An Introduction to amanpg

Introduction

sparsepca and amanpg find sparse loadings in principal component analysis (PCA) via an alternating manifold proximal gradient method (A-ManPG). Seeking a sparse basis allows the leading principal components to be easier to interpret when modeling with high-dimensional data. PCA is modeled as a regularized regression problem under the elastic net constraints (linearized L1 and L2 norms) in order to induce sparsity. Due to the nonsmoothness and nonconvexity numerical difficulties, A-ManPG is implemented to guarantee convergence.

The package provides a function for performing sparse PCA and a function for normalizing data.

The authors of A-ManPG are Shixiang Chen, Shiqian Ma, Lingzhou Xue, and Hui Zou. The Python and R packages are maintained by Justin Huang and Benjamin Jochem. A MATLAB implementation is maintained by Shixiang Chen.

Algorithm Description

The A-ManPG algorithm can be applied to solve the general manifold optimization problem

where H(A, B) is a smooth function of A, B with a Lipschitz continuous gradient, f(⋅) and g(⋅) are lower semicontinuous (possibly nonsmooth) convex functions, and 1, ℳ2 are two embedded submanifolds in the Euclidean space.

For sparse PCA, the following function definitions are used:

  • H(A, B) = Tr(BTXTXB) − 2Tr(ATXTXB)
  • f(A) ≡ 0
  • $g(B)=\lambda_2\sum_{j=1}^k\|B_j\|_2^2+\sum_{j=1}^k\lambda_{1,j}\|B_j\|_1$
  • 1 = St(p, k)
  • 2 = ℝp × k

where X is the n × p data matrix or n × n covariance matrix, A is the scores and B is the loadings, k is the rank of the matrices (in other words, how many principal components are desired), λ1 is the L1 norm penalty and λ2 is the L2 norm penalty. Both the L1 and L2 norm are used as elastic net regularization to impose sparseness within the loadings. Note that a different L1 norm penalty is used for every principal component, and the algorithm operates differently when the L2 norm penalty is set to a large constant (np.inf or Inf).

The A-ManPG algorithm uses the following subproblems with an alternating updating scheme to solve sparse PCA, computed in a Gauss-Seidel manner for faster convergence.

where Ak + 1 is obtained via a retraction operation (in this case, polar decomposition), t1 ≤ LA, and t2 ≤ LB. LA and LB are the least upper bounds of the Lipschitz constants for AH(A, B) and BH(A, B), respectively. The subproblems are solved using an adaptive semismooth Newton method.

Convergence

Let ϵ represent a tolerance level to detect convergence. An ϵ-stationary point is defined as a point (A, B) with corresponding DA and DB that satisfy the following:

The algorithm reaches an ϵ-stationary point in at most

$$\frac{2(F(A_0,B_0)-F^*)}{ ((\gamma\bar{\alpha}_1t_1+\gamma\bar{\alpha}_2t_2)\epsilon^2)}$$

iterations, where:

  • (A0, B0) are the initial values
  • F* is the lower bound of F, from the general manifold optimization problem
  • ᾱ1 and ᾱ2 are positive constants

Pseudocode

The following describes the algorithm used for solving the general manifold optimization problem using A-ManPG. For solving sparse PCA, the algorithm is implemented with the aforementioned definitions.

Input initial point (A0,B0) and necessary parameters for the required problem 

for i=0,1,... do
  Solve the first subproblem for Da
  Set alpha = 1
  
  while F(Retr(alpha * Da),B) > F(A,B) - alpha * norm(Da)^2 / (2 * t1) do
    alpha = gamma * alpha
  end while
  
  Set A = Retr(alpha * Da)
  
  Solve the second subproblem for Db
  Set alpha = 1
  
  while F(A,Retr(alpha * Db)) > F(A,B) - alpha * norm(Db)^2 / (2 * t2) do
    alpha = gamma * alpha
  end while
  
  Set B = Retr(alpha * Db)
end for

Return A as the scores and B as the sparse loadings

Installation

To install the R package, install amanpg directly from CRAN.

install.packages("amanpg")

To install the Python package, use pip to obtain sparsepca from PyPI.

pip3 install sparsepca

Documentation

R Usage

spca.amanpg(z, lambda1, lambda2, 
            f_palm = 1e5, x0 = NULL, y0 = NULL, k = 0, type = 0, 
            gamma = 0.5, maxiter = 1e4, tol = 1e-5, 
            normalize = TRUE, verbose = FALSE)

Python Usage

spca(z, lambda1, lambda2, 
     x0=None, y0=None, k=0, gamma=0.5, type=0, 
     maxiter=1e4, tol=1e-5, f_palm=1e5,
       normalize=True, verbose=False):

Arguments

Name Python Type R Type Description
z numpy.ndarray matrix Either the data matrix or sample covariance matrix
lambda1 float list numeric vector List of parameters of length n for L1-norm penalty
lambda2 float or numpy.inf numeric or Inf L2-norm penalty term
x0 numpy.ndarray matrix Initial x-values for the gradient method, default value is the first n right singular vectors
y0 numpy.ndarray matrix Initial y-values for the gradient method, default value is the first n right singular vectors
k int int Number of principal components desired, default is 0 (returns min(n-1, p) principal components)
gamma float numeric Parameter to control how quickly the step size changes in each iteration, default is 0.5
type int int If 0, b is expcted to be a data matrix, and otherwise b is expected to be a covariance matrix; default is 0
maxiter int int Maximum number of iterations allowed in the gradient method, default is 1e4
tol float numeric Tolerance value required to indicate convergence (calculated as difference between iteration f-values), default is 1e-5
f_palm float numeric Upper bound for the F-value to reach convergence, default is 1e5
normalize bool logical Center and normalize rows to Euclidean length 1 if True, default is True
verbose bool logical Function prints progress between iterations if True, default is False

Values

Python returns a dictionary with the following key-value pairs, while R returns a list with the following elements:

Key Python Value Type R Value Type Value
loadings numpy.ndarray matrix Loadings of the sparse principal components
f_manpg float numeric Final F-value
x numpy.ndarray matirx Corresponding ndarray in subproblem to the loadings
iter int numeric Total number of iterations executed
sparsity float numeric Number of sparse loadings (loadings == 0) divided by number of all loadings
time float numeric Execution time in seconds

Quick Start

Consider the two examples below for running sparse PCA on randomly-generated data: one using a finite λ2, and the other using a large constant λ2.

R Example

As with other libraries, begin by loading amanpg in R.

library(amanpg)

Before proceeding, it is helpful to determine a few parameters. Let the rank of the sparse loadings matrix be k = 4 (returning four principal components), the input data matrix be n × p where n = 1000 and p = 500, λ1 be a 4 × 1 “matrix” where λi, 1 = 0.1, and λ2 = 1.

# parameter initialization
k <- 4
n <- 1000
p <- 500
lambda1 <- matrix(data=0.1, nrow=k, ncol=1)
lambda2 <- 1

For this example, the data matrix z is randomly generated from the normal distribution. Although it should be centered to mean 0 and normalized to Euclidean length 1, the function will automatically preprocess the input matrix when normalize=TRUE.

# data matrix generation
set.seed(10)
z <- matrix(rnorm(n * p), n, p)

# only show a subset of the data matrix for brevity
knitr::kable(as.data.frame(z)[1:10,1:4])
V1 V2 V3 V4
0.0187462 1.0500137 -0.3078650 0.4605151
-0.1842525 0.2860926 0.7580856 0.2350253
-1.3713305 0.2405648 -0.5738634 0.6432573
-0.5991677 0.8327052 -0.9387445 0.9131981
0.2945451 -0.2229832 -0.0276993 0.9882860
0.3897943 0.2883442 -1.0662487 0.1127413
-1.2080762 -0.3403921 -1.3503703 -1.4900499
-0.3636760 1.0613346 0.0754557 -0.4432356
-1.6266727 -1.2090489 -0.9022730 1.3623441
-0.2564784 1.0524069 3.6667710 1.0452357

Alternatively, the data can be normalized beforehand and the parameter is set to FALSE in the function call. However, this example won’t do so, but the output of normalize is displayed below.

# see the effects of normalize()
knitr::kable(as.data.frame(normalize(z))[1:10,1:4])
V1 V2 V3 V4
0.0003430 0.0481267 -0.0132514 0.0219345
-0.0089624 0.0123909 0.0357869 0.0112677
-0.0647869 0.0105393 -0.0258082 0.0306516
-0.0295190 0.0395046 -0.0442725 0.0446800
0.0121050 -0.0102003 -0.0001986 0.0427144
0.0180233 0.0129888 -0.0496851 0.0058898
-0.0571080 -0.0166729 -0.0621594 -0.0692690
-0.0166791 0.0465040 0.0043809 -0.0192257
-0.0708954 -0.0530047 -0.0380530 0.0594355
-0.0118741 0.0459610 0.1635723 0.0468201

Now the function is called, passing through matrix a, lambda1, lambda2, and our desired rank k. The output is stored as a list in fin_sprout. Note that if a different initial point is desired, x0 and y0 should be modified, but the default value as the first k right singular vectors is sufficient for this example.

If further printout is desired, set verbose=TRUE for progress updates (time, difference for convergence, F value) per iteration.

# function call
fin_sprout <- spca.amanpg(z, lambda1, lambda2, k=4)
print(paste(fin_sprout$iter, "iterations,", fin_sprout$sparsity, "sparsity,", fin_sprout$time))
## [1] "280 iterations, 0.491 sparsity, 0.447884082794189"

The loadings can be viewed from fin_sprout$loadings. Note that many entries are set to zero as a result of the induced sparsity.

# View loadings. Only first 10 rows for brevity
knitr::kable(as.data.frame(fin_sprout$loadings)[1:10,])
V1 V2 V3 V4
0.0880974 0.0000000 0.0000000 0.0000000
0.0000000 0.0000000 0.0000000 0.0000000
0.0285272 0.0324180 0.0000000 0.0784247
0.0000000 -0.0456984 0.0000000 0.0906653
0.0103526 -0.0010865 0.0000000 -0.2210455
0.0000000 0.0000000 0.0000000 0.0000000
0.0586876 0.0000000 0.0000000 0.0000000
0.0012639 0.0000000 0.0000000 0.0996718
0.0046010 0.0000000 0.0000000 0.0000000
0.0000000 0.0012141 -0.0019561 0.0000000

The resulting scree plot (Figure 1) looks like this.

pr.var <- (apply(fin_sprout$x, 2, sd))^2
pve <- pr.var / sum(pr.var)

par(mfrow=c(1,2))
plot(pve, 
     xlab="Sparse PC", 
     ylab="Proportion of Variance Explained", 
     ylim=c(0,1), 
     type="b")
plot(cumsum(pve), 
     xlab="Sparse PC", 
     ylab="Cumulative Proportion of Variance Explained", 
     ylim=c(0,1),
     type="b")
Scree plots for the finite lambda case.

Scree plots for the finite lambda case.

The resulting biplot (Figure 2), with the zero loadings filtered out, can be obtained using the following:

y_sub = apply(fin_sprout$loadings, 1, function(row) all(row != 0))
loadings = fin_sprout$loadings[y_sub, ]

par(mfrow=c(1,1))
biplot(fin_sprout$x, loadings, xlab="PC 1", ylab="PC 2")
Biplot for the finite lambda case.

Biplot for the finite lambda case.

Now consider an alternative situation where we set λ2 to a large constant Inf. The algorithm changes by directly retracting B without using a while loop to determine an appropriate retraction step size and only iterating A.

# infinite lambda2
inf_sprout <- spca.amanpg(z, lambda1, lambda2=Inf, k=4) 
print(paste(inf_sprout$iter, "iterations,", inf_sprout$sparsity, "sparsity,", inf_sprout$time))
## [1] "344 iterations, 0.253 sparsity, 0.379923582077026"
# extract loadings. Only first 10 rows for brevity
knitr::kable(as.data.frame(inf_sprout$loadings)[1:10,])
V1 V2 V3 V4
0.0612782 0.0070632 0.0148628 0.0000000
0.0000000 0.0080497 0.0000000 0.0000000
0.0000000 0.0670739 -0.0796881 0.0616913
0.0000000 0.0000000 0.0050157 0.1115940
0.0674123 -0.0194809 0.0490605 -0.1250086
0.0000000 0.0000000 0.0000000 -0.0207933
0.0600291 0.0475967 0.0000000 0.0000000
0.0000000 0.0428026 -0.0131852 0.0699779
0.0156305 0.0448186 0.0000000 0.0000000
0.0222292 0.0000000 -0.0138957 0.0000000

We obtain the scree plot (Figure 3) and the biplot (Figure 4) using the same method.

pr.var <- (apply(inf_sprout$x, 2, sd))^2
pve <- pr.var / sum(pr.var)

par(mfrow=c(1,2))
plot(pve, 
     xlab="Sparse PC", 
     ylab="Proportion of Variance Explained", 
     ylim=c(0,1), 
     type="b")
plot(cumsum(pve), 
     xlab="Sparse PC", 
     ylab="Cumulative Proportion of Variance Explained", 
     ylim=c(0,1),
     type="b")
Scree plot for lambda=inf case.

Scree plot for lambda=inf case.

For data with high dimensionality, the biplot is still much harder to read with to a lower sparsity value.

y_sub = apply(inf_sprout$loadings, 1, function(row) all(row != 0))
loadings = inf_sprout$loadings[y_sub, ]

par(mfrow=c(1,1))
biplot(inf_sprout$x, loadings, xlab="PC 1", ylab="PC 2")
Biplot for lambda=inf case. Observe that with lower sparsity in the loadings and high-dimensional data, the biplot becomes less readable.

Biplot for lambda=inf case. Observe that with lower sparsity in the loadings and high-dimensional data, the biplot becomes less readable.

Python Example

Note that the Python package depends on numpy.

The following example accomplishes the same situation (down to the same randomly-generated data) but in Python.

import numpy as np
from sparsepca import spca

k = 4  # rank
p = 500  # dimensions
n = 1000  # sample size
lambda1 = 0.1 * np.ones((k, 1))
lambda2 = 1

np.random.seed(10)
z = np.random.normal(0, 1, size=(n, p))  # generate random normal 1000x500 matrix

fin_sprout = spca(z, lambda1, lambda2, k=k)
print(f"Finite: {fin_sprout['iter']} iterations with final value 
        {fin_sprout['f_manpg']}, sparsity {fin_sprout['sparsity']}, 
        timediff {fin_sprout['time']}.")

fin_sprout['loadings']

inf_sprout = spca(z, lambda1, np.inf, k=k)
print(f"Infinite: {inf_sprout['iter']} iterations with final value 
        {inf_sprout['f_manpg']}, sparsity {inf_sprout['sparsity']}, 
        timediff {inf_sprout['time']}.")

inf_sprout['loadings']

References

Chen, S., Ma, S., Xue, L., and Zou, H. (2020) “An Alternating Manifold Proximal Gradient Method for Sparse Principal Component Analysis and Sparse Canonical Correlation Analysis” INFORMS Journal on Optimization 2:3, 192-208 <doi:10.1287/ijoo.2019.0032>.

Zou, H., Hastie, T., & Tibshirani, R. (2006). Sparse principal component analysis. Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, 15(2), 265-286 <doi:10.1198/106186006X113430>.

Zou, H., & Xue, L. (2018). A selective overview of sparse principal component analysis. Proceedings of the IEEE, 106(8), 1311-1320 <doi:10.1109/JPROC.2018.2846588>.