Covariance-Approximation: Best Approximation to Covariance Structure

Covariance ApproximationR Documentation

Best Approximation to Covariance Structure

Description

Compute the best positive approximant for use in the STCOS model, under several prespecified covariance structures.

Usage

cov_approx_randwalk(Delta, S)

cov_approx_blockdiag(Delta, S)

Arguments

Delta

Covariance (n \times n) for observations within a time point for the process whose variance we wish to approximate.

S

Design matrix (N \times r) of basis functions evaluated on the fine-level process over T = N / n time points.

Details

Let \bm{\Sigma} be an N \times N symmetric and positive-definite covariance matrix and \bm{S} be an N \times r matrix with rank r. The objective is to compute a matrix \bm{K} which minimizes the Frobenius norm

\Vert \bm{\Sigma} - \bm{S} \bm{C} \bm{S}^\top {\Vert}_\textrm{F},

over symmetric positive-definite matrices \bm{C}. The solution is given by

\bm{K} = (\bm{S}^\top \bm{S})^{-1} \bm{S}^\top \bm{\Sigma} \bm{S} (\bm{S}^\top \bm{S})^{-1}.

In the STCOS model, \bm{S} represents the design matrix from a basis function computed from a fine-level support having n areas, using T time steps. Therefore N = n T represents the dimension of covariance for the fine-level support.

We provide functions to handle some possible structures for target covariance matrices of the form

\bm{\Sigma} = \left( \begin{array}{ccc} \bm{\Gamma}(1,1) & \cdots & \bm{\Gamma}(1,T) \\ \vdots & \ddots & \vdots \\ \bm{\Gamma}(T,1) & \cdots & \bm{\Gamma}(T,T) \end{array} \right),

where each \bm{\Gamma}(s,t) is an n \times n matrix.

  • cov_approx_randwalk assumes \bm{\Sigma} is based on the autocovariance function of a random walk

    \bm{Y}_{t+1} = \bm{Y}_{t} + \bm{\epsilon}_t, \quad \bm{\epsilon}_t \sim \textrm{N}(\bm{0}, \bm{\Delta}).

    so that

    \bm{\Gamma}(s,t) = \min(s,t) \bm{\Delta}.

  • cov_approx_blockdiag assumes \bm{\Sigma} is based on

    \bm{Y}_{t+1} = \bm{Y}_{t} + \bm{\epsilon}_t, \quad \bm{\epsilon}_t \sim \textrm{N}(\bm{0}, \bm{\Delta}).

    which are independent across t, so that

    \bm{\Gamma}(s,t) = I(s = t) \bm{\Delta},

The block structure is used to reduce the computational burden, as N may be large.


holans/ST-COS documentation built on Aug. 28, 2023, 5:50 a.m.