When I reading this paper http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1976ApJ...209..214B&data_type=PDF_HIGH&whole_paper=YES&type=PRINTER&filetype=.pdf
I try to solve eq(49) numerically, it seems a fokker-planck equation, I find finite difference method doesn't work, it's unstable.
Does any one know how to solve it?
computational science stack exchange is where you can ask and hope for an answer. Or you could try its physics cousin. The equation, you quote, is integro-differential equation, fairly non-linear... Fokker-Plank looking equation. Definitely not the typical Fokker-Plank.
What you can try is to discretize the space part of the function g(x,t) using finite differences or finite-elements. After all, 0 < x < x_max and you have boundary conditions. You also have to discretize the corresponding integration. So maybe finite elements might be more appropriate? Finite elements means you can write g(x, t) as a series of a well chosen basis of compactly supported simple enough functions Bj(x) : j = 1...N in the interval [0, x_max]
g(x,t) = sum_j=1:N gj(t)*Bj(x)
That will turn your function into a (large) vector gj(t) = g(x_j, t), for j = 1, 1, ...., N. As a result, you will obtain a non-linear system of ODEs
dgj(t)/dt = Qj(g1(t), g2(t), ..., gN(t))
j = 1 ... N
After that use something like Runge-Kutta to integrate numerically the ODE system.
I'm new to SQL, so waiting for someone to shed me some lights hopefully. We got a stored procedure in place using the simple linear regression. Now I want to apply some weighting using a discount factor of lamda, i.e. 1, lamda, lamda^2, ..., lamda^n, while n is the length of the original series.
How should I generate the discounted weight series and apply to the current code structure below?
...
SUM((OASSpline-OASPriorSpline) * (AdjOASDolDur-AdjOASPriorDolDur))/SUM(SQUARE((AdjOASDolDur-AdjOASPriorDolDur))) as Beta, /* Beta = Sxy/Sxx */
SUM(SQUARE((AdjOASDolDur-AdjOASPriorDolDur))) as Sxx,
SUM((OASSpline-OASPriorSpline) * (AdjOASDolDur-AdjOASPriorDolDur)) as Sxy
...
e.g.
If I set discount factor (lamda) = 0.99, my weighting array should be formed generated automatically using the length of 10 from my series:
OASSpline = [1.11,1.45,1.79, 2.14, 2.48, 2.81,3.13,3.42,3.70,5.49]
AdjOASDolDur = [0.75,1.06,1.39, 1.73, 2.10, 2.48,2.85,3.20,3.52,3.61]
OASPriorSpline = 5.49
AdjOASPriorDolDur = 5.61
Weight = [1,0.99,0.9801,0.970299,0.96059601,0.9509900, 0.941480149,0.932065348,0.922744694,0.913517247]
The weighted linear regression should return a beta of 0.81243398, while the current simple linear regression should return a beta of 0.81164174.
Thanks much in advance!
I'll take a stab.
You could look at this article dealing generating sequence numbers and then use the current row number generated as an exponent. Does that work? I think a fair few are bamboozled by the request.
I've been told I need to normalise my MSE for my thesis involving neural networks.
Equations for NMSE seem a bit few and far-between. I have the following and want to corroborate it if possible:
Is the standard deviation term supposed to be calculated from the target values or the predicted values?
Also, what are the main advantages for using MSE over NMSE? Is it just that it makes error comparisons easier, because of the simpler scale?
Many thanks for any help!
def nmser(x,y):
z=0
if len(x)==len(y):
for k in range(len(x)):
z = z + (((x[k]-y[k])**2)/x[k])
z = z/(len(x))
return z
If we have a approximation function y = f(w,x), where x is input, y is output, and w is the weight. According to gradient descent rule, we should update the weight according to w = w - df/dw. But is that possible that we update the weight according to w = w - w * df/dw instead? Has anyone seen this before? The reason I want to do this is because it is easier for me to do it this way in my algorithm.
Recall, gradient descent is based on the Taylor expansion of f(w, x) in the close vicinity of w, and has its purpose---in your context---in repeatedly modifying the weight in small steps. The reverse gradient direction is just a search direction, based upon very local knowledge of the function f(w, x).
Usually the iterative of the weight includes a step length, yielding the expression
w_(i+1) = w_(i) - nu_j df/dw,
where the value of the step length nu_j is found by using line search, see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_search.
Hence, based on the discussion above, to answer your question: no, it is not a good idea to update according to
w_(i+1) = w_(i) - w_(i) df/dw.
Why? If w_(i) is large (in context), we'll take a huge step based on very local information, and we would be using something very different than the fine-stepped gradient descent method.
Also, as lejlot points out in the comments below, a negative value of w(i) would mean you traverse in the (positive) direction of the gradient, i.e., in the direction in which the function grows most rapidly, which is, locally, the worst possible search direction (for minimization problems).
edit
So based on the answers so far (thanks for taking your time) I'm getting the sense that I'm probably NOT looking for a Normal Distribution function. Perhaps I'll try to re-describe what I'm looking to do.
Lets say I have an object that returns a number of 0 to 10. And that number controls "speed". However instead of 10 being the top speed, I need 5 to be the top speed, and anything lower or higher would slow down accordingly. (with easing, thus the bell curve)
I hope that's clearer ;/
-original question
These are the times I wish I remembered something from math class.
I'm trying to figure out how to write a function in obj-C where I define the boundries, ex (0 - 10) and then if x = foo y = ? .... where x runs something like 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 and y runs 0,1,2,3,4,5,4,3,2,1,0 but only on a curve
Something like the attached image.
I tried googling for Normal Distribution but its way over my head. I was hoping to find some site that lists some useful algorithms like these but wasn't very successful.
So can anyone help me out here ? And if there is some good sites which shows useful mathematical functions, I'd love to check them out.
TIA!!!
-added
I'm not looking for a random number, I'm looking for.. ex: if x=0 y should be 0, if x=5 y should be 5, if x=10 y should be 0.... and all those other not so obvious in between numbers
alt text http://dizy.cc/slider.gif
Okay, your edit really clarifies things. You're not looking for anything to do with the normal distribution, just a nice smooth little ramp function. The one Paul provides will do nicely, but is tricky to modify for other values. It can be made a little more flexible (my code examples are in Python, which should be very easy to translate to any other language):
def quarticRamp(x, b=10, peak=5):
if not 0 <= x <= b:
raise ValueError #or return 0
return peak*x*x*(x-b)*(x-b)*16/(b*b*b*b)
Parameter b is the upper bound for the region you want to have a slope on (10, in your example), and peak is how high you want it to go (5, in the example).
Personally I like a quadratic spline approach, which is marginally cheaper computationally and has a different curve to it (this curve is really nice to use in a couple of special applications that don't happen to matter at all for you):
def quadraticSplineRamp(x, a=0, b=10, peak=5):
if not a <= x <= b:
raise ValueError #or return 0
if x > (b+a)/2:
x = a + b - x
z = 2*(x-a)/b
if z > 0.5:
return peak * (1 - 2*(z-1)*(z-1))
else:
return peak * (2*z*z)
This is similar to the other function, but takes a lower bound a (0 in your example). The logic is a little more complex because it's a somewhat-optimized implementation of a piecewise function.
The two curves have slightly different shapes; you probably don't care what the exact shape is, and so could pick either. There are an infinite number of ramp functions meeting your criteria; these are two simple ones, but they can get as baroque as you want.
The thing you want to plot is the probability density function (pdf) of the normal distribution. You can find it on the mighty Wikipedia.
Luckily, the pdf for a normal distribution is not difficult to implement - some of the other related functions are considerably worse because they require the error function.
To get a plot like you showed, you want a mean of 5 and a standard deviation of about 1.5. The median is obviously the centre, and figuring out an appropriate standard deviation given the left & right boundaries isn't particularly difficult.
A function to calculate the y value of the pdf given the x coordinate, standard deviation and mean might look something like:
double normal_pdf(double x, double mean, double std_dev) {
return( 1.0/(sqrt(2*PI)*std_dev) *
exp(-(x-mean)*(x-mean)/(2*std_dev*std_dev)) );
}
A normal distribution is never equal to 0.
Please make sure that what you want to plot is indeed a
normal distribution.
If you're only looking for this bell shape (with the tangent and everything)
you can use the following formula:
x^2*(x-10)^2 for x between 0 and 10
0 elsewhere
(Divide by 125 if you need to have your peek on 5.)
double bell(double x) {
if ((x < 10) && (x>0))
return x*x*(x-10.)*(x-10.)/125.;
else
return 0.;
}
Well, there's good old Wikipedia, of course. And Mathworld.
What you want is a random number generator for "generating normally distributed random deviates". Since Objective C can call regular C libraries, you either need a C-callable library like the GNU Scientific Library, or for this, you can write it yourself following the description here.
Try simulating rolls of dice by generating random numbers between 1 and 6. If you add up the rolls from 5 independent dice rolls, you'll get a surprisingly good approximation to the normal distribution. You can roll more dice if you'd like and you'll get a better approximation.
Here's an article that explains why this works. It's probably more mathematical detail than you want, but you could show it to someone to justify your approach.
If what you want is the value of the probability density function, p(x), of a normal (Gaussian) distribution of mean mu and standard deviation sigma at x, the formula is
p(x) = exp( ((x-mu)^2)/(2*sigma^2) ) / (sigma * 2 * sqrt(pi))
where pi is the area of a circle divided by the square of its radius (approximately 3.14159...). Using the C standard library math.h, this is:
#include <math>
double normal_pdf(double x, double mu, double sigma) {
double n = sigma * 2 * sqrt(M_PI); //normalization factor
p = exp( -pow(x-mu, 2) / (2 * pow(sigma, 2)) ); // unnormalized pdf
return p / n;
}
Of course, you can do the same in Objective-C.
For reference, see the Wikipedia or MathWorld articles.
It sounds like you want to write a function that yields a curve of a specific shape. Something like y = f(x), for x in [0:10]. You have a constraint on the max value of y, and a general idea of what you want the curve to look like (somewhat bell-shaped, y=0 at the edges of the x range, y=5 when x=5). So roughly, you would call your function iteratively with the x range, with a step that gives you enough points to make your curve look nice.
So you really don't need random numbers, and this has nothing to do with probability unless you want it to (as in, you want your curve to look like a the outline of a normal distribution or something along those lines).
If you have a clear idea of what function will yield your desired curve, the code is trivial - a function to compute f(x) and a for loop to call it the desired number of times for the desired values of x. Plot the x,y pairs and you're done. So that's your algorithm - call a function in a for loop.
The contents of the routine implementing the function will depend on the specifics of what you want the curve to look like. If you need help on functions that might return a curve resembling your sample, I would direct you to the reading material in the other answers. :) However, I suspect that this is actually an assignment of some sort, and that you have been given a function already. If you are actually doing this on your own to learn, then I again echo the other reading suggestions.
y=-1*abs(x-5)+5