The renewal function for Weibull distribution m(t) with t = 10 is given as below.
I want to find the value of m(t). I wrote the following r code to compute m(t)
last_term = NULL
gamma_k = NULL
n = 50
for(k in 1:n){
gamma_k[k] = gamma(2*k + 1)/factorial(k)
}
for(j in 1: (n-1)){
prev = gamma_k[n-j]
last_term[j] = gamma(2*j + 1)/factorial(j)*prev
}
final_term = NULL
find_value = function(n){
for(i in 2:n){
final_term[i] = gamma_k[i] - sum(last_term[1:(i-1)])
}
return(final_term)
}
all_k = find_value(n)
af_sum = NULL
m_t = function(t){
for(k in 1:n){
af_sum[k] = (-1)^(k-1) * all_k[k] * t^(2*k)/gamma(2*k + 1)
}
return(sum(na.omit(af_sum)))
}
m_t(20)
The output is m(t) = 2.670408e+93. Does my iteratvie procedure correct? Thanks.
I don't think it will work. First, lets move Γ(2k+1) from denominator of m(t) into Ak. Thus, Ak will behave roughly as 1/k!.
In the nominator of the m(t) terms there is t2k, so roughly speaking you're computing sum with terms
100k/k!
From Stirling formula
k! ~ kk, making terms
(100/k)k
so yes, they will start to decrease and converge to something but after 100th term
Anyway, here is the code, you could try to improve it, but it breaks at k~70
N <- 20
A <- rep(0, N)
# compute A_k/gamma(2k+1) terms
ps <- 0.0 # previous sum
A[1] = 1.0
for(k in 2:N) {
ps <- ps + A[k-1]*gamma(2*(k-1) + 1)/factorial(k-1)
A[k] <- 1.0/factorial(k) - ps/gamma(2*k+1)
}
print(A)
t <- 10.0
t2 <- t*t
r <- 0.0
for(k in 1:N){
r <- r + (-t2)^k*A[k]
}
print(-r)
UPDATE
Ok, I calculated Ak as in your question, got the same answer. I want to estimate terms Ak/Γ(2k+1) from m(t), I believe it will be pretty much dominated by 1/k! term. To do that I made another array k!*Ak/Γ(2k+1), and it should be close to one.
Code
N <- 20
A <- rep(0.0, N)
psum <- function( pA, k ) {
ps <- 0.0
if (k >= 2) {
jmax <- k - 1
for(j in 1:jmax) {
ps <- ps + (gamma(2*j+1)/factorial(j))*pA[k-j]
}
}
ps
}
# compute A_k/gamma(2k+1) terms
A[1] = gamma(3)
for(k in 2:N) {
A[k] <- gamma(2*k+1)/factorial(k) - psum(A, k)
}
print(A)
B <- rep(0.0, N)
for(k in 1:N) {
B[k] <- (A[k]/gamma(2*k+1))*factorial(k)
}
print(B)
shows that
I got the same Ak values as you did.
Bk is indeed very close to 1
It means that term Ak/Γ(2k+1) could be replaced by 1/k! to get quick estimate of what we might get (with replacement)
m(t) ~= - Sum(k=1, k=Infinity) (-1)k (t2)k / k! = 1 - Sum(k=0, k=Infinity) (-t2)k / k!
This is actually well-known sum and it is equal to exp() with negative argument (well, you have to add term for k=0)
m(t) ~= 1 - exp(-t2)
Conclusions
Approximate value is positive. Probably will stay positive after all, Ak/Γ(2k+1) is a bit different from 1/k!.
We're talking about 1 - exp(-100), which is 1-3.72*10-44! And we're trying to compute it precisely summing and subtracting values on the order of 10100 or even higher. Even with MPFR I don't think this is possible.
Another approach is needed
OK, so I ended up going down a pretty different road on this. I have implemented a simple discretization of the integral equation which defines the renewal function:
m(t) = F(t) + integrate (m(t - s)*f(s), s, 0, t)
The integral is approximated with the rectangle rule. Approximating the integral for different values of t gives a system of linear equations. I wrote a function to generate the equations and extract a matrix of coefficients from it. After looking at some examples, I guessed a rule to define the coefficients directly and used that to generate solutions for some examples. In particular I tried shape = 2, t = 10, as in OP's example, with step = 0.1 (so 101 equations).
I found that the result agrees pretty well with an approximate result which I found in a paper (Baxter et al., cited in the code). Since the renewal function is the expected number of events, for large t it is approximately equal to t/mu where mu is the mean time between events; this is a handy way to know if we're anywhere in the neighborhood.
I was working with Maxima (http://maxima.sourceforge.net), which is not efficient for numerical stuff, but which makes it very easy to experiment with different aspects. At this point it would be straightforward to port the final, numerical stuff to another language such as Python.
Thanks to OP for suggesting the problem, and S. Pappadeux for insightful discussions. Here is the plot I got comparing the discretized approximation (red) with the approximation for large t (blue). Trying some examples with different step sizes, I saw that the values tend to increase a little as step size gets smaller, so I think the red line is probably a little low, and the blue line might be more nearly correct.
Here is my Maxima code:
/* discretize weibull renewal function and formulate system of linear equations
* copyright 2020 by Robert Dodier
* I release this work under terms of the GNU General Public License
*
* This is a program for Maxima, a computer algebra system.
* http://maxima.sourceforge.net/
*/
"Definition of the renewal function m(t):" $
renewal_eq: m(t) = F(t) + 'integrate (m(t - s)*f(s), s, 0, t);
"Approximate integral equation with rectangle rule:" $
discretize_renewal (delta_t, k) :=
if equal(k, 0)
then m(0) = F(0)
else m(k*delta_t) = F(k*delta_t)
+ m(k*delta_t)*f(0)*(delta_t / 2)
+ sum (m((k - j)*delta_t)*f(j*delta_t)*delta_t, j, 1, k - 1)
+ m(0)*f(k*delta_t)*(delta_t / 2);
make_eqs (n, delta_t) :=
makelist (discretize_renewal (delta_t, k), k, 0, n);
make_vars (n, delta_t) :=
makelist (m(k*delta_t), k, 0, n);
"Discretized integral equation and variables for n = 4, delta_t = 1/2:" $
make_eqs (4, 1/2);
make_vars (4, 1/2);
make_eqs_vars (n, delta_t) :=
[make_eqs (n, delta_t), make_vars (n, delta_t)];
load (distrib);
subst_pdf_cdf (shape, scale, e) :=
subst ([f = lambda ([x], pdf_weibull (x, shape, scale)), F = lambda ([x], cdf_weibull (x, shape, scale))], e);
matrix_from (eqs, vars) :=
(augcoefmatrix (eqs, vars),
[submatrix (%%, length(%%) + 1), - col (%%, length(%%) + 1)]);
"Subsitute Weibull pdf and cdf for shape = 2 into discretized equation:" $
apply (matrix_from, make_eqs_vars (4, 1/2));
subst_pdf_cdf (2, 1, %);
"Just the right-hand side matrix:" $
rhs_matrix_from (eqs, vars) :=
(map (rhs, eqs),
augcoefmatrix (%%, vars),
[submatrix (%%, length(%%) + 1), col (%%, length(%%) + 1)]);
"Generate the right-hand side matrix, instead of extracting it from equations:" $
generate_rhs_matrix (n, delta_t) :=
[delta_t * genmatrix (lambda ([i, j], if i = 1 and j = 1 then 0
elseif j > i then 0
elseif j = i then f(0)/2
elseif j = 1 then f(delta_t*(i - 1))/2
else f(delta_t*(i - j))), n + 1, n + 1),
transpose (makelist (F(k*delta_t), k, 0, n))];
"Generate numerical right-hand side matrix, skipping over formulas:" $
generate_rhs_matrix_numerical (shape, scale, n, delta_t) :=
block ([f, F, numer: true], local (f, F),
f: lambda ([x], pdf_weibull (x, shape, scale)),
F: lambda ([x], cdf_weibull (x, shape, scale)),
[genmatrix (lambda ([i, j], delta_t * if i = 1 and j = 1 then 0
elseif j > i then 0
elseif j = i then f(0)/2
elseif j = 1 then f(delta_t*(i - 1))/2
else f(delta_t*(i - j))), n + 1, n + 1),
transpose (makelist (F(k*delta_t), k, 0, n))]);
"Solve approximate integral equation (shape = 3, t = 1) via LU decomposition:" $
fpprintprec: 4 $
n: 20 $
t: 1;
[AA, bb]: generate_rhs_matrix_numerical (3, 1, n, t/n);
xx_by_lu: linsolve_by_lu (ident(n + 1) - AA, bb, floatfield);
"Iterative solution of approximate integral equation (shape = 3, t = 1):" $
xx: bb;
for i thru 10 do xx: AA . xx + bb;
xx - (AA.xx + bb);
xx_iterative: xx;
"Should find iterative and LU give same result:" $
xx_diff: xx_iterative - xx_by_lu[1];
sqrt (transpose(xx_diff) . xx_diff);
"Try shape = 2, t = 10:" $
n: 100 $
t: 10 $
[AA, bb]: generate_rhs_matrix_numerical (2, 1, n, t/n);
xx_by_lu: linsolve_by_lu (ident(n + 1) - AA, bb, floatfield);
"Baxter, et al., Eq. 3 (for large values of t) compared to discretization:" $
/* L.A. Baxter, E.M. Scheuer, D.J. McConalogue, W.R. Blischke.
* "On the Tabulation of the Renewal Function,"
* Econometrics, vol. 24, no. 2 (May 1982).
* H(t) is their notation for the renewal function.
*/
H(t) := t/mu + sigma^2/(2*mu^2) - 1/2;
tx_points: makelist ([float (k/n*t), xx_by_lu[1][k, 1]], k, 1, n);
plot2d ([H(u), [discrete, tx_points]], [u, 0, t]), mu = mean_weibull(2, 1), sigma = std_weibull(2, 1);
Summary of problem
My objective is to create a function called newton.raphson to implement the Newton-Raphson root-finding algorithm.
Root Finding Algorithm: x1 = X0 - f(xo)/f'(x0)
I have 2 arguments:
iter = number of iteration (value = 10^5)
epsilon = for the tolerance (value = 10^-10)
Can not depend on variables outside of the function
newton.raphson <- function(f, x0, iter=1e5, epsilon=1e-10) {
x <- x0
h <- 1e-5
for (t in 1:iter) {
drvt <- f((x+h)) - f((x-h)) / (2 * h)
update <- x - f(x)/ drvt
if (abs(update) < epsilon) {
break
}
x <- update
}
root <- x
return(root)
}
# Define some function to test
f <- function(x) {
x^2 - 4 * x - 7
}
I get the following results:
> newton.raphson(f, 0)
[1] 2.000045
> newton.raphson(f, 3)
[1] 5.000024
But results should be:
-1.316625
5.316625
Your derivative calculation is a little bit broken - you forgot parenthesis around the difference between f(x+h) and f(x-h):
drvt <- ( f(x+h) - f(x-h) ) / (2 * h)
Also, you should compare the difference between the old and new root approximation to the tolerance. In order to make things more clear, rename your misleading update variable to something like new.x. Then, your should check if (abs(new.x - x) < epsilon).
I am struggling to figure out how to create a for loop in which some initial objects (u, l, h, and y) and their values are updated and reported at the end of each iteration of the loop. And that the loop takes into account the values of the prior iteration as the basis (for example after updating the above objects, the runif function takes the updated values of u and l in drawing a q. I keep getting the same result repeated with no variation, and I am unsure as to what might be the best way to resolve this.
Apologies in advance as I am fairly new to R and coding in general.
reset = {
l = 0.1 #lower bound of belief in theta
u = 0.9 #upper bound of belief in theta
h = 0.2 #lower legal threshold, below which an action is not liable
y = 0.8 #upper legal threshold, above which an action is liable
}
### need 1-u <= h <= y <= 1-l for each t along every path of play
period = c(1:100) ## Number of periods in the iteration of the loop.
for (t in 1:length(period)) {
q = runif(1,min = l, max = u) ### 1 draw of q from a uniform distribution
q
probg = function(q,l,u){(u - (1-q))/(u-l)} ### probability of being found guilty given q in the ambiguous region
probg(q,l,u)
probi = function(q,l,u){1-probg(q,l,u)} ### probability of being found innocent given q in the ambiguous region
probi(q,l,u)
ruling = if(q>=y | probg(q,l,u) > 1){print("Guilty") ###Strict liability
} else if(q<=h | probi(q,l,u) > 1) {print("Innocent") ###Permissible
} else if(q>h & q<y) { ###Ambiguous region
discovery = sample(c('guilty','not guilty'), size=1, replace=TRUE, prob=c(probg(q,l,u),probi(q,l,u))) ### court discovering whether a particular ambiguous q is permissible or not
}
discovery
ruling
if(ruling == "not guilty") {u = 1-q} else if (ruling == "guilty") {l = 1-q} else (print("beliefs unchanged"))
if(ruling == "not guilty"){h = 1 - u} else if (ruling == "guilty") {y = 1 - l} else (print("legal threshold unchanged")) #### legal adjustment and updating of beliefs in ambiguous region after discovery of liability
probg(q,l,u)
probi(q,l,u)
modelparam = c(l,u,h,y)
show(modelparam)
}
I'm trying to write a square root function in R. The function is supposed to behave like sqrt() but not use that function of course. I'm supposed to use Newton's method for computing the square root, which is:
y(a+1) = [y(a) + x / y(a)]/2
Here x is the number I'm trying to calculate the square root of and y(0) would be the initial guess of the square root of x.
The function is supposed to take in four arguments: x (the number I'm trying to compute the square root of), eps (the difference in value between iterations that are considered be equal), iter (the max number of iterations), and verbose (says I want to output intermediate results).
My issue is that I am not very well versed in writing functions in R. I have experience in C++, but they are slightly different in R.
I believe I'm supposed to write something that goes like this.
Asks the user to input a number as a guess for the value we want to calculate the square root of. Make a for loop from 1 to iter with two if statements 1) that stop the function and output the y value if the max number of iterations have been reached 2) stop the function and output the y value if the difference between successive iterations is less than eps.
Here is the code I have so far:
MySqrt <- function (x, eps = 1e-6, iter = 100, verbose = TRUE) {
for (i in 0:itmax) {
y[0] <- readline(prompt="Please enter your initial square root guess: ")
y[i + 1] = (y[i] + x / y[i])/2
if (i == 100) {
stop (return(y[i + 1]))
}
if (abs(y[i + 1] - y[i]) < eps) {
stop (return(y[i + 1]))
}
}
return(y[i + 1])
}
Here is the error I receive after entering the initial square root guess: Error in y[0] <- readline(prompt = "Please enter your initial square root guess: ") :
object 'y' not found
Honestly, I didn't expect the code to work because I'm sure there are more than one errors.
You should use iter instead of itmax.
I initialized y within the function and input of y should be formatted as a number instead of a character. You could also simplify the if statement by using | (or).
I also added "cat" function so you could see what i is before the function prints out the square root value.
MySqrt <- function (x, eps = 1e-6, iter = 100, verbose = TRUE) {
y = 0
y[1] = as.numeric(readline(prompt="Please enter your initial square root guess: "))
for (i in 1:iter) {
y[i+1] = as.numeric((y[i] + (x/y[i]))/2)
if (i == 100 || abs(y[i+1] - y[i]) < eps) {
cat("This is", i,"th try: \n")
return(y[i+1])
}
}
}
Try this simply:
newton.raphson <- function(x, start, epsilon=0.0001, maxiter=100) {
y <- c(start) # initial guess
a <- 1 # number of iterations
while (TRUE) {
y <- c(y, (y[a] + x / y[a])/2)
if (abs(y[a+1] - y[a]) < epsilon | a > maxiter) { # converged or exceeded maxiter
return(y[a+1])
}
a <- a + 1
}
}
newton.raphson(2, 0.5, 0.01)
# [1] 1.414234
newton.raphson(3, 0.5, 0.01)
# [1] 1.732051
since sqrt(n) < n/2 then with precision of 1/10000
sqrnt=function(y){
x=y/2
while (abs(x*x-y) > 1e-10)
{x=(x+y/x)/2 }
x
}
In Newton’s method. If you want to know the square root of a, you can start estimate a number, x (for examples a/2), you can compute a better estimate with the following formula:
y = (x + a / x) / 2
If y != x, you set x = y, and repeat until y == x. Then you get the square root of a. Please see the code below:
square_root <- function(a) {
x <- a/2
while (TRUE) {
y <- (x + a / x) / 2
if (y == x) break
x <- y
}
return(y)
}
The Julia examples to compare performance against R seem particularly convoluted. https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/blob/master/test/perf/perf.R
What is the fastest performance you can eke out of the two algorithms below (preferably with an explanation of what you changed to make it more R-like)?
## mandel
mandel = function(z) {
c = z
maxiter = 80
for (n in 1:maxiter) {
if (Mod(z) > 2) return(n-1)
z = z^2+c
}
return(maxiter)
}
mandelperf = function() {
re = seq(-2,0.5,.1)
im = seq(-1,1,.1)
M = matrix(0.0,nrow=length(re),ncol=length(im))
count = 1
for (r in re) {
for (i in im) {
M[count] = mandel(complex(real=r,imag=i))
count = count + 1
}
}
return(M)
}
assert(sum(mandelperf()) == 14791)
## quicksort ##
qsort_kernel = function(a, lo, hi) {
i = lo
j = hi
while (i < hi) {
pivot = a[floor((lo+hi)/2)]
while (i <= j) {
while (a[i] < pivot) i = i + 1
while (a[j] > pivot) j = j - 1
if (i <= j) {
t = a[i]
a[i] = a[j]
a[j] = t
}
i = i + 1;
j = j - 1;
}
if (lo < j) qsort_kernel(a, lo, j)
lo = i
j = hi
}
return(a)
}
qsort = function(a) {
return(qsort_kernel(a, 1, length(a)))
}
sortperf = function(n) {
v = runif(n)
return(qsort(v))
}
sortperf(5000)
The key word in this question is "algorithm":
What is the fastest performance you can eke out of the two algorithms below (preferably with an explanation of what you changed to make it more R-like)?
As in "how fast can you make these algorithms in R?" The algorithms in question here are the standard Mandelbrot complex loop iteration algorithm and the standard recursive quicksort kernel.
There are certainly faster ways to compute the answers to the problems posed in these benchmarks – but not using the same algorithms. You can avoid recursion, avoid iteration, and avoid whatever else R isn't good at. But then you're no longer comparing the same algorithms.
If you really wanted to compute Mandelbrot sets in R or sort numbers, yes, this is not how you would write the code. You would either vectorize it as much as possible – thereby pushing all the work into predefined C kernels – or just write a custom C extension and do the computation there. Either way, the conclusion is that R isn't fast enough to get really good performance on its own – you need have C do most of the work in order to get good performance.
And that's exactly the point of these benchmarks: in Julia you never have to rely on C code to get good performance. You can just write what you want to do in pure Julia and it will have good performance. If an iterative scalar loop algorithm is the most natural way to do what you want to do, then just do that. If recursion is the most natural way to solve the problem, then that's ok too. At no point will you be forced to rely on C for performance – whether via unnatural vectorization or writing custom C extensions. Of course, you can write vectorized code when it's natural, as it often is in linear algebra; and you can call C if you already have some library that does what you want. But you don't have to.
We do want to have the fairest possible comparison of the same algorithms across languages:
If someone does have faster versions in R that use the same algorithm, please submit patches!
I believe that the R benchmarks on the julia site are already byte-compiled, but if I'm doing it wrong and the comparison is unfair to R, please let me know and I will fix it and update the benchmarks.
Hmm, in the Mandelbrot example the matrix M has its dimensions transposed
M = matrix(0.0,nrow=length(im), ncol=length(re))
because it's filled by incrementing count in the inner loop (successive values of im). My implementation creates a vector of complex numbers in mandelperf.1 and operates on all elements, using an index and subsetting to keep track of which elements of the vector have not yet satisfied the condition Mod(z) <= 2
mandel.1 = function(z, maxiter=80L) {
c <- z
result <- integer(length(z))
i <- seq_along(z)
n <- 0L
while (n < maxiter && length(z)) {
j <- Mod(z) <= 2
if (!all(j)) {
result[i[!j]] <- n
i <- i[j]
z <- z[j]
c <- c[j]
}
z <- z^2 + c
n <- n + 1L
}
result[i] <- maxiter
result
}
mandelperf.1 = function() {
re = seq(-2,0.5,.1)
im = seq(-1,1,.1)
mandel.1(complex(real=rep(re, each=length(im)),
imaginary=im))
}
for a 13-fold speed-up (the results are equal but not identical because the original returns numeric rather than integer values).
> library(rbenchmark)
> benchmark(mandelperf(), mandelperf.1(),
+ columns=c("test", "elapsed", "relative"),
+ order="relative")
test elapsed relative
2 mandelperf.1() 0.412 1.00000
1 mandelperf() 5.705 13.84709
> all.equal(sum(mandelperf()), sum(mandelperf.1()))
[1] TRUE
The quicksort example doesn't actually sort
> set.seed(123L); qsort(sample(5))
[1] 2 4 1 3 5
but my main speed-up was to vectorize the partition around the pivot
qsort_kernel.1 = function(a) {
if (length(a) < 2L)
return(a)
pivot <- a[floor(length(a) / 2)]
c(qsort_kernel.1(a[a < pivot]), a[a == pivot], qsort_kernel.1(a[a > pivot]))
}
qsort.1 = function(a) {
qsort_kernel.1(a)
}
sortperf.1 = function(n) {
v = runif(n)
return(qsort.1(v))
}
for a 7-fold speedup (in comparison to the uncorrected original)
> benchmark(sortperf(5000), sortperf.1(5000),
+ columns=c("test", "elapsed", "relative"),
+ order="relative")
test elapsed relative
2 sortperf.1(5000) 6.60 1.000000
1 sortperf(5000) 47.73 7.231818
Since in the original comparison Julia is about 30 times faster than R for mandel, and 500 times faster for quicksort, the implementations above are still not really competitive.