@mastersthesis {lin2015THpes,
	title = {Primary estimation with sparsity-promoting bi-convex optimization},
	year = {2015},
	note = {(PhD)},
	month = {10},
	school = {The University of British Columbia},
	type = {phd},
	address = {Vancouver},
	abstract = {This thesis establishes a novel inversion methodology for the surface-related primaries from a given recorded seismic wavefield, called the Robust Estimation of Primaries by Sparse Inversion (Robust EPSI, or REPSI). Surface-related multiples are a major source of coherent noise in seismic data, and inferring fine geological structures from active-source seismic recordings typically first necessitates its removal or mitigation. For this task, current practice calls for data-driven approaches which produce only approximate multiple models that must be non-linearly subtracted from the data, often distorting weak primary events in the process. A recently proposed method called Estimation of Primaries by Sparse Inversion (EPSI) avoids this adaptive subtraction by directly inverting for a discrete representation of the underlying multiple-free subsurface impulse response as a set of band-limited spikes. However, in its original form, the EPSI algorithm exhibits a few notable shortcomings that impede adoption. Although it was shown that the correct impulse response can be obtained through a sparsest solution criteria, the current EPSI algorithm is not designed to take advantage of this finding, but instead approximates a sparse solution in an ad-hoc manner that requires practitioners to decide on a multitude of inversion parameters. The Robust EPSI method introduced in this thesis reformulates the original EPSI problem as a formal bi-convex optimization problem that makes obtaining the sparsest solution an explicit goal, while also reliably admit satisfactory solutions using contemporary self-tuning gradient methods commonly seen in large-scale machine learning communities. I show that the Robust EPSI algorithm is able to operate successfully on a variety of datasets with minimal user input, while also producing a more accurate model of the subsurface impulse response when compared to the original algorithm. Furthermore, this thesis makes several contributions that improves the capability and practicality of EPSI: a novel scattering-based multiple prediction model that allows Robust EPSI to deal with wider near-offset receiver gaps than previously demonstrated for EPSI, as well as a multigrid-inspired continuation strategy that significantly reduces the computation time needed to solve EPSI-type problems. These additions are enabled by and built upon the formalism of the Robust EPSI as developed in this thesis.},
	keywords = {biconvex, EPSI, inversion, multiples, Optimization, PhD, sparsity},
	url = {https://slim.gatech.edu/Publications/Public/Thesis/2015/lin2015THpes/lin2015THpes.pdf},
	presentation = {https://slim.gatech.edu/Publications/Public/Thesis/2015/lin2015THpes/lin2015THpes_pres.pdf},
	author = {Tim T.Y. Lin}
}
