimensionality reduction or visualization, success at this third goal is highly dependent on the specific factorization technique used. We will discuss a method that uses weak prior knowledge constraints to obtain interpretable matrix factorizations of biological data.