I am trying to minimize a function defined as follows:
utility(decision) = decision * (risk - cost)
where variables take the following form:
decision = binary array
risk = array of floats
cost = constant
I know the solution will take the form of:
decision = 1 if (risk >= threshold)
decision = 0 otherwise
Therefore, in order to minimize this function I can assume that I transform the function utility to depend only on this threshold. My direct translation to scipy is the following:
def utility(threshold,risk,cost):
selection_list = [float(risk[i]) >= threshold for i in range(len(risk))]
v = np.array(risk.astype(float)) - cost
total_utility = np.dot(v, selection_list)
return -1.0*total_utility
result = minimize(fun=utility, x0=0.2, args=(r,c),bounds=[(0,1)], options={"disp":True} )
This gives me the following result:
fun: array([-17750.44298655]) hess_inv: <1x1 LbfgsInvHessProduct with
dtype=float64>
jac: array([0.])
message: b'CONVERGENCE: NORM_OF_PROJECTED_GRADIENT_<=_PGTOL'
nfev: 2
nit: 0 status: 0 success: True
x: array([0.2])
However, I know the result is wrong because in this case it must be equal to cost. On top of that, no matter what x0 I use, it always returns it as the result. Looking at the results I observe that jacobian=0 and does not compute 1 iteration correctly.
Looking more thoroughly into the function. I plot it and observe that it is not convex on the limits of the bounds but we can clearly see the minimum at 0.1. However, no matter how much I adjust the bounds to be in the convex part only, the result is still the same.
What could I do to minimize this function?
The error message tells you that the gradient was at some point too small and thus numerically the same as zero. This is likely due to the thresholding that you do when you calculate your selection_list. There you say float(risk[i]) >= threshold, which has derivative 0 almost everywhere. Hence, almost every starting value will give you the warning you receive.
A solution could be to apply some smoothing to the thresholding operation. So instead of float(risk[i]) >= threshold, you would use a continuous function:
def g(x):
return 1./(1+np.exp(-x))
With this function, you can express the thresholding operation as
g((risk[i] - threshold)/a), which a parameter a. The larger a, the closer is this modified error function to what you are doing so far. At something like a=20 or so, you would probably have pretty much the same that you have at the moment. You would therefore derive a sequence of solutions, where you start with a=1 and then take that solution as a starting value for the same problem with a=2, take that solution as a starting value for the problem with a=4, and so on. At some point, you will notice that changing a does no longer change the solution and you're done.
Related
I have a simple model as follows and I intend to calculate the mean of x derivative wrt time(der(x)).
model Average
Real x;
initial equation
x = 2.0;
equation
der(x) = x + 5;
annotation (experiment(StopTime=10, __Dymola_Algorithm="Dassl"));
end Average;
The point is that it is a simplified code of an original one in which "x" is given by a CombiTimeTable. I need to perform several simulations (by several text files as inputs to the CombiTimeTable) that they do not have the same number of rows (different durations). In other words, StopTime is different from case to case e.g. here the StopTime is 10s for this specific case.
Is there any way to use a general equation to calculate the mean of der(x). I would appreciate if someone could help.
Based on the answer of sjoelund.se, I created a model which computes the mean value of der(x) via 2 methods:
using the block Modelica.Blocks.Math.ContinuousMean from the MSL (instead of Mean, as it does not sample)
computing the mean with (x2-x1)/(time2-time1) when the simulation terminates
model Average
import Modelica.Constants.pi;
import Modelica.Utilities.Streams.print;
Real x;
Real time1, time2, x1, x2;
Modelica.Blocks.Math.ContinuousMean continuousMean;
equation
der(x) = sqrt(1+cos(2*pi*2*time))+sin(time)^2;
// Method 1: Continuous mean from MSL
continuousMean.u = der(x);
when terminal() then
print("Continuous mean: "+String( continuousMean.y));
end when;
// Method 2: Mean at end time
when initial() then
x1 = x;
time1 = time;
end when;
when terminal() then
x2 = x;
time2 = time;
print("Computed mean: "+String( (x2-x1)/(time2-time1)));
end when;
annotation (experiment(StopTime=1.0, __Dymola_Algorithm="Dassl"));
end Average;
Both values are printed at simulation end. They give a similar value as the mean post processing command which you can apply in Dymola on plotted signals:
Another possibility is to call the mean signal operator in Dymola after the simulation has ended (maybe in a script which runs your simulation):
DymolaCommands.Plot.signalOperatorValue("der(x)", SignalOperator.ArithmeticMean, 0, 1);
Couldn't you just calculate the mean as (x2-x1)/(time2-time1), given that you want the mean of der(X)?
Use Modelica.Blocks.Math.Mean if you want a numerical solution instead of an analytic. Note that it samples the signal so there will be some numerical errors due to that. In order to improve the accuracy, you need to reduce the period of sampling but doing so increases the time it takes to simulate the system.
If you do not need to use the mean during simulation it's also possible to use post-processing of the result-file.
I use the scipy.optimize.minimize ( https://docs.scipy.org/doc/scipy/reference/tutorial/optimize.html ) function with method='L-BFGS-B.
An example of what it returns is here above:
fun: 32.372210618549758
hess_inv: <6x6 LbfgsInvHessProduct with dtype=float64>
jac: array([ -2.14583906e-04, 4.09272616e-04, -2.55795385e-05,
3.76587650e-05, 1.49213975e-04, -8.38440428e-05])
message: 'CONVERGENCE: REL_REDUCTION_OF_F_<=_FACTR*EPSMCH'
nfev: 420
nit: 51
status: 0
success: True
x: array([ 0.75739412, -0.0927572 , 0.11986434, 1.19911266, 0.27866406,
-0.03825225])
The x value correctly contains the fitted parameters. How do I compute the errors associated to those parameters?
TL;DR: You can actually place an upper bound on how precisely the minimization routine has found the optimal values of your parameters. See the snippet at the end of this answer that shows how to do it directly, without resorting to calling additional minimization routines.
The documentation for this method says
The iteration stops when (f^k - f^{k+1})/max{|f^k|,|f^{k+1}|,1} <= ftol.
Roughly speaking, the minimization stops when the value of the function f that you're minimizing is minimized to within ftol of the optimum. (This is a relative error if f is greater than 1, and absolute otherwise; for simplicity I'll assume it's an absolute error.) In more standard language, you'll probably think of your function f as a chi-squared value. So this roughly suggests that you would expect
Of course, just the fact that you're applying a minimization routine like this assumes that your function is well behaved, in the sense that it's reasonably smooth and the optimum being found is well approximated near the optimum by a quadratic function of the parameters xi:
where Δxi is the difference between the found value of parameter xi and its optimal value, and Hij is the Hessian matrix. A little (surprisingly nontrivial) linear algebra gets you to a pretty standard result for an estimate of the uncertainty in any quantity X that's a function of your parameters xi:
which lets us write
That's the most useful formula in general, but for the specific question here, we just have X = xi, so this simplifies to
Finally, to be totally explicit, let's say you've stored the optimization result in a variable called res. The inverse Hessian is available as res.hess_inv, which is a function that takes a vector and returns the product of the inverse Hessian with that vector. So, for example, we can display the optimized parameters along with the uncertainty estimates with a snippet like this:
ftol = 2.220446049250313e-09
tmp_i = np.zeros(len(res.x))
for i in range(len(res.x)):
tmp_i[i] = 1.0
hess_inv_i = res.hess_inv(tmp_i)[i]
uncertainty_i = np.sqrt(max(1, abs(res.fun)) * ftol * hess_inv_i)
tmp_i[i] = 0.0
print('x^{0} = {1:12.4e} ± {2:.1e}'.format(i, res.x[i], uncertainty_i))
Note that I've incorporated the max behavior from the documentation, assuming that f^k and f^{k+1} are basically just the same as the final output value, res.fun, which really ought to be a good approximation. Also, for small problems, you can just use np.diag(res.hess_inv.todense()) to get the full inverse and extract the diagonal all at once. But for large numbers of variables, I've found that to be a much slower option. Finally, I've added the default value of ftol, but if you change it in an argument to minimize, you would obviously need to change it here.
One approach to this common problem is to use scipy.optimize.leastsq after using minimize with 'L-BFGS-B' starting from the solution found with 'L-BFGS-B'. That is, leastsq will (normally) include and estimate of the 1-sigma errors as well as the solution.
Of course, that approach makes several assumption, including that leastsq can be used and may be appropriate for solving the problem. From a practical view, this requires the objective function return an array of residual values with at least as many elements as variables, not a cost function.
You may find lmfit (https://lmfit.github.io/lmfit-py/) useful here: It supports both 'L-BFGS-B' and 'leastsq' and gives a uniform wrapper around these and other minimization methods, so that you can use the same objective function for both methods (and specify how to convert the residual array into the cost function). In addition, parameter bounds can be used for both methods. This makes it very easy to first do a fit with 'L-BFGS-B' and then with 'leastsq', using the values from 'L-BFGS-B' as starting values.
Lmfit also provides methods to more explicitly explore confidence limits on parameter values in more detail, in case you suspect the simple but fast approach used by leastsq might be insufficient.
It really depends what you mean by "errors". There is no general answer to your question, because it depends on what you're fitting and what assumptions you're making.
The easiest case is one of the most common: when the function you are minimizing is a negative log-likelihood. In that case the inverse of the hessian matrix returned by the fit (hess_inv) is the covariance matrix describing the Gaussian approximation to the maximum likelihood.The parameter errors are the square root of the diagonal elements of the covariance matrix.
Beware that if you are fitting a different kind of function or are making different assumptions, then that doesn't apply.
I am using scipy.optimize.fmin_l_bfgs_b to solve a gaussian mixture problem. The means of mixture distributions are modeled by regressions whose weights have to be optimized using EM algorithm.
sigma_sp_new, func_val, info_dict = fmin_l_bfgs_b(func_to_minimize, self.sigma_vector[si][pj],
args=(self.w_vectors[si][pj], Y, X, E_step_results[si][pj]),
approx_grad=True, bounds=[(1e-8, 0.5)], factr=1e02, pgtol=1e-05, epsilon=1e-08)
But sometimes I got a warning 'ABNORMAL_TERMINATION_IN_LNSRCH' in the information dictionary:
func_to_minimize value = 1.14462324063e-07
information dictionary: {'task': b'ABNORMAL_TERMINATION_IN_LNSRCH', 'funcalls': 147, 'grad': array([ 1.77635684e-05, 2.87769808e-05, 3.51718654e-05,
6.75015599e-06, -4.97379915e-06, -1.06581410e-06]), 'nit': 0, 'warnflag': 2}
RUNNING THE L-BFGS-B CODE
* * *
Machine precision = 2.220D-16
N = 6 M = 10
This problem is unconstrained.
At X0 0 variables are exactly at the bounds
At iterate 0 f= 1.14462D-07 |proj g|= 3.51719D-05
* * *
Tit = total number of iterations
Tnf = total number of function evaluations
Tnint = total number of segments explored during Cauchy searches
Skip = number of BFGS updates skipped
Nact = number of active bounds at final generalized Cauchy point
Projg = norm of the final projected gradient
F = final function value
* * *
N Tit Tnf Tnint Skip Nact Projg F
6 1 21 1 0 0 3.517D-05 1.145D-07
F = 1.144619474757747E-007
ABNORMAL_TERMINATION_IN_LNSRCH
Line search cannot locate an adequate point after 20 function
and gradient evaluations. Previous x, f and g restored.
Possible causes: 1 error in function or gradient evaluation;
2 rounding error dominate computation.
Cauchy time 0.000E+00 seconds.
Subspace minimization time 0.000E+00 seconds.
Line search time 0.000E+00 seconds.
Total User time 0.000E+00 seconds.
I do not get this warning every time, but sometimes. (Most get 'CONVERGENCE: NORM_OF_PROJECTED_GRADIENT_<=_PGTOL' or 'CONVERGENCE: REL_REDUCTION_OF_F_<=_FACTR*EPSMCH').
I know that it means the minimum can be be reached in this iteration. I googled this problem. Someone said it occurs often because the objective and gradient functions do not match. But here I do not provide gradient function because I am using 'approx_grad'.
What are the possible reasons that I should investigate? What does it mean by "rounding error dominate computation"?
======
I also find that the log-likelihood does not monotonically increase:
########## Convergence !!! ##########
log_likelihood_history: [-28659.725891322563, 220.49993177669558, 291.3513633060345, 267.47745327823907, 265.31567762171181, 265.07311121000367, 265.04217683341682]
It usually start decrease at the second or the third iteration, even through 'ABNORMAL_TERMINATION_IN_LNSRCH' does not occurs. I do not know whether it this problem is related to the previous one.
Scipy calls the original L-BFGS-B implementation. Which is some fortran77 (old but beautiful and superfast code) and our problem is that the descent direction is actually going up. The problem starts on line 2533 (link to the code at the bottom)
gd = ddot(n,g,1,d,1)
if (ifun .eq. 0) then
gdold=gd
if (gd .ge. zero) then
c the directional derivative >=0.
c Line search is impossible.
if (iprint .ge. 0) then
write(0,*)' ascent direction in projection gd = ', gd
endif
info = -4
return
endif
endif
In other words, you are telling it to go down the hill by going up the hill. The code tries something called line search a total of 20 times in the descent direction that you provide and realizes that you are NOT telling it to go downhill, but uphill. All 20 times.
The guy who wrote it (Jorge Nocedal, who by the way is a very smart guy) put 20 because pretty much that's enough. Machine epsilon is 10E-16, I think 20 is actually a little too much. So, my money for most people having this problem is that your gradient does not match your function.
Now, it could also be that "2. rounding errors dominate computation". By this, he means that your function is a very flat surface in which increases are of the order of machine epsilon (in which case you could perhaps rescale the function),
Now, I was thiking that maybe there should be a third option, when your function is too weird. Oscillations? I could see something like $\sin({\frac{1}{x}})$ causing this kind of problem. But I'm not a smart guy, so don't assume that there's a third case.
So I think the OP's solution should be that your function is too flat. Or look at the fortran code.
https://github.com/scipy/scipy/blob/master/scipy/optimize/lbfgsb/lbfgsb.f
Here's line search for those who want to see it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_search
Note. This is 7 months too late. I put it here for future's sake.
As pointed out in the answer by Wilmer E. Henao, the problem is probably in the gradient. Since you are using approx_grad=True, the gradient is calculated numerically. In this case, reducing the value of epsilon, which is the step size used for numerically calculating the gradient, can help.
I also got the error "ABNORMAL_TERMINATION_IN_LNSRCH" using the L-BFGS-B optimizer.
While my gradient function pointed in the right direction, I rescaled the actual gradient of the function by its L2-norm. Removing that or adding another appropriate type of rescaling worked. Before, I guess that the gradient was so large that it went out of bounds immediately.
The problem from OP was unbounded if I read correctly, so this will certainly not help in this problem setting. However, googling the error "ABNORMAL_TERMINATION_IN_LNSRCH" yields this page as one of the first results, so it might help others...
I had a similar problem recently. I sometimes encounter the ABNORMAL_TERMINATION_IN_LNSRCH message after using fmin_l_bfgs_b function of scipy. I try to give additional explanations of the reason why I get this. I am looking for complementary details or corrections if I am wrong.
In my case, I provide the gradient function, so approx_grad=False. My cost function and the gradient are consistent. I double-checked it and the optimization actually works most of the time. When I get ABNORMAL_TERMINATION_IN_LNSRCH, the solution is not optimal, not even close (even this is a subjective point of view). I can overcome this issue by modifying the maxls argument. Increasing maxls helps to solve this issue to finally get the optimal solution. However, I noted that sometimes a smaller maxls, than the one that produces ABNORMAL_TERMINATION_IN_LNSRCH, results in a converging solution. A dataframe summarizes the results. I was surprised to observe this. I expected that reducing maxls would not improve the result. For this reason, I tried to read the paper describing the line search algorithm but I had trouble to understand it.
The line "search algorithm generates a sequence of
nested intervals {Ik} and a sequence of iterates αk ∈ Ik ∩ [αmin ; αmax] according to the [...] procedure". If I understand well, I would say that the maxls argument specifies the length of this sequence. At the end of the maxls iterations (or less if the algorithm terminates in fewer iterations), the line search stops. A final trial point is generated within the final interval Imaxls. I would say the the formula does not guarantee to get an αmaxls that respects the two update conditions, the minimum decrease and the curvature, especially when the interval is still wide. My guess is that in my case, after 11 iterations the generated interval I11 is such that a trial point α11 respects both conditions. But, even though I12 is smaller and still containing acceptable points, α12 is not. Finally after 24 iterations, the interval is very small and the generated αk respects the update conditions.
Is my understanding / explanation accurate?
If so, I would then be surprised that when maxls=12, since the generated α11 is acceptable but not α12, why α11 is not chosen in this case instead of α12?
Pragmatically, I would recommend to try a few higher maxls when getting ABNORMAL_TERMINATION_IN_LNSRCH.
I have some code which uses scipy.integration.cumtrapz to compute the antiderivative of a sampled signal. I would like to use Simpson's rule instead of Trapezoid. However scipy.integration.simps seems not to have a cumulative counterpart... Am I missing something? Is there a simple way to get a cumulative integration with "scipy.integration.simps"?
You can always write your own:
def cumsimp(func,a,b,num):
#Integrate func from a to b using num intervals.
num*=2
a=float(a)
b=float(b)
h=(b-a)/num
output=4*func(a+h*np.arange(1,num,2))
tmp=func(a+h*np.arange(2,num-1,2))
output[1:]+=tmp
output[:-1]+=tmp
output[0]+=func(a)
output[-1]+=func(b)
return np.cumsum(output*h/3)
def integ1(x):
return x
def integ2(x):
return x**2
def integ0(x):
return np.ones(np.asarray(x).shape)*5
First look at the sum and derivative of a constant function.
print cumsimp(integ0,0,10,5)
[ 10. 20. 30. 40. 50.]
print np.diff(cumsimp(integ0,0,10,5))
[ 10. 10. 10. 10.]
Now check for a few trivial examples:
print cumsimp(integ1,0,10,5)
[ 2. 8. 18. 32. 50.]
print cumsimp(integ2,0,10,5)
[ 2.66666667 21.33333333 72. 170.66666667 333.33333333]
Writing your integrand explicitly is much easier here then reproducing the simpson's rule function of scipy in this context. Picking intervals will be difficult to do when provided a single array, do you either:
Use every other value for the edges of simpson's rule and the remaining values as centers?
Use the array as edges and interpolate values of centers?
There are also a few options for how you want the intervals summed. These complications could be why its not coded in scipy.
Your question has been answered a long time ago, but I came across the same problem recently. I wrote some functions to compute such cumulative integrals for equally spaced points; the code can be found on GitHub. The order of the interpolating polynomials ranges from 1 (trapezoidal rule) to 7. As Daniel pointed out in the previous answer, some choices have to be made on how the intervals are summed, especially at the borders; results may thus be sightly different depending on the package you use. Be also aware that the numerical integration may suffer from Runge's phenomenon (unexpected oscillations) for high orders of polynomials.
Here is an example:
import numpy as np
from scipy import integrate as sp_integrate
from gradiompy import integrate as gp_integrate
# Definition of the function (polynomial of degree 7)
x = np.linspace(-3,3,num=15)
dx = x[1]-x[0]
y = 8*x + 3*x**2 + x**3 - 2*x**5 + x**6 - 1/5*x**7
y_int = 4*x**2 + x**3 + 1/4*x**4 - 1/3*x**6 + 1/7*x**7 - 1/40*x**8
# Cumulative integral using scipy
y_int_trapz = y_int [0] + sp_integrate.cumulative_trapezoid(y,dx=dx,initial=0)
print('Integration error using scipy.integrate:')
print(' trapezoid = %9.5f' % np.linalg.norm(y_int_trapz-y_int))
# Cumulative integral using gradiompy
y_int_trapz = gp_integrate.cumulative_trapezoid(y,dx=dx,initial=y_int[0])
y_int_simps = gp_integrate.cumulative_simpson(y,dx=dx,initial=y_int[0])
print('\nIntegration error using gradiompy.integrate:')
print(' trapezoid = %9.5f' % np.linalg.norm(y_int_trapz-y_int))
print(' simpson = %9.5f' % np.linalg.norm(y_int_simps-y_int))
# Higher order cumulative integrals
for order in range(5,8,2):
y_int_composite = gp_integrate.cumulative_composite(y,dx,order=order,initial=y_int[0])
print(' order %i = %9.5f' % (order,np.linalg.norm(y_int_composite-y_int)))
# Display the values of the cumulative integral
print('\nCumulative integral (with initial offset):\n',y_int_composite)
You should get the following result:
'''
Integration error using scipy.integrate:
trapezoid = 176.10502
Integration error using gradiompy.integrate:
trapezoid = 176.10502
simpson = 2.52551
order 5 = 0.48758
order 7 = 0.00000
Cumulative integral (with initial offset):
[-6.90203571e+02 -2.29979407e+02 -5.92267425e+01 -7.66415188e+00
2.64794452e+00 2.25594840e+00 6.61937372e-01 1.14797061e-13
8.20130517e-01 3.61254267e+00 8.55804341e+00 1.48428883e+01
1.97293221e+01 1.64257877e+01 -1.13464286e+01]
'''
I would go with Daniel's solution. But you need to be careful if the function that you are integrating is itself subject to fluctuations. Simpson's requires the function to be well-behaved (meaning in this case, one that is continuous).
There are techniques for making a moderately badly behaved function look like it is better behaved than it really is (really forms of approximation of your function) but in that case you have to be sure that the function "adequately" approximates yours. In that case you might make the intervals may be non-uniform to handle the problem.
An example might be in considering the flow of a field that, over longer time scales, is approximated by a well-behaved function but which over shorter periods is subject to limited random fluctuations in its density.
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