mkl_random.MKLRandomState.multinormal_cholesky

MKLRandomState.multinormal_cholesky(mean, ch, size=None, method='ICDF')

Draw random samples from a multivariate normal distribution.

The multivariate normal, multinormal or Gaussian distribution is a generalization of the one-dimensional normal distribution to higher dimensions. Such a distribution is specified by its mean and covariance matrix, specified by its lower triangular Cholesky factor. These parameters are analogous to the mean (average or “center”) and standard deviation, or “width,” of the one-dimensional normal distribution.

Parameters:
mean1-D array_like, of length N

Mean of the N-dimensional distribution.

ch2-D array_like, of shape (N, N)

Cholesky factor of the covariance matrix of the distribution. Only lower-triangular part of the matrix is actually used.

sizeint or tuple of ints, optional

Given a shape of, for example, (m,n,k), m*n*k samples are generated, and packed in an m-by-n-by-k arrangement. Because each sample is N-dimensional, the output shape is (m,n,k,N). If no shape is specified, a single (N-D) sample is returned.

method‘ICDF, ‘BoxMuller’, ‘BoxMuller2’, optional

Sampling method used by Intel MKL. Can also be specified using tokens mkl_random.ICDF, mkl_random.BOXMULLER, mkl_random.BOXMULLER2

Returns:
outndarray

The drawn samples, of shape size, if that was provided. If not, the shape is (N,). In other words, each entry out[i,j,...,:] is an N-dimensional value drawn from the distribution.

Notes

The mean is a coordinate in N-dimensional space, which represents the location where samples are most likely to be generated. This is analogous to the peak of the bell curve for the one-dimensional or univariate normal distribution.

Covariance indicates the level to which two variables vary together. From the multivariate normal distribution, we draw N-dimensional samples, \(X = [x_1, x_2, ... x_N]\). The covariance matrix element \(C_{ij}\) is the covariance of \(x_i\) and \(x_j\). The element \(C_{ii}\) is the variance of \(x_i\) (i.e. its “spread”).

Instead of specifying the full covariance matrix, popular approximations include:

  • Spherical covariance (cov is a multiple of the identity matrix)

  • Diagonal covariance (cov has non-negative elements, and only on the diagonal)

This geometrical property can be seen in two dimensions by plotting generated data-points:

>>> mean = [0, 0]
>>> cov = [[1, 0], [0, 100]]  # diagonal covariance

Diagonal covariance means that points are oriented along x or y-axis:

>>> import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
>>> x, y = mkl_random.multivariate_normal(mean, cov, 5000).T
>>> plt.plot(x, y, 'x')
>>> plt.axis('equal')
>>> plt.show()

Note that the covariance matrix must be positive semidefinite (a.k.a. nonnegative-definite). Otherwise, the behavior of this method is undefined and backwards compatibility is not guaranteed.

References

[1]

Papoulis, A., “Probability, Random Variables, and Stochastic Processes,” 3rd ed., New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991.

[2]

Duda, R. O., Hart, P. E., and Stork, D. G., “Pattern Classification,” 2nd ed., New York: Wiley, 2001.

Examples

>>> mean = (1, 2)
>>> cov = [[1, 0], [0, 1]]
>>> x = mkl_random.multivariate_normal(mean, cov, (3, 3))
>>> x.shape
(3, 3, 2)

The following is probably true, given that 0.6 is roughly twice the standard deviation:

>>> list((x[0,0,:] - mean) < 0.6)
[True, True]