I would like to make my own probability density function in R to simulate some things from a paper.
It is somehow similar to exponential distribution but what i really want to do is to redefine the exponential distribution into a "modified" one...
Is there such a way to do this? Thanks.
I want to simulate this:
b(x) = {(µ/p)(e ^ (-(µx-q)/p) , x > q(xbar) and 0 otherwise }
xbar is an x with a line above it, mean, average
Are you aware that exponential distributions truncated from below remain exponential distributions?
I believe you can do what you want with ?sample . Use your known distribution function b(x) to generate a vector of probabilities, say bprob , then
sample(x,size, replace=TRUE,prob=bprob)
There are some very interesting methods for generating samples from arbitrary distributions. See for example, Normal RandomNumbers:UsingMachine AnalysisTo Choosethe BestAlgorithm
W. H. PAYNE WashlngtonState University (somewhere on the web), or Numerical Recipes in C
The Art of Scientific Computing Second Edition
William H. Press,Saul A. Teukolsky et al, chapter 7.3
Related
I have been going through some random number simulation equations while i found out that as Pareto dosent have an inbuilt function.
RPareto is found as
rpareto <- function(n,a,l){
rp <- l*((1-runif(n))^(-1/a)-1)
rp
}
can someone explain the intuitive meaning behind this.
It's a well known result that if X is a continuous random variable with CDF F(.), then Y = F(X) has a Uniform distribution on [0, 1].
This result can be used to draw random samples of any continuous random variable whose CDF is known: generate u, a Uniform(0, 1) random variable and then determine the value of x for which F(x) = u.
In specific cases, there may well be more efficient ways of sampling from F(.), but this will always work as a fallback.
It's likely (I haven't checked the accuracy of the code myself, but it looks about right) that the body of your function solves f(x) = u for known u in order to generate a random variable with a Pareto distribution. You can check it with a little algebra after getting the CDF from this Wikipedia page.
I have a bunch of random variables (X1,....,Xn) which are i.i.d. Exp(1/2) and represent the duration of time of a certain event. So this distribution has obviously an expected value of 2, but I am having problems defining it in R. I did some research and found something about a so-called Monte-Carlo Stimulation, but I don't seem to find what I am looking for in it.
An example of what i want to estimate is: let's say we have 10 random variables (X1,..,X10) distributed as above, and we want to determine for example the probability P([X1+...+X10<=25]).
Thanks.
You don't actually need monte carlo simulation in this case because:
If Xi ~ Exp(λ) then the sum (X1 + ... + Xk) ~ Erlang(k, λ) which is just a Gamma(k, 1/λ) (in (k, θ) parametrization) or Gamma(k, λ) (in (α,β) parametrization) with an integer shape parameter k.
From wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_distribution#Related_distributions)
So, P([X1+...+X10<=25]) can be computed by
pgamma(25, shape=10, rate=0.5)
Are you aware of rexp() function in R? Have a look at documentation page by typing ?rexp in R console.
A quick answer to your Monte Carlo estimation of desired probability:
mean(rowSums(matrix(rexp(1000 * 10, rate = 0.5), 1000, 10)) <= 25)
I have generated 1000 set of 10 exponential samples, putting them into a 1000 * 10 matrix. We take row sum and get a vector of 1000 entries. The proportion of values between 0 and 25 is an empirical estimate of the desired probability.
Thanks, this was helpful! Can I use replicate with this code, to make it look like this: F <- function(n, B=1000) mean(replicate(B,(rexp(10, rate = 0.5)))) but I am unable to output the right result.
replicate here generates a matrix, too, but it is an 10 * 1000 matrix (as opposed to a 1000* 10 one in my answer), so you now need to take colSums. Also, where did you put n?
The correct function would be
F <- function(n, B=1000) mean(colSums(replicate(B, rexp(10, rate = 0.5))) <= n)
For non-Monte Carlo method to your given example, see the other answer. Exponential distribution is a special case of gamma distribution and the latter has additivity property.
I am giving you Monte Carlo method because you name it in your question, and it is applicable beyond your example.
Is it possible to generate distributions in R for which the Mean, SD, skew and kurtosis are known? So far it appears the best route would be to create random numbers and transform them accordingly.
If there is a package tailored to generating specific distributions which could be adapted, I have not yet found it.
Thanks
There is a Johnson distribution in the SuppDists package. Johnson will give you a distribution that matches either moments or quantiles. Others comments are correct that 4 moments does not a distribution make. But Johnson will certainly try.
Here's an example of fitting a Johnson to some sample data:
require(SuppDists)
## make a weird dist with Kurtosis and Skew
a <- rnorm( 5000, 0, 2 )
b <- rnorm( 1000, -2, 4 )
c <- rnorm( 3000, 4, 4 )
babyGotKurtosis <- c( a, b, c )
hist( babyGotKurtosis , freq=FALSE)
## Fit a Johnson distribution to the data
## TODO: Insert Johnson joke here
parms<-JohnsonFit(babyGotKurtosis, moment="find")
## Print out the parameters
sJohnson(parms)
## add the Johnson function to the histogram
plot(function(x)dJohnson(x,parms), -20, 20, add=TRUE, col="red")
The final plot looks like this:
You can see a bit of the issue that others point out about how 4 moments do not fully capture a distribution.
Good luck!
EDIT
As Hadley pointed out in the comments, the Johnson fit looks off. I did a quick test and fit the Johnson distribution using moment="quant" which fits the Johnson distribution using 5 quantiles instead of the 4 moments. The results look much better:
parms<-JohnsonFit(babyGotKurtosis, moment="quant")
plot(function(x)dJohnson(x,parms), -20, 20, add=TRUE, col="red")
Which produces the following:
Anyone have any ideas why Johnson seems biased when fit using moments?
This is an interesting question, which doesn't really have a good solution. I presume that even though you don't know the other moments, you have an idea of what the distribution should look like. For example, it's unimodal.
There a few different ways of tackling this problem:
Assume an underlying distribution and match moments. There are many standard R packages for doing this. One downside is that the multivariate generalisation may be unclear.
Saddlepoint approximations. In this paper:
Gillespie, C.S. and Renshaw, E. An improved saddlepoint approximation. Mathematical Biosciences, 2007.
We look at recovering a pdf/pmf when given only the first few moments. We found that this approach works when the skewness isn't too large.
Laguerre expansions:
Mustapha, H. and Dimitrakopoulosa, R. Generalized Laguerre expansions of multivariate probability densities with moments. Computers & Mathematics with Applications, 2010.
The results in this paper seem more promising, but I haven't coded them up.
This question was asked more than 3 years ago, so I hope my answer doesn't come too late.
There is a way to uniquely identify a distribution when knowing some of the moments. That way is the method of Maximum Entropy. The distribution that results from this method is the distribution that maximizes your ignorance about the structure of the distribution, given what you know. Any other distribution that also has the moments that you specified but is not the MaxEnt distribution is implicitly assuming more structure than what you input. The functional to maximize is Shannon's Information Entropy, $S[p(x)] = - \int p(x)log p(x) dx$. Knowing the mean, sd, skewness and kurtosis, translate as constraints on the first, second, third, and fourth moments of the distribution, respectively.
The problem is then to maximize S subject to the constraints:
1) $\int x p(x) dx = "first moment"$,
2) $\int x^2 p(x) dx = "second moment"$,
3) ... and so on
I recommend the book "Harte, J., Maximum Entropy and Ecology: A Theory of Abundance, Distribution, and Energetics (Oxford University Press, New York, 2011)."
Here is a link that tries to implement this in R:
https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/21173/max-entropy-solver-in-r
One solution for you might be the PearsonDS library. It allows you to use a combination of the first four moments with the restriction that kurtosis > skewness^2 + 1.
To generate 10 random values from that distribution try:
library("PearsonDS")
moments <- c(mean = 0,variance = 1,skewness = 1.5, kurtosis = 4)
rpearson(10, moments = moments)
I agree you need density estimation to replicate any distribution. However, if you have hundreds of variables, as is typical in a Monte Carlo simulation, you would need to have a compromise.
One suggested approach is as follows:
Use the Fleishman transform to get the coefficient for the given skew and kurtosis. Fleishman takes the skew and kurtosis and gives you the coefficients
Generate N normal variables (mean = 0, std = 1)
Transform the data in (2) with the Fleishman coefficients to transform the normal data to the given skew and kurtosis
In this step, use data from from step (3) and transform it to the desired mean and standard deviation (std) using new_data = desired mean + (data from step 3)* desired std
The resulting data from Step 4 will have the desired mean, std, skewness and kurtosis.
Caveats:
Fleishman will not work for all combinations of skewness and kurtois
Above steps assume non-correlated variables. If you want to generate correlated data, you will need a step before the Fleishman transform
Those parameters don't actually fully define a distribution. For that you need a density or equivalently a distribution function.
The entropy method is a good idea, but if you have the data samples you use more information compared to the use of only the moments! So a moment fit is often less stable. If you have no more information about how the distribution looks like then entropy is a good concept, but if you have more information, e.g. about the support, then use it! If your data is skewed and positive then using a lognormal model is a good idea. If you know also the upper tail is finite, then do not use the lognormal, but maybe the 4-parameter Beta distribution. If nothing is known about support or tail characteristics, then maybe a scaled and shifted lognormal model is fine. If you need more flexibility regarding kurtosis, then e.g. a logT with scaling + shifting is often fine. It can also help if you known that the fit should be near-normal, if this is the case then use a model which includes the normal distribution (often the case anyway), otherwise you may e.g. use a generalized secant-hyperbolic distribution. If you want to do all this, then at some point the model will have some different cases, and you should make sure that there are no gaps or bad transition effects.
As #David and #Carl wrote above, there are several packages dedicated to generate different distributions, see e.g. the Probability distributions Task View on CRAN.
If you are interested in the theory (how to draw a sample of numbers fitting to a specific distribution with the given parameters) then just look for the appropriate formulas, e.g. see the gamma distribution on Wiki, and make up a simple quality system with the provided parameters to compute scale and shape.
See a concrete example here, where I computed the alpha and beta parameters of a required beta distribution based on mean and standard deviation.
I am using R to run a simulation in which I use a likelihood ratio test to compare two nested item response models. One version of the LRT uses the joint likelihood function L(θ,ρ) and the other uses the marginal likelihood function L(ρ). I want to integrate L(θ,ρ) over f(θ) to obtain the marginal likelihood L(ρ). I have two conditions: in one, f(θ) is standard normal (μ=0,σ=1), and my understanding is that I can just pick a number of abscissa points, say 20 or 30, and use Gauss-Hermite quadrature to approximate this density. But in the other condition, f(θ) is a linearly transformed beta distribution (a=1.25,b=10), where the linear transformation B'=11.14*(B-0.11) is such that B' also has (approximately) μ=0,σ=1.
I am confused enough about how to implement quadrature for a beta distribution but then the linear transformation confuses me even more. My question is threefold: (1) can I use some variation of quadrature to approximate f(θ) when θ is distributed as this linearly transformed beta distribution, (2) how would I implement this in R, and (3) is this a ridiculous waste of time such that there is an obviously much faster and better method to accomplish this task? (I tried writing my own numerical approximation function but found that my implementation of it, being limited to the R language, was just too slow to suffice.)
Thanks!
First, I assume you can express your L(θ,ρ) and f(θ) in terms of actual code; otherwise you're kinda screwed. Given that assumption, you can use integrate to perform the necessary computations. Something like this should get you started; just plug in your expressions for L and f.
marglik <- function(rho) {
integrand <- function(theta, rho) L(theta, rho) * f(theta)
# set your lower/upper integration limits as appropriate
integrate(integrand, lower=-5, upper=5, rho=rho)
}
For this to work, your integrand has to be vectorized; ie, given a vector input for theta, it must return a vector of outputs. If your code doesn't fit the bill, you can use Vectorize on the integrand function before passing it to integrate:
integrand <- Vectorize(integrand, "theta")
Edit: not sure if you're also asking how to define f(θ) for the transformed beta distribution; that seems rather elementary for someone working with joint and marginal likelihoods. But if you are, then the density of B' = a*B + b, given f(B), is
f'(B') = f(B)/a = f((B' - b)/a) / a
So in your case, f(theta) is dbeta(theta/11.14 + 0.11, 1.25, 10) / 11.14
In my research, I am generating discrete planes that are intended to represent fractures in rock. The orientation of a fracture plane is specified by its dip and dip direction. Knowing this, I also know the components of the normal vector for each plane.
So far, I have been drawing dip and dip direction independently from normal distributions. This is OK, but I would like to add the ability to draw from the Fisher distribution.
The fisher distribution is described
HERE
Basically, I want to be able to specify an average dip and dip direction (or a mean vector) and a "fisher constant" or dispersion factor, k, and draw values randomly from that orientation distribution.
Additional Info: It seems like the "Von Mises-Fisher distribution" is either the same as what I've been calling the "Fisher distribution" or is somehow related. Some info on the Von Mises-Fisher distribution:
As you can see, I've done some looking into this, but I admit that I don't fully understand the mathematics. I feel like I'm close, but am not quite getting it... Any help is much appreciated!
If it helps, my programming is in FORTRAN.
The algorithm is on page 59 of "Statistical analysis of spherical data" by N. I. Fisher, T. Lewis and B. J. J. Embleton. I highly recommend that book -- it will help you understand the mathematics.
The following will produce random Fisher distribution locations centered on the North pole. If you want them randomly centered, then you produce additional uniform random locations on the sphere and rotate these locations to be centered on those locations. If you are not sure of those steps, consult the aforementioned book. This Fortran code fragment uses a random number generator that produces uniform deviates from 0 to 1.
lambda = exp (-2.0 * kappa)
term1 = get_uniform_random () * (1.0 - lambda) + lambda
CoLat = 2.0 * asin ( sqrt ( -log (term1) / (2.0 * kappa) ) )
Long = 2.0 * PI * get_uniform_random ()
I think that you can do the math by hand
Integrate the density function of the Fisher Distribution to get the cumulative distribution function
F(theta)=exp(K cos(theta)))/(exp(k)-exp(-k))
The next step is to find the inverse cumulative distribution function function, F^(-1)(y). This function fulfills
F(theta)= y <=> F^(-1)(y) =theta
I think that you get the following.
F^(-1)(y) = arccos(log((exp(k)-exp(-k))*y)/K)
Draw y1, y2, y3, y4... from a uniform distribution on the interval [0, 1]
Now, the numbers F^(-1)(y1), F^(-1)(y2), F^(-1)(y3), F^(-1)(y4) will be distributed according to the Fisher distribution..