I am trying to plot the log-likelihood function of the Cauchy distribution for varying values of theta (location parameter). These are my observations:
obs<-c(1.77,-0.23,2.76,3.80,3.47,56.75,-1.34,4.24,3.29,3.71,-2.40,4.53,-0.07,-1.05,-13.87,-2.53,-1.74,0.27,43.21)
Here is my log-likelihood function:
ll_c<-function(theta,x_values){
n<-length(x_values)
logl<- -n*log(pi)-sum(log(1+(x_values-theta)^2))
return(logl)
}
and Ive tried making a plot by using this code:
x<-seq(from=-10,to=10,by=0.1);length(x)
theta_null<-NULL
for (i in x){
theta_log<-ll_c(i,counts)
theta_null<-c(theta_null,theta_log)
}
plot(theta_null)
The graph does not look right and for some reason the length of x and theta_null differs.
I am assuming that theta is your location parameter (the scale is set to 1 in my example). You should obtain the same result using a t-distribution with 1 df and shifting the observations by theta. I left some comments in the code as guidance.
obs = c(1.77,-0.23,2.76,3.80,3.47,56.75,-1.34,4.24,3.29,3.71,-2.40,4.53,-0.07,-1.05,-13.87,-2.53,-1.74,0.27,43.21)
ll_c=function(theta, obs)
{
# Compute log-lik for obs and a value of thet (location)
logl= sum(dcauchy(obs, location = theta, scale = 1, log = T))
return(logl)
}
# Loop for possible values of theta(obs given)
x = seq(from=-10,to=10,by=0.1)
ll = NULL
for (i in x)
{
ll = c(ll, ll_c(i, obs))
}
# Plot log-lik vs possible value of theta
plot(x, ll)
It is hard to say exactly what you are experiencing without more info. But I'll make an educated guess.
First of all, we can simplify this a lot by using the *t family of functions for the t distribution, as the cauchy distribution is just the t distribution with df = 1. So your calculations could've been done using
for(i in ncp)
theta_null <- c(theta_null, sum(dt(values, 1, i, log = TRUE)))
Note that multiplying by n doesn't actually matter for any practical purposes. We are usually interested in minimizing/maximizing the likelihood in which case all constants are irrelevant.
Now if we use this approach, we can quite quickly notice something by printing the values:
print(head(theta_null))
[1] -Inf -Inf -Inf -Inf -Inf -Inf
So I am assuming what you are experiencing is that many of your values are "almost" negative infinity, and maybe these are not stored correctly in your outcome vector. I can't see that this should be the case from your code, but this would be my initial guess.
Related
I have discrete count data indicating the number of successes in 10 binomial trials for a pilot sample of 46 cases. (Larger samples will follow once I have the analysis set up.) The zero class (no successes in 10 trials) is missing, i.e. each datum is an integer value between 1 and 10 inclusive. I want to fit a truncated binomial distribution with no zero class, in order to estimate the underlying probability p. I can do this adequately on an Excel spreadsheet using least squares with Solver, but because I want to calculate bootstrap confidence intervals on p, I am trying to implement it in R.
Frankly, I am struggling to understand how to code this. This is what I have so far:
d <- detections.data$x
# load required packages
library(fitdistrplus)
library(truncdist)
library(mc2d)
ptruncated.binom <- function(q, p) {
ptrunc(q, "binom", a = 1, b = Inf, p)
}
dtruncated.binom <- function(x, p) {
dtrunc(x, "binom", a = 1, b = Inf, p)
}
fit.tbin <- fitdist(d, "truncated.binom", method="mle", start=list(p=0.1))
I have had lots of error messages which I have solved by guesswork, but the latest one has me stumped and I suspect I am totally misunderstanding something.
Error in checkparamlist(arg_startfix$start.arg, arg_startfix$fix.arg, :
'start' must specify names which are arguments to 'distr'.<
I think this means I must specify starting values for x in dtrunc and q in ptrunc, but I am really unclear what they should be.
Any help would be very gratefully received.
I used Kernel estimation to get a non parametric probability density function. Then, I want to compare the tails 'distance' between two Kernel distribution of continuous variables, using Kullback-leiber divergence. I have tried the following code:
kl_l <- function(x,y) {
integrand <- function(x,y) {
f.x <- fitted(density(x, bw="nrd0"))
f.y <- fitted(density(y, bw="nrd0"))
return((log(f.x)-log(f.y))*f.x)
}
return(integrate(integrand, lower=-Inf,upper=quantile(density(x, bw="nrd0"),0.25))$value)
#the Kullback-leiber equation
}
When I run kl_l(a,b) for a, b = 19 continuous variables, it returns a warning
Error in density(y, bw = "nrd0") : argument "y" is missing, with no default
Is there any way to calculate this?
(If anyone wants to see the actual equation: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/working-paper/2019/attention-to-the-tails-global-financial-conditions-and-exchange-rate-risks.pdf page 13.)
In short, I think you just need to move the f.x and f.y outside the integrand (and possibly replace fitted with approxfun):
kl_l <- function(x, y) {
f.x <- approxfun(density(x, bw = "nrd0"))
f.y <- approxfun(density(y, bw = "nrd0"))
integrand <- function(z) {
return((log(f.x(z)) - log(f.y(z))) * f.x(z))
}
return(integrate(integrand, lower = -Inf, upper = quantile(density(x, bw="nrd0"), 0.25))$value)
#the Kullback-leiber equation
}
Expanding a little:
Looking at the paper you referenced, it appears as though you need to first create the two fitted distributions f and g. So if your variable a contains observations under the 1-standard-deviation increase in global financial conditions, and b contains the observations under average global financial conditions, you can create two functions as in your example:
f <- approxfun(density(a))
g <- approxfun(density(b))
Then define the integrand:
integrand <- function(x) log(f(x) / g(x)) * f(x)
The upper bound:
upper <- quantile(density(b, bw = "nrd0"), 0.25)
And finally do the integration on x within the specified bounds. Note that each value of x in the numerical computation has to go into both f and g; in your function kl_l, the x and y were separately going into the integrand, which I think is incorrect; and in any case, integrate will only have operated on the first variable.
integrate(integrand, lower = -Inf, upper = upper)$value
One thing to check for is that approxfun returns NA for values outside the range specified in the density, which can mess up your operation, so you'll need to adjust for those (if you expect the density to go to zero, for example).
I am trying to optmize a function in R
The function is the Likelihood function of negative binominal when estimating only mu parameter. This should not be a problem since the function clearly has just one point of maximum. But, I am not being able to reach the desirable result.
The function to be optmized is:
EMV <- function(data, par) {
Mi <- par
Phi <- 2
N <- NROW(data)
Resultado <- log(Mi/(Mi + Phi))*sum(data) + N*Phi*log(Phi/(Mi + Phi))
return(Resultado)
}
Data is a vector of negative binomial variables with parameters 2 and 2
data <- rnegbin(10000, mu = 2, theta = 2)
When I plot the function having mu as variable with the following code:
x <- seq(0.1, 100, 0.02)
z <- EMV(data,0.1)
for (aux in x) {z <- rbind(z, EMV(data,aux))}
z <- z[2:NROW(z)]
plot(x,z)
I get the following curve:
And the maximum value of z is close to parameter value --> 2
x[which.max(z)]
But the optimization is not working with BFGS
Error in optim(par = theta, fn = EMV, data = data, method = "BFGS") :
non-finite finite-difference value [1]
And is not going to right value using SANN, for example:
$par
[1] 5.19767e-05
$value
[1] -211981.8
$counts
function gradient
10000 NA
$convergence
[1] 0
$message
NULL
The questions are:
What am I doing wrong?
Is there a way to tell optim that the param should be bigger than 0?
Is there a way to tell optim that I want to maximize the function? (I am afraid the optim is trying to minimize and is going to a very small value where function returns smallest values)
Minimization or Maximization?
Although ?optim says it can do maximization, but that is in a bracket, so minimization is default:
fn: A function to be minimized (or maximized) ...
Thus, if we want to maximize an objective function, we need to multiply an -1 to it, and then minimize it. This is quite a common situation. In statistics we often want to find maximum log likelihood, so to use optim(), we have no choice but to minimize the negative log likelihood.
Which method to use?
If we only do 1D minimization, we should use method "Brent". This method allows us to specify a lower bound and an upper bound of search region. Searching will start from one bound, and search toward the other, until it hit the minimum, or it reach the boundary. Such specification can help you to constrain your parameters. For example, you don't want mu to be smaller than 0, then just set lower = 0.
When we move to 2D or higher dimension, we should resort to "BFGS". In this case, if we want to constrain one of our parameters, say a, to be positive, we need to take log transform log_a = log(a), and reparameterize our objective function using log_a. Now, log_a is free of constraint. The same goes when we want constrain multiple parameters to be positive.
How to change your code?
EMV <- function(data, par) {
Mi <- par
Phi <- 2
N <- NROW(data)
Resultado <- log(Mi/(Mi + Phi))*sum(data) + N*Phi*log(Phi/(Mi + Phi))
return(-1 * Resultado)
}
optim(par = theta, fn = EMV, data = data, method = "Brent", lower = 0, upper = 1E5)
The help file for optim says: "By default optim performs minimization, but it will maximize if control$fnscale is negative." So if you either multiply your function output by -1 or change the control object input, you should get the right answer.
I wish to numerically find the maximum of the function multiplied by Beta 3 shown on p346 of the following link when tau=30:
http://www.ssc.upenn.edu/~fdiebold/papers/paper49/Diebold-Li.pdf
They give the answer on p347 as 0.0609.
I would like to confirm this numerically in R. I.e. to take the derivative and find the value where it reaches zero.
library(numDeriv)
x <- 30
testh <- function(lambda){ ((1-exp(-lambda*30))/(lambda*30)) - exp(-lambda*30) }
grad_h <- function(lambda){
val <- grad(testh, lambda)
return(val^2)
}
OptLam <- optimize(f=grad_h, interval=c(0.0001,120), tol=0.0000000000001)
I take the square of the gradient as I want the minimum to be at zero.
Unfortunately, the answer comes back as Lambda=120!! With lambda at 120 the value of the objective function is 5.36e-12.
By working by hand I can func a lower value of the numerical derivative that is closer to zero (it is also close to the analytical value given above):
grad_h(0.05977604)
## [1] 4.24494e-12
Why is the function above not finding this lower value? I have set the tolerance very high so it should be able to find such this optimal value?
Is it possible to correct the existing method so that it gives the correct answer?
Is there a better way to find the maximum gradient of a function numerically in R?
For example is there an optimizer that looks for zero rather than trying to find a minimum of maximum?
You can use uniroot to find where the derivative is 0. This might work for you,
grad_h <- function(lambda){
val=grad(testh,lambda)
return(val)
}
## The root
res <- uniroot(grad_h, c(0,120), tol=1e-10)
## see it
ls <- seq(0.001, 1, length=1000)
plot(ls, testh(ls), col="salmon")
abline(v=res$root, col="steelblue", lwd=2, lty=2)
text(x=res$root, y=testh(res$root),
labels=sprintf("(%f, %s)", res$root,
format(testh(res$root), scientific = T)), adj=-0.1)
I have to create a model which is a mixture of a normal and log-normal distribution. To create it, I need to estimate the 2 covariance matrixes and the mixing parameter (total =7 parameters) by maximizing the log-likelihood function. This maximization has to be performed by the nlm routine.
As I use relative data, the means are known and equal to 1.
I’ve already tried to do it in 1 dimension (with 1 set of relative data) and it works well. However, when I introduce the 2nd set of relative data I get illogical results for the correlation and a lot of warnings messages (at all 25).
To estimate these parameters I defined first the log-likelihood function with the 2 commands dmvnorm and dlnorm.plus. Then I assign starting values of the parameters and finally I use the nlm routine to estimate the parameters (see script below).
`P <- read.ascii.grid("d:/Documents/JOINT_FREQUENCY/grid_E727_P-3000.asc", return.header=
FALSE );
V <- read.ascii.grid("d:/Documents/JOINT_FREQUENCY/grid_E727_V-3000.asc", return.header=
FALSE );
p <- c(P); # tranform matrix into a vector
v <- c(V);
p<- p[!is.na(p)] # removing NA values
v<- v[!is.na(v)]
p_rel <- p/mean(p) #Transforming the data to relative values
v_rel <- v/mean(v)
PV <- cbind(p_rel, v_rel) # create a matrix of vectors
L <- function(par,p_rel,v_rel) {
return (-sum(log( (1- par[7])*dmvnorm(PV, mean=c(1,1), sigma= matrix(c(par[1]^2, par[1]*par[2]
*par[3],par[1]*par[2]*par[3], par[2]^2 ),nrow=2, ncol=2))+
par[7]*dlnorm.rplus(PV, meanlog=c(1,1), varlog= matrix(c(par[4]^2,par[4]*par[5]*par[6],par[4]
*par[5]*par[6],par[5]^2), nrow=2,ncol=2)) )))
}
par.start<- c(0.74, 0.66 ,0.40, 1.4, 1.2, 0.4, 0.5) # log-likelihood estimators
result<-nlm(L,par.start,v_rel=v_rel,p_rel=p_rel, hessian=TRUE, iterlim=200, check.analyticals= TRUE)
Messages d'avis :
1: In log(eigen(sigma, symmetric = TRUE, only.values = TRUE)$values) :
production de NaN
2: In sqrt(2 * pi * det(varlog)) : production de NaN
3: In nlm(L, par.start, p_rel = p_rel, v_rel = v_rel, hessian = TRUE) :
NA/Inf replaced by maximum positive value
4: In log(eigen(sigma, symmetric = TRUE, only.values = TRUE)$values) :
production de NaN
…. Until 25.
par.hat <- result$estimate
cat("sigN_p =", par[1],"\n","sigN_v =", par[2],"\n","rhoN =", par[3],"\n","sigLN_p =", par [4],"\n","sigLN_v =", par[5],"\n","rhoLN =", par[6],"\n","mixing parameter =", par[7],"\n")
sigN_p = 0.5403361
sigN_v = 0.6667375
rhoN = 0.6260181
sigLN_p = 1.705626
sigLN_v = 1.592832
rhoLN = 0.9735974
mixing parameter = 0.8113369`
Does someone know what is wrong in my model or how should I do to find these parameters in 2 dimensions?
Thank you very much for taking time to look at my questions.
Regards,
Gladys Hertzog
When I do these kind of optimization problems, I find that it's important to make sure that all the variables that I'm optimizing over are constrained to plausible values. For example, standard deviation variables have to be positive, and from knowledge of the situation that I'm modelling I'll probably be able to put an upper bound all my standard deviation variables as well. So if s is one of my standard deviation variables, and if m is the maximum value that I want it to take, instead of working with s I'll solve for the variable z which is related to s via
s = m/(1+e-z)
In that formula, z is unconstrained, but s must lie between 0 and m. This is vital because optimization routines where the variables are not constrained to take plausible values will often try completely implausible values while they're trying to bound the solution. Implausible values often cause problems with e.g. precision, that then results in NaN's etc. The general formula that I use for constraining a single variable x to lie between a and b is
x = a + (b - a)/(1+e-z)
However, regarding your particular problem where you're looking for covariance matrices, a more sophisticated approach is necessary than simply bounding all the individual variables. Covariance matrices must be positive semi-definite, so if you're simply optimizing the individual values in the matrix, the optimization will probably fail (producing NaN's) if a matrix which isn't positive definite is fed into the likelihood function. To get round this problem, one approach is to solve for the Cholesky decomposition of the covariance matrix instead of the covariance matrix itself. My guess is that this is probably what's causing your optimization to fail.