NAG FL Interface
g10acf (fit_​spline_​parest)

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1 Purpose

g10acf estimates the values of the smoothing parameter and fits a cubic smoothing spline to a set of data.

2 Specification

Fortran Interface
Subroutine g10acf ( method, weight, n, x, y, wt, yhat, c, ldc, rss, df, res, h, crit, rho, u, tol, maxcal, wk, ifail)
Integer, Intent (In) :: n, ldc, maxcal
Integer, Intent (Inout) :: ifail
Real (Kind=nag_wp), Intent (In) :: x(n), y(n), wt(*), u, tol
Real (Kind=nag_wp), Intent (Inout) :: c(ldc,3), crit
Real (Kind=nag_wp), Intent (Out) :: yhat(n), rss, df, res(n), h(n), rho, wk(7*(n+2))
Character (1), Intent (In) :: method, weight
C Header Interface
#include <nag.h>
void  g10acf_ (const char *method, const char *weight, const Integer *n, const double x[], const double y[], const double wt[], double yhat[], double c[], const Integer *ldc, double *rss, double *df, double res[], double h[], double *crit, double *rho, const double *u, const double *tol, const Integer *maxcal, double wk[], Integer *ifail, const Charlen length_method, const Charlen length_weight)
The routine may be called by the names g10acf or nagf_smooth_fit_spline_parest.

3 Description

For a set of n observations (xi,yi), for i=1,2,,n, the spline provides a flexible smooth function for situations in which a simple polynomial or nonlinear regression model is not suitable.
Cubic smoothing splines arise as the unique real-valued solution function f, with absolutely continuous first derivative and squared-integrable second derivative, which minimizes
i=1nwi(yi-f(xi))2+ρ -(f(x))2dx,  
where wi is the (optional) weight for the ith observation and ρ is the smoothing parameter. This criterion consists of two parts: the first measures the fit of the curve and the second the smoothness of the curve. The value of the smoothing parameter ρ weights these two aspects; larger values of ρ give a smoother fitted curve but, in general, a poorer fit. For details of how the cubic spline can be fitted see Hutchinson and de Hoog (1985) and Reinsch (1967).
The fitted values, y^ = (y^1,y^2,,y^n) T , and weighted residuals, ri, can be written as:
y^=Hy  and  ri=wi(yi-y^i)  
for a matrix H. The residual degrees of freedom for the spline is trace(I-H) and the diagonal elements of H are the leverages.
The parameter ρ can be estimated in a number of ways.
  1. (i)The degrees of freedom for the spline can be specified, i.e., find ρ such that trace(H)=ν0 for given ν0.
  2. (ii)Minimize the cross-validation (CV), i.e., find ρ such that the CV is minimized, where
    CV=1i=1nwi i=1n [ri1-hii ] 2.  
  3. (iii)Minimize the generalized cross-validation (GCV), i.e., find ρ such that the GCV is minimized, where
    GCV=n2i=1nwi [i=1nri2 (i=1n(1-hii)) 2 ] .  
g10acf requires the xi to be strictly increasing. If two or more observations have the same xi value then they should be replaced by a single observation with yi equal to the (weighted) mean of the y values and weight, wi, equal to the sum of the weights. This operation can be performed by g10zaf.
The algorithm is based on Hutchinson (1986). c05azf is used to solve for ρ given ν0 and the method of e04abf/​e04aba is used to minimize the GCV or CV.

4 References

Hastie T J and Tibshirani R J (1990) Generalized Additive Models Chapman and Hall
Hutchinson M F (1986) Algorithm 642: A fast procedure for calculating minimum cross-validation cubic smoothing splines ACM Trans. Math. Software 12 150–153
Hutchinson M F and de Hoog F R (1985) Smoothing noisy data with spline functions Numer. Math. 47 99–106
Reinsch C H (1967) Smoothing by spline functions Numer. Math. 10 177–183

5 Arguments

1: method Character(1) Input
On entry: indicates whether the smoothing parameter is to be found by minimization of the CV or GCV functions, or by finding the smoothing parameter corresponding to a specified degrees of freedom value.
method='C'
Cross-validation is used.
method='D'
The degrees of freedom are specified.
method='G'
Generalized cross-validation is used.
Constraint: method='C', 'D' or 'G'.
2: weight Character(1) Input
On entry: indicates whether user-defined weights are to be used.
weight='W'
User-defined weights should be supplied in wt.
weight='U'
The data is treated as unweighted.
Constraint: weight='W' or 'U'.
3: n Integer Input
On entry: n, the number of observations.
Constraint: n3.
4: x(n) Real (Kind=nag_wp) array Input
On entry: the distinct and ordered values xi, for i=1,2,,n.
Constraint: x(i)<x(i+1), for i=1,2,,n-1.
5: y(n) Real (Kind=nag_wp) array Input
On entry: the values yi, for i=1,2,,n.
6: wt(*) Real (Kind=nag_wp) array Input
Note: the dimension of the array wt must be at least n if weight='W'.
On entry: if weight='W', wt must contain the n weights. Otherwise wt is not referenced and unit weights are assumed.
Constraint: if weight='W', wt(i)>0.0, for i=1,2,,n.
7: yhat(n) Real (Kind=nag_wp) array Output
On exit: the fitted values, y^i, for i=1,2,,n.
8: c(ldc,3) Real (Kind=nag_wp) array Output
On exit: the spline coefficients. More precisely, the value of the spline approximation at t is given by ((c(i,3)×d+c(i,2))×d+c(i,1))×d+y^i, where xit<xi+1 and d=t-xi.
9: ldc Integer Input
On entry: the first dimension of the array c as declared in the (sub)program from which g10acf is called.
Constraint: ldcn-1.
10: rss Real (Kind=nag_wp) Output
On exit: the (weighted) residual sum of squares.
11: df Real (Kind=nag_wp) Output
On exit: the residual degrees of freedom. If method='D' this will be n-crit to the required accuracy.
12: res(n) Real (Kind=nag_wp) array Output
On exit: the (weighted) residuals, ri, for i=1,2,,n.
13: h(n) Real (Kind=nag_wp) array Output
On exit: the leverages, hii, for i=1,2,,n.
14: crit Real (Kind=nag_wp) Input/Output
On entry: if method='D', the required degrees of freedom for the spline.
If method='C' or 'G', crit need not be set.
Constraint: 2.0<critn.
On exit: if method='C', the value of the cross-validation, or if method='G', the value of the generalized cross-validation function, evaluated at the value of ρ returned in rho.
15: rho Real (Kind=nag_wp) Output
On exit: the smoothing parameter, ρ.
16: u Real (Kind=nag_wp) Input
On entry: the upper bound on the smoothing parameter. If utol, u=1000.0 will be used instead. See Section 9 for details on how this argument is used.
17: tol Real (Kind=nag_wp) Input
On entry: the accuracy to which the smoothing parameter rho is required. tol should preferably be not much less than ε, where ε is the machine precision. If tol<ε, tol=ε will be used instead.
18: maxcal Integer Input
On entry: the maximum number of spline evaluations to be used in finding the value of ρ. If maxcal<3, maxcal=100 will be used instead.
19: wk(7×(n+2)) Real (Kind=nag_wp) array Workspace
20: ifail Integer Input/Output
On entry: ifail must be set to 0, −1 or 1 to set behaviour on detection of an error; these values have no effect when no error is detected.
A value of 0 causes the printing of an error message and program execution will be halted; otherwise program execution continues. A value of −1 means that an error message is printed while a value of 1 means that it is not.
If halting is not appropriate, the value −1 or 1 is recommended. If message printing is undesirable, then the value 1 is recommended. Otherwise, the value 0 is recommended. When the value -1 or 1 is used it is essential to test the value of ifail on exit.
On exit: ifail=0 unless the routine detects an error or a warning has been flagged (see Section 6).

6 Error Indicators and Warnings

If on entry ifail=0 or −1, explanatory error messages are output on the current error message unit (as defined by x04aaf).
Errors or warnings detected by the routine:
ifail=1
On entry, crit=value.
Constraint: if method='D', crit>2.0.
On entry, crit=value.
Constraint: if method='D', critn.
On entry, ldc=value and n=value.
Constraint: ldcn-1.
On entry, method is not valid: method=value.
On entry, n=value.
Constraint: n3.
On entry, weight=value.
Constraint: weight='W' or 'U'.
ifail=2
On entry, at least one element of wt0.0.
ifail=3
On entry, x is not a strictly ordered array.
ifail=4
For the specified degrees of freedom, rho>u: u=value.
ifail=5
Accuracy of tol cannot be achieved: tol=value.
ifail=6
maxcal iterations have been performed.
ifail=7
Optimum value of rho lies above u: u=value.
ifail=-99
An unexpected error has been triggered by this routine. Please contact NAG.
See Section 7 in the Introduction to the NAG Library FL Interface for further information.
ifail=-399
Your licence key may have expired or may not have been installed correctly.
See Section 8 in the Introduction to the NAG Library FL Interface for further information.
ifail=-999
Dynamic memory allocation failed.
See Section 9 in the Introduction to the NAG Library FL Interface for further information.

7 Accuracy

When minimizing the cross-validation or generalized cross-validation, the error in the estimate of ρ should be within ±3(tol×rho+tol). When finding ρ for a fixed number of degrees of freedom the error in the estimate of ρ should be within ±2×tol×max(1,rho).
Given the value of ρ, the accuracy of the fitted spline depends on the value of ρ and the position of the x values. The values of xi-xi-1 and wi are scaled and ρ is transformed to avoid underflow and overflow problems.

8 Parallelism and Performance

Background information to multithreading can be found in the Multithreading documentation.
g10acf is not threaded in any implementation.

9 Further Comments

The time to fit the spline for a given value of ρ is of order n.
When finding the value of ρ that gives the required degrees of freedom, the algorithm examines the interval 0.0 to u. For small degrees of freedom the value of ρ can be large, as in the theoretical case of two degrees of freedom when the spline reduces to a straight line and ρ is infinite. If the CV or GCV is to be minimized then the algorithm searches for the minimum value in the interval 0.0 to u. If the function is decreasing in that range then the boundary value of u will be returned. In either case, the larger the value of u the more likely is the interval to contain the required solution, but the process will be less efficient.
In extreme cases, the conditioning of the sub-problems being solved can be adversely affected by small relative weights, small relative differences xi-xi-1, or a combination of the two. The resultant low accuracy in the solutions to sub-problems can lead to spurious results and error exits. For example, for small degrees of freedom the correct value of ρ can be extremely large, but an inaccurate smaller value may be returned for moderate values of u and an error return of ifail=4 for larger values of u. In such cases it is advised to try using e02bef for a fixed large smoothing value, or attempt to remove data with very small relative weights to improve the conditioning of the problem.
Regression splines with a small (<n) number of knots can be fitted by e02baf and e02bef.

10 Example

This example uses the data given by Hastie and Tibshirani (1990), which consists of the age, xi, and C-peptide concentration (pmol/ml), yi, from a study of the factors affecting insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus in children. The data is input, reduced to a strictly ordered set by g10zaf and a spline with 5 degrees of freedom is fitted by g10acf. The fitted values and residuals are printed.

10.1 Program Text

Program Text (g10acfe.f90)

10.2 Program Data

Program Data (g10acfe.d)

10.3 Program Results

Program Results (g10acfe.r)