[R] [SPAM] - constructing arbitrary (positive definite) covariance matrix - Found word(s) list error in the Text body
Mizanur Khondoker
Mizanur.Khondoker at ed.ac.uk
Fri Jun 27 10:20:43 CEST 2008
Thanks to everyone who responded to my email.
Moshe's email explains clearly why my matrices were not positive
definite for certain negative correlations.
I now have better understanding of the problem.
Thanks
Mizan
2008/6/27 Moshe Olshansky <m_olshansky at yahoo.com>:
> If the main diagonal element of matrix A is 1 and the off diagonal element is a then for any vector x we get that t(x)*A*x = (1-a)*sum(x^2) +a*(sum(x))^2 . If we want A to be positive (semi)definite we need this expression to be positive (non-negative) for any x!= 0. Since sum(x)^2/sum(x*2) <= n where n is the dimension of the matrix and equality is possible we get that A is positive (semi)definite if and only if -1/(n-1) <= a <= 1 (sharp inequalities for positive definiteness).
> Since any symmetric (semi)positive definite matrix can be a covariance matrix this describes all the matrices which satisfy the requirement.
>
>
> --- On Fri, 27/6/08, Patrick Burns <pburns at pburns.seanet.com> wrote:
>
>> From: Patrick Burns <pburns at pburns.seanet.com>
>> Subject: Re: [R] [SPAM] - constructing arbitrary (positive definite) covariance matrix - Found word(s) list error in the Text body
>> To: davidr at rhotrading.com
>> Cc: "Mizanur Khondoker" <Mizanur.Khondoker at ed.ac.uk>, r-help at r-project.org
>> Received: Friday, 27 June, 2008, 3:15 AM
>> To make David's approach a little more concrete:
>> You can always have correlations all equal to 1 --
>> the variables are all the same, except for the names
>> you've given them. You can have two variables
>> with correlation -1, but you can't get a third variable
>> that has -1 correlation to both of the first two.
>>
>>
>> Patrick Burns
>> patrick at burns-stat.com
>> +44 (0)20 8525 0696
>> http://www.burns-stat.com
>> (home of S Poetry and "A Guide for the Unwilling S
>> User")
>>
>> davidr at rhotrading.com wrote:
>> > Well, if you think about the geometry, all
>> correlations equal usually
>> > won't work. Think of the SDs as the sides of a
>> simplex and the
>> > correlations as the cosines of the angles between the
>> sides (pick one
>> > variable as the 'origin'.) Only certain values
>> will give a valid
>> > covariance or correlation matrix.
>> > HTH,
>> > David L. Reiner, PhD
>> > Head Quant
>> > Rho Trading Securities, LLC
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org
>> [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org]
>> > On Behalf Of Mizanur Khondoker
>> > Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 11:11 AM
>> > To: r-help at r-project.org
>> > Subject: [SPAM] - [R] constructing arbitrary (positive
>> definite)
>> > covariance matrix - Found word(s) list error in the
>> Text body
>> >
>> > Dear list,
>> >
>> > I am trying to use the 'mvrnorm' function
>> from the MASS package for
>> > simulating multivariate Gaussian data with given
>> covariance matrix.
>> > The diagonal elements of my covariance matrix should
>> be the same,
>> > i.e., all variables have the same marginal variance.
>> Also all
>> > correlations between all pair of variables should be
>> identical, but
>> > could be any value in [-1,1]. The problem I am having
>> is that the
>> > matrix I create is not always positive definite (and
>> hence mvrnorm
>> > fails).
>> >
>> > Is there any simple way of constructing covariance
>> matrix of the above
>> > structure (equal variance, same pairwise correlation
>> from [-1, 1])
>> > that will always be positive definite?
>> > I have noticed that covraince matrices created using
>> the following COV
>> > function are positive definite for -0.5 < r <1.
>> However, for r <
>> > -0.5, the matrix is not positive definite.
>> > Does anyone have any idea why this is the case? For
>> my simualtion, I
>> > need to generate multivariate data for the whole range
>> of r, [-1, 1]
>> > for a give value of sd.
>> >
>> > Any help/ suggestion would be greatly appreciated.
>> >
>> > Examples
>> > ########
>> > COV<-function (p = 3, sd = 1, r= 0.5){
>> > cov <- diag(sd^2, ncol=p, nrow=p)
>> > for (i in 1:p) {
>> > for (j in 1:p) {
>> > if (i != j) {
>> > cov[i, j] <- r * sd*sd
>> > }
>> > }
>> > }
>> > cov
>> > }
>> >
>> >
>> >> library(MASS)
>> >> ### Simualte multivarite gaussin data (works OK)
>> >> Sigma<-COV(p = 3, sd = 2, r= 0.5)
>> >> mu<-1:3
>> >> mvrnorm(5, mu=mu, Sigma=Sigma)
>> >>
>> > [,1] [,2] [,3]
>> > [1,] 1.2979984 1.843248 4.460891
>> > [2,] 2.1061054 1.457201 3.774833
>> > [3,] 2.1578538 2.761939 4.589977
>> > [4,] 0.8775056 4.240710 2.203712
>> > [5,] 0.2698180 2.075759 2.869573
>> >
>> >> ### Simualte multivarite gaussin data ( gives
>> Error)
>> >> Sigma<-COV(p = 3, sd = 2, r= -0.6)
>> >> mu<-1:3
>> >> mvrnorm(5, mu=mu, Sigma=Sigma)
>> >>
>> > Error in mvrnorm(5, mu = mu, Sigma = Sigma) :
>> > 'Sigma' is not positive definite
>> >
>> >
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> PLEASE do read the posting guide
>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained,
>> reproducible code.
>
>
--
Mizanur Khondoker
Division of Pathway Medicine (DPM)
The University of Edinburgh Medical School
The Chancellor's Building
49 Little France Crescent
Edinburgh EH16 4SB
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 131 242 6287
Fax: +44 (0) 131 242 6244
http://www.pathwaymedicine.ed.ac.uk/
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