inverse() vs pinv() which one good for linear system - matlab

I have a linear system A*x=b. Here x is the unknown value, so I have to solve for x. A is a sparse matrix whose diagonal and off-diagonal elements have some non-zero values. The other elements is zero or close to zero.
Using MATLAB, I have two options
x = inv(A) * b
x = A \ b
But both give me NaNs in the result. I know this will happen because A is a sparse matrix. So, I tried pinv() which is pseudo-inverse. This time I got some results.
Is it OK to use pseudo-inverse in a situation like this, where inverse has failed to produce a result? What type of result does pseudo inverse produce? Is it reliable or it is a form of error?

Related

Matlab: Computing norm of a vector

a is a n by 1 vector. X is a n by n matrix.
I want to computer a norm of a vector X*a. I know I can do it by norm(X*a). By strangeness arises when I want to do it myself:
If I do it sqrt(a'*X'*X*a)
I got the warning of
Parethesize the multiplication of 'X' and its transpose to ensure the result is Hermetian.”
Therefore should the norm be sqrt(a'*(X'*X)*a) (as the warning suggest) or
sqrt((a'*X')*(X*a)) (which seems more correct to me).
I try to compare them together with the norm function for some simple examples but they seem to be the same. But if I apply it to my program which involve time-dependent matrix they are different (shown in plotting).

Very small numerical issues with hessian symmetry and sparse command

I am using IPOPT in MATLAB to run an optimization and I am running into some issues where it says:
Hessian must be an n x n sparse, symmetric and lower triangular matrix
with row indices in increasing order, where n is the number of variables.
After looking at my Hessian Matrix, I found that the non-symmetric elements it is complaining about are very close, here is an example:
H(k,j) = 2.956404205984938
H(j,k) = 2.956404205984939
Obviously these elements are close enough and there are some numerical round-off issues or something of the like. Also, when I call MATLABs issymmetric function with H as an input, I get false. Is there a way to forget about these very small differences in symmetry?
A little more info:
I am using an optimized matlabFunction to actually calculate the entire hessian (H), then I did some postprocessing before passing it to IPOPT:
H = tril(H);
H = sparse(H);
The tril command generates a lower triangular matrix, so these numeral differences should not come into play. So, the issue might be that it is complaining that the sparse command passes back increasing column indices and not increasing row indices. Is there a way to change this so that it passes back the sparse matrix in increasing row indices?
If H is very close to symmetric but not quite, and you need to force it to be exactly symmetric, a standard way to do this would be to say H = (H+H')./2.

How to multiply matrix of nxm with matrix nxmxp different dimensions in matlab

In my current analysis, I am trying to multiply a matrix (flm), of dimension nxm, with the inverse of a matrix nxmxp, and then use this result to multiply it by the inverse of the matrix (flm).
I was trying using the following code:
flm = repmat(Data.fm.flm(chan,:),[1 1 morder]); %chan -> is a vector 1by3
A = (flm(:,:,:)/A_inv(:,:,:))/flm(:,:,:);
However. due to the problem of dimensions, I am getting the following error message:
Error using ==> mrdivide
Inputs must be 2-D, or at least one
input must be scalar.
To compute elementwise RDIVIDE, use
RDIVIDE (./) instead.
I have no idea on how to proceed without using a for loop, so anyone as any suggestion?
I think you are looking for a way to conveniently multiply matrices when one is of higher dimensionality than the other. In that case you can use bxsfun to automatically 'expand' the smaller matrix.
x = rand(3,4);
y = rand(3,4,5);
bsxfun(#times,x,y)
It is quite simple, and very efficient.
Make sure to check out doc bsxfun for more examples.

it is possible determinant of matrix(256*256) be infinite

i have (256*1) vectors of feature come from (16*16) of gray images. number of vectors is 550
when i compute Sample covariance of this vectors and compute covariance matrix determinant
answer is inf
it is possible determinant of finite matrix with finite range (0:255) value be infinite or i mistake some where?
in fact i want classification with bayesian estimation , my distribution is gaussian and when
i compute determinant be inf and ultimate Answer(likelihood) is zero .
some part of my code:
Mean = mean(dataSet,2);
MeanMatrix = Mean*ones(1,NoC);
Xc = double(dataSet)-MeanMatrix; % transform data to the origine
Sigma = (1/NoC) *Xc*Xc'; % calculate sample covariance matrix
Parameters(i).M = Mean';
Parameters(i).C = Sigma;
likelihoods(i) = (1/(2*pi*sqrt(det(params(i).C)))) * (exp(-0.5 * (double(X)-params(i).M)' * inv(params(i).C) * (double(X)-params(i).M)));
variable i show my classes;
variable X show my feature vector;
Can the determinant of such matrix be infinite? No it cannot.
Can it evaluate as infinite? Yes definitely.
Here is an example of a matrix with a finite amount of elements, that are not too big, yet the determinant will rarely evaluate as a finite number:
det(rand(255)*255)
In your case, probably what is happening is that you have too few datapoints to produce a full-rank covariance matrix.
For instance, if you have N examples, each with dimension d, and N<d, then your d x d covariance matrix will not be full rank and will have a determinant of zero.
In this case, a matrix inverse (precision matrix) does not exist. However, attempting to compute the determinant of the inverse (by taking 1/|X'*X|=1/0 -> \infty) will produce an infinite value.
One way to get around this problem is to set the covariance to X'*X+eps*eye(d), where eps is a small value. This technique corresponds to placing a weak prior distribution on elements of X.
no it is not possible. it may be singular but taking elements a large value has will have a determinant value.

How to find if a matrix is Singular in Matlab

I use the function below to generate the betas for a given set of guess lambdas from my optimiser.
When running I often get the following warning message:
Warning: Matrix is singular to working precision.
In NSS_betas at 9
In DElambda at 19
In Individual_Lambdas at 36
I'd like to be able to exclude any betas that form a singular matrix form the solution set, however I don't know how to test for it?
I've been trying to use rcond() but I don't know where to make the cut off between singular and non singular?
Surely if Matlab is generating the warning message it already knows if the matrix is singular or not so if I could just find where that variable was stored I could use that?
function betas=NSS_betas(lambda,data)
mats=data.mats2';
lambda=lambda;
yM=data.y2';
nObs=size(yM,1);
G= [ones(nObs,1) (1-exp(-mats./lambda(1)))./(mats./lambda(1)) ((1-exp(-mats./lambda(1)))./(mats./lambda(1))-exp(-mats./lambda(1))) ((1-exp(-mats./lambda(2)))./(mats./lambda(2))-exp(-mats./lambda(2)))];
betas=G\yM;
r=rcond(G);
end
Thanks for the advice:
I tested all three examples below after setting the lambda values to be equal so guiving a singular matrix
if (~isinf(G))
r=rank(G);
r2=rcond(G);
r3=min(svd(G));
end
r=3, r2 =2.602085213965190e-16; r3= 1.075949299504113e-15;
So in this test rank() and rcond () worked assuming I take the benchmark values as given below.
However what happens when I have two values that are close but not exactly equal?
How can I decide what is too close?
rcond is the right way to go here. If it nears the machine precision of zero, your matrix is singular. I usually go with:
if( rcond(A) < 1e-12 )
% This matrix doesn't look good
end
You can experiment with a value that suites your needs, but taking the inverse of a matrix that is even close to singular with MATLAB can produce garbage results.
You could compare the result of rank(G) with the number of columns of G. If the rank is less than the column dimension, you will have a singular matrix.
you can also check this by:
min(svd(A))>eps
and verifying that the smallest singular value is larger than eps, or any other numerical tolerance that is relevant to your needs. (the code will return 1 or 0)
Here's more info about it...
Condition number (Maximal singular value/Minimal singular value) is another good method:
cond(A)
It uses svd. It should be as close to 1 as possible. Very large values mean that the matrix is almost singular. Inf means that it is precisely singular.
Note that almost all of the methods mentioned in other answers use somehow svd :
There are special tools designed for this problem, appropriately called "rank revealing matrix factorizations". To my best (albeit a little old) knowledge, a good enough way to decide whether a n x n matrix A is nonsingular is to go with
det(A) <> 0 <=> rank(A) = n
and use a rank-revealing QR factorization of A:
AP = QR
where Q is orthogonal, P is a permutation matrix and R is an upper triangular matrix with the property that the magnitude of the diagonal elements is decreased along the diagonal.