The function may be called by the names: g02hac, nag_correg_robustm or nag_robust_m_regsn_estim.
3Description
For the linear regression model
where
is a vector of length of the dependent variable,
is a matrix of independent variables of column rank ,
is a vector of length of unknown arguments,
and
is a vector of length of unknown errors with :
g02hac calculates the M-estimates given by the solution, , to the equation
(1)
where
is the th residual, i.e., the th element of ,
is a suitable weight function,
are suitable weights,
and
may be estimated at each iteration by the median absolute deviation of the residuals:
or as the solution to:
for suitable weight function , where and are constants, chosen so that the estimator of is asymptotically unbiased if the errors, , have a Normal distribution. Alternatively may be held at a constant value.
The above describes the Schweppe type regression. If the are assumed to equal 1 for all then Huber type regression is obtained. A third type, due to Mallows, replaces (1) by
This may be obtained by use of the transformations
For Huber and Schweppe type regressions, is the 75th percentile of the standard Normal distribution. For Mallows type regression is the solution to
where is the standard Normal cumulative distribution function.
is given by:
where is the standard Normal density, i.e.,
The calculation of the estimates of can be formulated as an iterative weighted least squares problem with a diagonal weight matrix given by
where is the derivative of at the point .
The value of at each iteration is given by the weighted least squares regression of on . This is carried out by first transforming the and by
and then obtaining the solution of the resulting least squares problem. If is of full column rank then an orthogonal-triangular (QR) decomposition is used, if not, a singular value decomposition is used.
The following functions are available for and in g02hac.
(a)Unit Weights
this gives least squares regression.
(b)Huber's Function
(c)Hampel's Piecewise Linear Function
(d)Andrew's Sine Wave Function
(e)Tukey's Bi-weight
where , , , , and are given constants.
Several schemes for calculating weights have been proposed, see Hampel et al. (1986) and Marazzi (1987a). As the different independent variables may be measured on different scales, one group of proposed weights aims to bound a standardized measure of influence. To obtain such weights the matrix has to be found such that:
and
where
is a vector of length containing the th row of ,
is a lower triangular matrix,
and
is a suitable function.
The weights are then calculated as
for a suitable function .
g02hac finds using the iterative procedure
where ,
and
and and are bounds set at 0.9.
Two weights are available in g02hac:
(i)Krasker–Welsch weights
where ,
is the standard Normal cumulative distribution function,
is the standard Normal probability density function,
and .
These are for use with Schweppe type regression.
(ii)Maronna's proposed weights
These are for use with Mallows type regression.
Finally the asymptotic variance-covariance matrix, , of the estimates is calculated.
Note: there is no explicit provision in the function for a constant term in the regression model. However, the addition of a dummy variable whose value is for all observations will produce a value of corresponding to the usual constant term.
Hampel F R, Ronchetti E M, Rousseeuw P J and Stahel W A (1986) Robust Statistics. The Approach Based on Influence Functions Wiley
Huber P J (1981) Robust Statistics Wiley
Marazzi A (1987a) Weights for bounded influence regression in ROBETH Cah. Rech. Doc. IUMSP, No. 3 ROB 3 Institut Universitaire de Médecine Sociale et Préventive, Lausanne
Marazzi A (1987b) Subroutines for robust and bounded influence regression in ROBETH Cah. Rech. Doc. IUMSP, No. 3 ROB 2 Institut Universitaire de Médecine Sociale et Préventive, Lausanne
5Arguments
1: – Nag_RegTypeInput
On entry: specifies the type of regression to be performed.
Huber type regression.
Mallows type regression with Maronna's proposed weights.
Schweppe type regression with Krasker–Welsch weights.
Constraint:
, or .
2: – Nag_PsiFunInput
On entry: specifies which function is to be used.
, i.e., least squares.
Huber's function.
Hampel's piecewise linear function.
Andrew's sine wave.
Tukey's bi-weight.
Constraint:
, , , or .
3: – Nag_SigmaEstInput
On entry: specifies how is to be estimated.
is estimated by median absolute deviation of residuals.
is held constant at its initial value.
is estimated using the function.
Constraint:
, or .
4: – Nag_CovMatrixEstInput
On entry: if , covmat_est specifies the approximations used in estimating the covariance matrix of .
, averaging over residuals.
, replacing expected by observed.
On entry: the values of the matrix, i.e., the independent variables. must contain the th element of , for and .
On exit: if , then during calculations the elements of x will be transformed as described in Section 3. Before exit the inverse transformation will be applied. As a result there may be slight differences between the input x and the output x. Otherwise x is unchanged.
8: – IntegerInput
On entry: the stride separating matrix column elements in the array x.
Constraint:
.
9: – doubleInput/Output
On entry: the data values of the dependent variable. must contain the value of for the th observation, for .
On exit: if , then during calculations the elements of y will be transformed as described in Section 3. Before exit the inverse transformation will be applied. As a result there may be slight differences between the input y and the output y. Otherwise y is unchanged.
10: – doubleInput
On entry: if , cpsi must specify the argument, , of Huber's function. Otherwise cpsi is not referenced.
Constraint:
if then .
11: – const doubleInput
On entry: if then , and must specify the arguments , , and , of Hampel's piecewise linear function. Otherwise the elements of hpsi are not referenced.
Constraint:
if , and .
12: – doubleInput
On entry: if then cucv must specify the value of the constant, , of the function for Maronna's proposed weights.
If then cucv must specify the value of the function for the Krasker–Welsch weights.
On entry: starting values of the argument vector . These may be obtained from least squares regression.
Alternatively if and or if and sigma approximately equals the standard deviation of the dependent variable, , then , for may provide reasonable starting values.
On exit: contains the M-estimate of , for .
15: – double *Input/Output
On entry: a starting value for the estimation of .
sigma should be approximately the standard deviation of the residuals from the model evaluated at the value of given by theta on entry.
On exit: sigma contains the final estimate of , unless .
Constraint:
.
16: – doubleOutput
On exit: the diagonal elements of c contain the estimated asymptotic standard errors of the estimates of , i.e., contains the estimated asymptotic standard error of the estimate contained in , for .
The elements above the diagonal contain the estimated asymptotic correlation between the estimates of , i.e., , contains the asymptotic correlation between the estimates contained in and .
The elements below the diagonal contain the estimated asymptotic covariance between the estimates of , i.e., , contains the estimated asymptotic covariance between the estimates contained in and .
17: – IntegerInput
On entry: the stride separating matrix column elements in the array c.
Constraint:
.
18: – doubleOutput
On exit: contains the residuals from the model evaluated at final value of theta, i.e., , for , contains the vector .
19: – doubleOutput
On exit: contains the vector of weights. contains the weight for the th observation, for .
20: – doubleInput
On entry: the relative precision for the calculation of (if ), the estimates of and the estimate of (if ). Convergence is assumed when the relative change in all elements being considered is less than tol.
If and , tol is also used to determine the precision of .
It is advisable for tol to be greater than machine precision.
Constraint:
.
21: – IntegerInput
On entry: the maximum number of iterations that should be used in the calculation of (if ), and of the estimates of and , and of (if and )
Suggested value:
A value of should be adequate for most uses.
Constraint:
.
22: – IntegerInput
On entry: the amount of information that is printed on each iteration.
No information is printed.
The current estimate of , the change in during the current iteration and the current value of are printed on the first and every iterations.
Also, if and then information on the iterations to calculate is printed. This is the current estimate of and the maximum value of (see Section 3).
23: – const char *Input
On entry: a null terminated character string giving the name of the file to which results should be printed. If outfile is NULL or an empty string then the stdout stream is used. Note that the file will be opened in the append mode.
24: – doubleOutput
On exit: elements of info contain the following values:
if ,
or if ,
number of iterations used to calculate .
number of iterations used to calculate final estimates of and .
, the rank of the weighted least squares equations.
25: – NagError *Input/Output
The NAG error argument (see Section 7 in the Introduction to the NAG Library CL Interface).
6Error Indicators and Warnings
NE_2_INT_ARG_GE
On entry, while . These arguments must satisfy .
NE_2_INT_ARG_LT
On entry, while . These arguments must satisfy .
On entry, while . These arguments must satisfy .
NE_ALLOC_FAIL
Dynamic memory allocation failed.
NE_BAD_HAMPEL_PSI_FUN
On entry, and , and . For this value of psifun, the elements of hpsi must satisfy the condition and .
NE_BAD_PARAM
On entry, argument covmat_est had an illegal value.
On entry, argument sigma_est had an illegal value.
NE_BETA1_ITER_EXCEEDED
The number of iterations required to calculate exceeds max_iter. This is only applicable if and .
NE_COV_MAT_FACTOR_ZERO
In calculating the correlation factor for the asymptotic variance-covariance matrix, the factor for covariance matrix .
For this error, either the value of
or
,
or
.
See Section 9. In this case c is returned as .
(This is only applicable if ).
NE_ERR_DOF_LEQ_ZERO
, rank of . The degrees of freedom for error, (rank of x) must be .
NE_ESTIM_SIGMA_ZERO
The estimated value of was during an iteration.
NE_INT_ARG_LE
On entry, max_iter must not be less than or equal to 0: .
NE_INT_ARG_LT
On entry, .
Constraint: .
On entry, .
Constraint: .
NE_INTERNAL_ERROR
An internal error has occurred in this function. Check the function call and any array sizes. If the call is correct then please contact NAG for assistance.
On entry, and . For this value of psifun, cpsi must be .
NE_INVALID_MALLOWS_REG_C
On entry, , and . For this value of regtype, cucv must be .
NE_INVALID_SCHWEPPE_REG_C
On entry, , and . For this value of regtype, cucv must be .
NE_LSQ_FAIL_CONV
The iterations to solve the weighted least squares equations failed to converge.
NE_NOT_APPEND_FILE
Cannot open file for appending.
NE_NOT_CLOSE_FILE
Cannot close file .
NE_REAL_ARG_LE
On entry, sigma must not be less than or equal to 0.0: .
On entry, tol must not be less than or equal to 0.0: .
NE_REG_MAT_SINGULAR
Failure to invert matrix while calculating covariance.
If , then is almost singular.
If , then is singular or almost singular. This may be due to too many diagonal elements of the matrix being zero, see Section 9.
NE_THETA_ITER_EXCEEDED
The number of iterations required to calculate and exceeds max_iter. In this case, on exit.
NE_VAR_THETA_LEQ_ZERO
The estimated variance for an element of . In this case the diagonal element of c will contain the negative variance and the above diagonal elements in the row and the column corresponding to the element will be returned as zero.
This error may be caused by rounding errors or too many of the diagonal elements of p being zero. See Section 9.
NE_WT_ITER_EXCEEDED
The number of iterations required to calculate the weights exceeds max_iter. This is only applicable if .
NE_WT_LSQ_NOT_FULL_RANK
The weighted least squares equations are not of full rank.
7Accuracy
The precision of the estimates is determined by tol, see Section 5. As a more stable method is used to calculate the estimates of than is used to calculate the covariance matrix, it is possible for the least squares equations to be of full rank but the matrix to be too nearly singular to be inverted.
8Parallelism and Performance
Background information to multithreading can be found in the Multithreading documentation.
g02hac is not threaded in any implementation.
9Further Comments
In cases when it is important for the value of sigma to be of a reasonable magnitude. Too small a value may cause too many of the winsorized residuals, i.e., to be zero or a value of , used to estimate the asymptotic covariance matrix, to be zero. This can lead to errors with fail set to one of the following values:
The number of observations and the number of variables are read in followed by the data. The option arguments are then read in (in this case giving: Schweppe type regression with Hampel's function and Huber's function and then using the ‘replace expected by observed’ option in calculating the covariances). Finally a set of values for the constants are read in. After a call to g02hac, , its standard error and are printed. In addition the weight and residual for each observation is printed.