Happy Pi Day! Every year on March 14th (written 3/14 in the US), people in the mathematical sciences celebrate "all things pi-related" because 3.14 is the three-decimal approximation to π ≈ 3.14159265358979.... Modern computer methods and algorithms enable us to calculate 100 trillion digits of π. However, I think it
A SAS programmer wanted to compute the distribution of X-Y, where X and Y are two beta-distributed random variables. Pham-Gia and Turkkan (1993) derive a formula for the PDF of this distribution. Unfortunately, the PDF involves evaluating a two-dimensional generalized hypergeometric function, which is not available in all programming languages.
In applied mathematics, there is a large collection of "special functions." These function appera in certain applications, often as the solution to a differential equation, but also in the definition of probability distributions. For example, I have written about Bessel functions, the complete and incomplete gamma function, and the complete
Monotonic transformations occur frequently in math and statistics. Analysts use monotonic transformations to transform variable values, with Tukey's ladder of transformations and the Box-Cox transformations being familiar examples. Monotonic distributions figure prominently in probability theory because the cumulative distribution is a monotonic increasing function. For a continuous distribution that is
A colleague was struggling to compute a right-tail probability for a distribution. Recall that the cumulative distribution function (CDF) is defined as a left-tail probability. For a continuous random variable, X, with density function f, the CDF at the value x is F(x) = Pr(X ≤ x) = ∫
Recently, I needed to solve an optimization problem in which the objective function included a term that involved the quantile function (inverse CDF) of the t distribution, which is shown to the right for DF=5 degrees of freedom. I casually remarked to my colleague that the optimizer would have to
To a numerical analyst, numerical integration has two meanings. Numerical integration often means solving a definite integral such as $$int_{a}^b f(s) , ds$$. Numerical integration is also called quadrature because it computes areas. The other meaning applies to solving ordinary differential equations (ODEs). My article about new methods for solving
Many discussions and articles about SAS Viya emphasize its ability to handle Big Data, perform parallel processing, and integrate open-source languages. These are important issues for some SAS customers. But for customers who program in SAS and do not have Big Data, SAS Viya is attractive because it is the
The graph to the right is the quantile function for the standard normal distribution, which is sometimes called the probit function. Given any probability, p, the quantile function gives the value, x, such that the area under the normal density curve to the left of x is exactly p. This
Statistical programmers need to access numerical constants that help us to write robust and accurate programs. Specifically, it is necessary to know when it is safe to perform numerical operations such as raising a number to a power without exceeding the largest number that is representable in finite-precision arithmetic. This
A previous article showed how to use SAS to compute finite-difference derivatives of smooth vector-valued multivariate functions. The article uses the NLPFDD subroutine in SAS/IML to compute the finite-difference derivatives. The article states that the third output argument of the NLPFDD subroutine "contains the matrix product J`*J, where J is
I previously showed how to use SAS to compute finite-difference derivatives for smooth scalar-valued functions of several variables. You can use the NLPFDD subroutine in SAS/IML software to approximate the gradient vector (first derivatives) and the Hessian matrix (second derivatives). The computation uses finite-difference derivatives to approximate the derivatives. The
Many applications in mathematics and statistics require the numerical computation of the derivatives of smooth multivariate functions. For simple algebraic and trigonometric functions, you often can write down expressions for the first and second partial derivatives. However, for complicated functions, the formulas can get unwieldy (and some applications do not
It is important to be able to detect whether a numerical matrix is symmetric. Some operations in linear algebra require symmetric matrices. Sometimes, you can use special algorithms to factor a symmetric matrix. In both cases, you need to test a matrix for symmetry. A symmetric matrix must be square.
Recently, I needed to implement a line search algorithm in SAS. The line search is illustrated by the figure at the right. You start with a point, p, in d-dimensional space and a direction vector, v. (In the figure, d=2, but in general d > 1.) The goal is to
Recently, a SAS programmer commented about one of my blog posts. He said that he had found an alternative answer on another website. Whereas my answer was formulated in terms of the normal cumulative distribution function (CDF), the other answer used the ERF function. This article shows the relationship between
As mentioned in my article about Monte Carlo estimate of (one-dimensional) integrals, one of the advantages of Monte Carlo integration is that you can perform multivariate integrals on complicated regions. This article demonstrates how to use SAS to obtain a Monte Carlo estimate of a double integral over rectangular and
A previous article shows how to use Monte Carlo simulation to estimate a one-dimensional integral on a finite interval. A larger random sample will (on average) result in an estimate that is closer to the true value of the integral than a smaller sample. This article shows how you can
Numerical integration is important in many areas of applied mathematics and statistics. For one-dimensional integrals on the interval (a, b), SAS software provides two important tools for numerical integration: For common univariate probability distributions, you can use the CDF function to integrate the density, thus obtaining the probability that a
This is my Pi Day post for 2021. Every year on March 14th (written 3/14 in the US), geeky mathematicians and their friends celebrate "all things pi-related" because 3.14 is the three-decimal approximation to pi. Most years I write about lower-case pi (π), which is the ratio of a circle's
Finite-precision computations can be tricky. You might know, mathematically, that a certain result must be non-negative or must be within a certain interval. However, when you actually compute that result on a computer that uses finite-precision, you might observe that the value is slightly negative or slightly outside of the
Finding the root (or zero) of a nonlinear function is an important computational task. In the case of a one-variable function, you can use the SOLVE function in PROC FCMP to find roots of nonlinear functions in the DATA step. This article shows how to use the SOLVE function to
If you have ever run a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for normality, you have encountered the Kolmogorov D statistic. The Kolmogorov D statistic is used to assess whether a random sample was drawn from a specified distribution. Although it is frequently used to test for normality, the statistic is "distribution free" in
In a previous article, I discussed the definition of the Kullback-Leibler (K-L) divergence between two discrete probability distributions. For completeness, this article shows how to compute the Kullback-Leibler divergence between two continuous distributions. When f and g are discrete distributions, the K-L divergence is the sum of f(x)*log(f(x)/g(x)) over all
This article shows how to perform two-dimensional bilinear interpolation in SAS by using a SAS/IML function. It is assumed that you have observed the values of a response variable on a regular grid of locations. A previous article showed how to interpolate inside one rectangular cell. When you have a
I've previously written about linear interpolation in one dimension. Bilinear interpolation is a method for two-dimensional interpolation on a rectangle. If the value of a function is known at the four corners of a rectangle, an interpolation scheme gives you a way to estimate the function at any point in
This article shows how to find local maxima and maxima on a regression curve, which means finding points where the slope of the curve is zero. An example appears at the right, which shows locations where the loess smoother in a scatter plot has local minima and maxima. Except for
I recently showed how to use linear interpolation in SAS. Linear interpolation is a common way to interpolate between a set of planar points, but the interpolating function (the interpolant) is not smooth. If you want a smoother interpolant, you can use cubic spline interpolation. This article describes how to
SAS programmers sometimes ask about ways to perform one-dimensional linear interpolation in SAS. This article shows three ways to perform linear interpolation in SAS: PROC IML (in SAS/IML software), PROC EXPAND (in SAS/ETS software), and PROC TRANSREG (in SAS/STAT software). Of these, PROC IML Is the simplest to use and
I've previously written about how to generate points that are uniformly distributed in the unit disk. A seemingly unrelated topic is the distribution of eigenvalues (in the complex plane) of various kinds of random matrices. However, I recently learned that these topics are somewhat related! A mathematical result called the
