SSJ
V. 2.2.

Package umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvar

This package provides a collection of classes for non-uniform random variate generation, primarily from standard distributions.

See: Description

Package umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvar Description

This package provides a collection of classes for non-uniform random variate generation, primarily from standard distributions.

Each non-uniform random variate generator requires at least one umontreal.iro.lecuyer.rngRandomStream object (from package umontreal.iro.lecuyerrng), used to generate the underlying uniform random numbers.

The generic classes umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarRandomVariateGen and umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarRandomVariateGenInt permit one to construct a random variate generator from a random stream and an arbitrary distribution (see interface umontreal.iro.lecuyer.probdistDistribution). To generate random variates by inversion from an arbitrary distribution over the real numbers using a given random stream, it suffices to construct a umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarRandomVariateGen object with the desired (previously created) umontreal.iro.lecuyer.probdistDistribution and umontreal.iro.lecuyer.rngRandomStream objects, and then call its umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarRandomVariateGennextDouble method as many times as needed. For discrete distributions over the integers, one can construct a umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarRandomVariateGenInt object containing the desired umontreal.iro.lecuyer.probdistDiscreteDistributionInt and umontreal.iro.lecuyer.rngRandomStream, and call its umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarRandomVariateGenIntnextInt method. By default, these generators simply call the umontreal.iro.lecuyer.probdistContinuousDistributioninverseF method from the specified distribution object. These two classes suffice as long as we are willing to use inversion. Here is a simple example in which we create three parallel streams of normal random variates using inversion.

[label=lst:normaltest,caption=Using three parallel streams of random normal variates,lineskip=-2pt,emph=genere,main ]examples/normaltest.java

To generate random variates by other methods than inversion, one can use specialized classes that extend umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarRandomVariateGen or umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarRandomVariateGenInt. Such classes are provided for a variety of standard discrete and continuous distributions. For example, five different subclasses implement normal random variate generators, using five different methods. One of them, the class umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarNormalGen, extends umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarRandomVariateGen directly and provides normal random variate generators based on inversion, so it does the same thing as using umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarRandomVariateGen with the normal distribution. The others are subclasses of umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarNormalGen; they implement various non-inversion normal variate generation methods. To generate random variates with a specific method, it suffices to construct an object of the appropriate subclass and then call its nextDouble method.

Après avoir examiné le code, je me rends compte que l'utilisation de use...Method n'est pas la bonne approche, car cela amène plein de case dans l'implantation, ce qui rend le code plus laid, plus compliqué et plus inefficace. Il serait probablement préférable d'utiliser des sous-classes à la place, du moins pour les méthodes non statiques. Une sous-classe pour chaque type de méthode de génération.

In most cases, the specialized classes maintain local copies of the distribution parameters and use them for variate generation. If the parameters of the contained distribution objects are later modified, this may lead to inconsistencies: the variate generator object will keep using the old values. In fact, the constructors of the specialized classes often precompute constants and tables based on these parameter values, which would have to be recomputed if the parameters are changed. On the other hand, the generic classes umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarRandomVariateGen and umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarRandomVariateGenInt call directly the inverseF method of the contained distribution object, so they will always use the new parameter values whenever the parameters in the distribution object are changed. We must make the nextInt() and nextDouble() methods as quick as possible. For example, it is better to avoid calling methods to access the parameters of the distribution object. We can store local copies of the parameters instead. We must decide exactly what we do with this and explain it clearly in the guide. If we leave it like this, it must be made clear in the documentation of each subclass and method, which parameter values are used.It seems to me that in the future, only the constructors of umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarRandomVariateGen and umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarRandomVariateGenInt should require a distribution object. In the subclasses, we should directly pass the required parameters and there would not necessarily be a distribution object created. We should examine the implications of such a change.

With some variate generation methods (e.g., the rejection method), the number of uniforms required to get a single non-uniform variate varies from one call to the next. In that case, an auxiliary stream is often used to preserve the synchronization between random variates when implementing variance-reduction methods[#!sLAW00a!#]. The main random number stream is called a fixed number of times per non-uniform variate generation. If more uniform random numbers are needed, they are obtained from the auxiliary stream. For these types of generators, two umontreal.iro.lecuyer.rngRandomStream objects should be passed to the constructor. Otherwise, by default, the same stream will be used for all uniforms.

Static methods in the specialized classes allow the generation of random variates from specific distributions without constructing a umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarRandomVariateGen object.

This package also provides an interface to the UNURAN (Universal Non-Uniform RANdom number generators) package, a rich library of C functions designed and implemented by the ARVAG (Automatic Random VAriate Generation) project group in Vienna[#!iLEY02a!#]. This interface can be used to access distributions or generation methods not available directly in SSJ. To get a UNURAN generator, it suffices to instantiate one of the UNURAN interface classes: umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarUnuranDiscreteInt for discrete random variates, umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarUnuranContinuous for continuous ones (in one dimension), and umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarUnuranEmpirical for quasi-empirical distributions based on experimental data. The type of distribution and its parameters are specified to UNURAN via its String API (see the UNURAN documentation). Only univariate distributions are supported because the UNURAN String API does not support the multivariate ones yet.

In the UNURAN interface classes, umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarRandomVariateGennextDouble and umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarRandomVariateGenIntnextInt can be invoked as usual to generate variates, but these methods are slowed down significantly by the overhead in the interactions between code on the native side and on the Java side. When several random variates are needed, it is much more efficient to generate them in a single call, via the methods umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarRandomVariateGennextArrayOfDouble and umontreal.iro.lecuyer.randvarRandomVariateGenIntnextArrayOfInt.

SSJ
V. 2.2.

To submit a bug or ask questions, send an e-mail to Pierre L'Ecuyer.