Hi, I noticed that numpy.linalg.matrix_rank sometimes gives full rank for matrices that are numerically rank deficient:
If I repeatedly make random matrices, then set the first column to be equal to the sum of the second and third columns: def make_deficient(): X = np.random.normal(size=(40, 10)) deficient_X = X.copy() deficient_X[:, 0] = deficient_X[:, 1] + deficient_X[:, 2] return deficient_X then the current numpy.linalg.matrix_rank algorithm returns full rank (10) in about 8 percent of cases (see appended script). I think this is a tolerance problem. The ``matrix_rank`` algorithm does this by default: S = spl.svd(M, compute_uv=False) tol = S.max() * np.finfo(S.dtype).eps return np.sum(S > tol) I guess we'd we want the lowest tolerance that nearly always or always identifies numerically rank deficient matrices. I suppose one way of looking at whether the tolerance is in the right range is to compare the calculated tolerance (``tol``) to the minimum singular value (``S.min()``) because S.min() in our case should be very small and indicate the rank deficiency. The mean value of tol / S.min() for the current algorithm, across many iterations, is about 2.8. We might hope this value would be higher than 1, but not much higher, otherwise we might be rejecting too many columns. Our current algorithm for tolerance is the same as the 2-norm of M * eps. We're citing Golub and Van Loan for this, but now I look at our copy (p 261, last para) - they seem to be suggesting using u * |M| where u = (p 61, section 2.4.2) eps / 2. (see [1]). I think the Golub and Van Loan suggestion corresponds to: tol = np.linalg.norm(M, np.inf) * np.finfo(M.dtype).eps / 2 This tolerance gives full rank for these rank-deficient matrices in about 39 percent of cases (tol / S.min() ratio of 1.7) We see on p 56 (section 2.3.2) that: m, n = M.shape 1 / sqrt(n) . |M|_{inf} <= |M|_2 So we can get an upper bound on |M|_{inf} with |M|_2 * sqrt(n). Setting: tol = S.max() * np.finfo(M.dtype).eps / 2 * np.sqrt(n) gives about 0.5 percent error (tol / S.min() of 4.4) Using the Mathworks threshold [2]: tol = S.max() * np.finfo(M.dtype).eps * max((m, n)) There are no false negatives (0 percent rank 10), but tol / S.min() is around 110 - so conservative, in this case. So - summary - I'm worrying our current threshold is too small, letting through many rank-deficient matrices without detection. I may have misread Golub and Van Loan, but maybe we aren't doing what they suggest. Maybe what we could use is either the MATLAB threshold or something like: tol = S.max() * np.finfo(M.dtype).eps * np.sqrt(n) - so 2 * the upper bound for the inf norm = 2 * |M|_2 * sqrt(n) . This gives 0 percent misses and tol / S.min() of 8.7. What do y'all think? Best, Matthew [1] http://matthew-brett.github.com/pydagogue/floating_error.html#machine-epsilon [2] http://www.mathworks.com/help/techdoc/ref/rank.html Output from script: Percent undetected current: 9.8, tol / S.min(): 2.762 Percent undetected inf norm: 39.1, tol / S.min(): 1.667 Percent undetected upper bound inf norm: 0.5, tol / S.min(): 4.367 Percent undetected upper bound inf norm * 2: 0.0, tol / S.min(): 8.734 Percent undetected MATLAB: 0.0, tol / S.min(): 110.477 <script> import numpy as np import scipy.linalg as npl M = 40 N = 10 def make_deficient(): X = np.random.normal(size=(M, N)) deficient_X = X.copy() if M > N: # Make a column deficient deficient_X[:, 0] = deficient_X[:, 1] + deficient_X[:, 2] else: # Make a row deficient deficient_X[0] = deficient_X[1] + deficient_X[2] return deficient_X matrices = [] ranks = [] ranks_inf = [] ranks_ub_inf = [] ranks_ub2_inf = [] ranks_mlab = [] tols = np.zeros((1000, 6)) for i in range(1000): m = make_deficient() matrices.append(m) # The SVD tolerances S = npl.svd(m, compute_uv=False) S0 = S.max() # u in Golub and Van Loan == numpy eps / 2 eps = np.finfo(m.dtype).eps u = eps / 2 # Current numpy matrix_rank algorithm ranks.append(np.linalg.matrix_rank(m)) # Which is the same as: tol_s0 = S0 * eps # ranks.append(np.linalg.matrix_rank(m, tol=tol_s0)) # Golub and Van Loan suggestion tol_inf = npl.norm(m, np.inf) * u ranks_inf.append(np.linalg.matrix_rank(m, tol=tol_inf)) # Upper bound of |X|_{inf} tol_ub_inf = tol_s0 * np.sqrt(N) / 2 ranks_ub_inf.append(np.linalg.matrix_rank(m, tol=tol_ub_inf)) # Times 2 fudge tol_ub2_inf = tol_s0 * np.sqrt(N) ranks_ub2_inf.append(np.linalg.matrix_rank(m, tol=tol_ub2_inf)) # MATLAB algorithm tol_mlab = tol_s0 * max(m.shape) ranks_mlab.append(np.linalg.matrix_rank(m, tol=tol_mlab)) # Collect tols tols[i] = tol_s0, tol_inf, tol_ub_inf, tol_ub2_inf, tol_mlab, S.min() rel_tols = tols / tols[:, -1][:, None] fmt = 'Percent undetected %s: %3.1f, tol / S.min(): %2.3f' max_rank = min(M, N) for name, ranks, mrt in zip( ('current', 'inf norm', 'upper bound inf norm', 'upper bound inf norm * 2', 'MATLAB'), (ranks, ranks_inf, ranks_ub_inf, ranks_ub2_inf, ranks_mlab), rel_tols.mean(axis=0)[:5]): pcnt = np.sum(np.array(ranks) == max_rank) / 1000. * 100 print fmt % (name, pcnt, mrt) </script> _______________________________________________ NumPy-Discussion mailing list NumPy-Discussion@scipy.org http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion