separate 'entangled' vectors in Matlab - matlab

Question

I have a set of three vectors (stored into a 3xN matrix) which are 'entangled' (e.g. some value in the second row should be in the third row and vice versa). This 'entanglement' is based on looking at the figure in which alpha2 is plotted. To separate the vector I use a difference based approach where I calculate the difference of one value with respect the three next values (e.g. comparing (1,i) with (:,i+1)). Then I take the minimum and store that. The method works to separate two of the three vectors, but not for the last.
I was wondering if you guys can share your ideas with me how to solve this problem (if possible). I have added my coded below.
Thanks in advance!
Problem in figures:
clear all; close all; clc;
%%
alpha2 = [-23.32 -23.05 -22.24 -20.91 -19.06 -16.70 -13.83 -10.49 -6.70;
-0.46 -0.33 0.19 2.38 5.44 9.36 14.15 19.80 26.32;
-1.58 -1.13 0.06 0.70 1.61 2.78 4.23 5.99 8.09];
%%% Original
figure()
hold on
plot(alpha2(1,:))
plot(alpha2(2,:))
plot(alpha2(3,:))
%%% Store start values
store1(1,1) = alpha2(1,1);
store2(1,1) = alpha2(2,1);
store3(1,1) = alpha2(3,1);
for i=1:size(alpha2,2)-1
for j=1:size(alpha2,1)
Alpha1(j,i) = abs(store1(1,i)-alpha2(j,i+1));
Alpha2(j,i) = abs(store2(1,i)-alpha2(j,i+1));
Alpha3(j,i) = abs(store3(1,i)-alpha2(j,i+1));
[~, I] = min(Alpha1(:,i));
store1(1,i+1) = alpha2(I,i+1);
[~, I] = min(Alpha2(:,i));
store2(1,i+1) = alpha2(I,i+1);
[~, I] = min(Alpha3(:,i));
store3(1,i+1) = alpha2(I,i+1);
end
end
%%% Plot to see if separation worked
figure()
hold on
plot(store1)
plot(store2)
plot(store3)

Answer 1

Solution using extrapolation via polyfit:
The idea is pretty simple: Iterate over all positions i and use polyfit to fit polynomials of degree d to the d+1 values from F(:,i-(d+1)) up to F(:,i). Use those polynomials to extrapolate the function values F(:,i+1). Then compute the permutation of the real values F(:,i+1) that fits those extrapolations best. This should work quite well, if there are only a few functions involved. There is certainly some room for improvement, but for your simple setting it should suffice.
function F = untangle(F, maxExtrapolationDegree)
%// UNTANGLE(F) untangles the functions F(i,:) via extrapolation.
if nargin<2
maxExtrapolationDegree = 4;
end
extrapolate = #(f) polyval(polyfit(1:length(f),f,length(f)-1),length(f)+1);
extrapolateAll = #(F) cellfun(extrapolate, num2cell(F,2));
fitCriterion = #(X,Y) norm(X(:)-Y(:),1);
nFuncs = size(F,1);
nPoints = size(F,2);
swaps = perms(1:nFuncs);
errorOfFit = zeros(1,size(swaps,1));
for i = 1:nPoints-1
nextValues = extrapolateAll(F(:,max(1,i-(maxExtrapolationDegree+1)):i));
for j = 1:size(swaps,1)
errorOfFit(j) = fitCriterion(nextValues, F(swaps(j,:),i+1));
end
[~,j_bestSwap] = min(errorOfFit);
F(:,i+1) = F(swaps(j_bestSwap,:),i+1);
end
Initial solution: (not that pretty - Skip this part)
This is a similar solution that tries to minimize the sum of the derivatives up to some degree of the vector valued function F = #(j) alpha2(:,j). It does so by stepping through the positions i and checks all possible permutations of the coordinates of i to get a minimal seminorm of the function F(1:i).
(I'm actually wondering right now if there is any canonical mathematical way to define the seminorm so we get our expected results... I initially was going for the H^1 and H^2 seminorms, but they didn't quite work...)
function F = untangle(F)
nFuncs = size(F,1);
nPoints = size(F,2);
seminorm = #(x,i) sum(sum(abs(diff(x(:,1:i),1,2)))) + ...
sum(sum(abs(diff(x(:,1:i),2,2)))) + ...
sum(sum(abs(diff(x(:,1:i),3,2)))) + ...
sum(sum(abs(diff(x(:,1:i),4,2))));
doSwap = #(x,swap,i) [x(:,1:i-1), x(swap,i:end)];
swaps = perms(1:nFuncs);
normOfSwap = zeros(1,size(swaps,1));
for i = 2:nPoints
for j = 1:size(swaps,1)
normOfSwap(j) = seminorm(doSwap(F,swaps(j,:),i),i);
end
[~,j_bestSwap] = min(normOfSwap);
F = doSwap(F,swaps(j_bestSwap,:),i);
end
Usage:
The command alpha2 = untangle(alpha2); will untangle your functions:
It should even work for more complicated data, like these shuffled sine-waves:
nPoints = 100;
nFuncs = 5;
t = linspace(0, 2*pi, nPoints);
F = bsxfun(#(a,b) sin(a*b), (1:nFuncs).', t);
for i = 1:nPoints
F(:,i) = F(randperm(nFuncs),i);
end
Remark: I guess if you already know that your functions will be quadratic or some other special form, RANSAC would be a better idea for larger number of functions. This could also be useful if the functions are not given with the same x-value spacing.