g02hmf computes a robust estimate of the covariance matrix for user-supplied weight functions. The derivatives of the weight functions are not required.
The routine may be called by the names g02hmf or nagf_correg_robustm_corr_user.
3Description
For a set of observations on variables in a matrix , a robust estimate of the covariance matrix, , and a robust estimate of location, , are given by
where is a correction factor and is a lower triangular matrix found as the solution to the following equations.
and
where
is a vector of length containing the elements of the th row of ,
is a vector of length ,
is the identity matrix and is the zero matrix.
and
and are suitable functions.
g02hmf covers two situations:
(i) for all ,
(ii).
The robust covariance matrix may be calculated from a weighted sum of squares and cross-products matrix about using weights . In case (i) a divisor of is used and in case (ii) a divisor of is used. If , then the robust covariance matrix can be calculated by scaling each row of by and calculating an unweighted covariance matrix about .
In order to make the estimate asymptotically unbiased under a Normal model a correction factor, , is needed. The value of the correction factor will depend on the functions employed (see Huber (1981) and Marazzi (1987)).
g02hmf finds using the iterative procedure as given by Huber; see Huber (1981).
and
where , for and is a lower triangular matrix such that
where
, for
and and are suitable bounds.
The value of may be chosen so that is unbiased if the observations are from a given distribution.
g02hmf is based on routines in ROBETH; see Marazzi (1987).
4References
Huber P J (1981) Robust Statistics Wiley
Marazzi A (1987) Weights for bounded influence regression in ROBETH Cah. Rech. Doc. IUMSP, No. 3 ROB 3 Institut Universitaire de Médecine Sociale et Préventive, Lausanne
5Arguments
1: – Subroutine, supplied by the user.External Procedure
ucv must return the values of the functions and for a given value of its argument.
On entry: the argument for which the functions and must be evaluated.
2: – Real (Kind=nag_wp) arrayUser Workspace
ucv is called with the argument ruser as supplied to g02hmf. You should use the array ruser to supply information to ucv.
3: – Real (Kind=nag_wp)Output
On exit: the value of the function at the point t.
Constraint:
.
4: – Real (Kind=nag_wp)Output
On exit: the value of the function at the point t.
Constraint:
.
ucv must either be a module subprogram USEd by, or declared as EXTERNAL in, the (sub)program from which g02hmf is called. Arguments denoted as Input must not be changed by this procedure.
Note:ucv should not return floating-point NaN (Not a Number) or infinity values, since these are not handled by g02hmf. If your code inadvertently does return any NaNs or infinities, g02hmf is likely to produce unexpected results.
2: – Real (Kind=nag_wp) arrayUser Workspace
ruser is not used by g02hmf, but is passed directly to ucv and may be used to pass information to this routine.
3: – IntegerInput
On entry: indicates which form of the function will be used.
.
.
4: – IntegerInput
On entry: , the number of observations.
Constraint:
.
5: – IntegerInput
On entry: , the number of columns of the matrix , i.e., number of independent variables.
Constraint:
.
6: – Real (Kind=nag_wp) arrayInput
On entry: must contain the th observation on the th variable, for and .
7: – IntegerInput
On entry: the first dimension of the array x as declared in the (sub)program from which g02hmf is called.
Constraint:
.
8: – Real (Kind=nag_wp) arrayOutput
On exit: a robust estimate of the covariance matrix, . The upper triangular part of the matrix is stored packed by columns (lower triangular stored by rows), that is is returned in , .
9: – Real (Kind=nag_wp) arrayInput/Output
On entry: an initial estimate of the lower triangular real matrix . Only the lower triangular elements must be given and these should be stored row-wise in the array.
The diagonal elements must be , and in practice will usually be . If the magnitudes of the columns of are of the same order, the identity matrix will often provide a suitable initial value for . If the columns of are of different magnitudes, the diagonal elements of the initial value of should be approximately inversely proportional to the magnitude of the columns of .
Constraint:
, for .
On exit: the lower triangular elements of the inverse of the matrix , stored row-wise.
10: – Real (Kind=nag_wp) arrayOutput
On exit: contains the weights, , for .
11: – Real (Kind=nag_wp) arrayInput/Output
On entry: an initial estimate of the location parameter,
, for .
In many cases an initial estimate of
, for , will be adequate. Alternatively medians may be used as given by g07daf.
On exit: contains the robust estimate of the location parameter,
, for .
12: – Real (Kind=nag_wp)Input
On entry: the magnitude of the bound for the off-diagonal elements of , .
Suggested value:
.
Constraint:
.
13: – Real (Kind=nag_wp)Input
On entry: the magnitude of the bound for the diagonal elements of , .
Suggested value:
.
Constraint:
.
14: – IntegerInput
On entry: the maximum number of iterations that will be used during the calculation of .
Suggested value:
.
Constraint:
.
15: – IntegerInput
On entry: indicates the amount of information on the iteration that is printed.
The value of , and (see Section 7) will be printed at the first and every nitmon iterations.
No iteration monitoring is printed.
When printing occurs the output is directed to the current advisory message channel (See x04abf.)
16: – Real (Kind=nag_wp)Input
On entry: the relative precision for the final estimate of the covariance matrix. Iteration will stop when maximum (see Section 7) is less than tol.
Constraint:
.
17: – IntegerOutput
On exit: the number of iterations performed.
18: – Real (Kind=nag_wp) arrayWorkspace
19: – IntegerInput/Output
On entry: ifail must be set to , or to set behaviour on detection of an error; these values have no effect when no error is detected.
A value of causes the printing of an error message and program execution will be halted; otherwise program execution continues. A value of means that an error message is printed while a value of means that it is not.
If halting is not appropriate, the value or is recommended. If message printing is undesirable, then the value is recommended. Otherwise, the value is recommended. When the value or is used it is essential to test the value of ifail on exit.
On exit: unless the routine detects an error or a warning has been flagged (see Section 6).
6Error Indicators and Warnings
If on entry or , explanatory error messages are output on the current error message unit (as defined by x04aaf).
Errors or warnings detected by the routine:
On entry, and .
Constraint: .
On entry, .
Constraint: .
On entry, .
Constraint: .
On entry, and .
Constraint: .
On entry, .
Constraint: .
On entry, .
Constraint: .
On entry, and the th diagonal element of is .
Constraint: all diagonal elements of must be non-zero.
On entry, .
Constraint: .
On entry, .
Constraint: .
On entry, a variable has a constant value, i.e., all elements in column of x are identical.
value returned by : .
Constraint: .
value returned by : .
Constraint: .
Iterations to calculate weights failed to converge.
The sum is zero. Try either a larger initial estimate of or make and less strict.
The sum is zero. Try either a larger initial estimate of or make and less strict.
An unexpected error has been triggered by this routine. Please
contact NAG.
See Section 7 in the Introduction to the NAG Library FL Interface for further information.
Your licence key may have expired or may not have been installed correctly.
See Section 8 in the Introduction to the NAG Library FL Interface for further information.
Dynamic memory allocation failed.
See Section 9 in the Introduction to the NAG Library FL Interface for further information.
7Accuracy
On successful exit the accuracy of the results is related to the value of tol; see Section 5. At an iteration let
(i) the maximum value of
(ii) the maximum absolute change in
(iii) the maximum absolute relative change in
and let . Then the iterative procedure is assumed to have converged when .
8Parallelism and Performance
Background information to multithreading can be found in the Multithreading documentation.
g02hmf makes calls to BLAS and/or LAPACK routines, which may be threaded within the vendor library used by this implementation. Consult the documentation for the vendor library for further information.
Please consult the X06 Chapter Introduction for information on how to control and interrogate the OpenMP environment used within this routine. Please also consult the Users' Note for your implementation for any additional implementation-specific information.
9Further Comments
The existence of will depend upon the function (see Marazzi (1987)); also if is not of full rank a value of will not be found. If the columns of are almost linearly related, then convergence will be slow.
If derivatives of the and functions are available then the method used in g02hlf will usually give much faster convergence.
10Example
A sample of observations on three variables is read in along with initial values for and and parameter values for the and functions, and . The covariance matrix computed by g02hmf is printed along with the robust estimate of .