1.20.0 User Documentation for Apache MADlib
Multinomial Logistic Regression
Warning
This is an old implementation of multinomial logistic regression. Replacement of this function is available as the Multinomial regression module Multinomial Regression
Contents

Multinomial logistic regression is a widely used regression analysis tool that models the outcomes of categorical dependent random variables. The model assumes that the conditional mean of the dependent categorical variables is the logistic function of an affine combination of independent variables. Multinomial logistic regression finds the vector of coefficients that maximizes the likelihood of the observations.

Training Function
The multinomial logistic regression training function has the following syntax:
mlogregr_train(source_table,
output_table,
dependent_varname,
independent_varname,
ref_category,
optimizer_params
)

Arguments
source_table

TEXT. The name of the table containing the input data.

output_table

TEXT. The name of the generated table containing the output model. The output table produced by the multinomial logistic regression training function contains the following columns:

category INTEGER. The category. Categories are encoded as integers with values from {0, 1, 2,..., numCategories – 1} INTEGER. The reference category. Categories are encoded as integers with values from {0, 1, 2,..., numCategories – 1} FLOAT8[]. An array of coefficients, $$\boldsymbol c$$. FLOAT8. The log-likelihood, $$l(\boldsymbol c)$$. FLOAT8[]. An array of the standard errors. FLOAT8[]. An array of the Wald z-statistics. FLOAT8[]. An array of the Wald p-values. FLOAT8[]. An array of the odds ratios. FLOAT8. The condition number of the matrix, computed using the coefficients of the iteration immediately preceding convergence. INTEGER. The number of iterations executed before the algorithm completed.

A summary table named <out_table>_summary is also created at the same time, and it contains the following columns:

source_table The data source table name. The output table name. The dependent variable. The independent variables. The optimizer parameters. It is a copy of the optimizer_params in the training function's arguments. An integer, the value of reference category used. INTEGER. The number of rows actually processed, which is equal to the total number of rows in the source table minus the number of skipped rows. INTEGER. The number of rows skipped during the training. A row will be skipped if the ind_col is NULL or contains NULL values.

dependent_varname

TEXT. The name of the column containing the dependent variable.

independent_varname

TEXT. Expression list to evaluate for the independent variables. An intercept variable is not assumed. The number of independent variables cannot exceed 65535.

ref_category (optional)

INTEGER, default: 0. The reference category ranges from [0, numCategories – 1].

optimizer_params (optional)
VARCHAR, default: NULL, which uses the default values of optimizer parameters. It should be a string that contains pairs of 'key=value' separated by commas. Supported parameters with their default values: max_iter=20, optimizer='irls', precision=1e-4. Currently, only 'irls' and 'newton' are allowed for 'optimizer'.
Note
Table names can be optionally schema qualified and table and column names should follow the same case-sensitivity and quoting rules as in the database.

Prediction Function
The prediction function is provided to estimate the conditional mean given a new predictor. It has the following syntax:
mlogregr_predict(
model_table,
new_data_table,
id_col_name,
output_table,
type)


Arguments

model_table

TEXT. Name of the table containing the multilogistic model. This should be the output table returned from mlogregr_train.

new_data_table

TEXT. Name of the table containing prediction data. This table is expected to contain the same features that were used during training. The table should also contain id_col_name used for identifying each row.

id_col_name

TEXT. Name of the column containing id information in the source data. This is a mandatory argument and is used for correlating prediction table rows with the source. The values of this column are expected to be unique for each tuple.

output_table

TEXT. Name of the table to output prediction results to. If this table already exists then an error is returned. This output table contains the id_col_name column giving the 'id' for each prediction.

If type = 'response', then the table has a single additional column with the prediction value of the response. The type of this column depends on the type of the response variable used during training.

If type = 'prob', then the table has multiple additional columns, one for each possible category. The columns are labeled as 'estimated_prob_category_value', where category_value represents the values of categories (0 to K-1).

type

TEXT, optional, default: 'response'.

When type = 'prob', the probabilities of each category (including the reference category) is given.

When type = 'response', a single output is provided which represents the prediction category for each tuple. This represents the category with the highest probability.

Examples
1. Create the training data table.
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS test3;
CREATE TABLE test3 (
feat1 INTEGER,
feat2 INTEGER,
cat INTEGER
);
INSERT INTO test3(feat1, feat2, cat) VALUES
(1,35,1),
(2,33,0),
(3,39,1),
(1,37,1),
(2,31,1),
(3,36,0),
(2,36,1),
(2,31,1),
(2,41,1),
(2,37,1),
(1,44,1),
(3,33,2),
(1,31,1),
(2,44,1),
(1,35,1),
(1,44,0),
(1,46,0),
(2,46,1),
(2,46,2),
(3,49,1),
(2,39,0),
(2,44,1),
(1,47,1),
(1,44,1),
(1,37,2),
(3,38,2),
(1,49,0),
(2,44,0),
(3,61,2),
(1,65,2),
(3,67,1),
(3,65,2),
(1,65,2),
(2,67,2),
(1,65,2),
(1,62,2),
(3,52,2),
(3,63,2),
(2,59,2),
(3,65,2),
(2,59,0),
(3,67,2),
(3,67,2),
(3,60,2),
(3,67,2),
(3,62,2),
(2,54,2),
(3,65,2),
(3,62,2),
(2,59,2),
(3,60,2),
(3,63,2),
(3,65,2),
(2,63,1),
(2,67,2),
(2,65,2),
(2,62,2);

2. Run the multilogistic regression function.
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS test3_output;
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS test3_output_summary;
'test3_output',
'cat',
'ARRAY[1, feat1, feat2]',
0,
'max_iter=20, optimizer=irls, precision=0.0001'
);

3. View the result:
-- Set extended display on for easier reading of output
\x on
SELECT * FROM test3_output;

Results:
-[ RECORD 1 ]--+------------------------------------------------------------
category       | 1
ref_category   | 0
coef           | {1.45474045211601,0.0849956182104023,-0.0172383499601956}
loglikelihood  | -39.14759930999
std_err        | {2.13085072854143,0.585021661344715,0.0431487356292144}
z_stats        | {0.682704063982831,0.145286275409074,-0.39950996729842}
p_values       | {0.494793861210936,0.884484850387893,0.689517480964129}
odd_ratios     | {4.28337158128448,1.08871229617973,0.982909380301134}
condition_no   | 280069.034217586
num_iterations | 5
-[ RECORD 2 ]--+------------------------------------------------------------
category       | 2
ref_category   | 0
coef           | {-7.12908167688326,0.87648787696783,0.127886153027713}
loglikelihood  | -39.14759930999
std_err        | {2.52104008297868,0.639575886323862,0.0445757462972303}
z_stats        | {-2.82783352990566,1.37042045472615,2.86896269049475}
p_values       | {0.00468641692252239,0.170555690550421,0.00411820373218956}
odd_ratios     | {0.000801455044349486,2.40244718187161,1.13642361694409}
condition_no   | 280069.034217586
num_iterations | 5

4. View all parameters used during the training
\x on
SELECT * FROM test3_output_summary;

Results:
-[ RECORD 1 ]------------+--------------------------------------------------
method                   | mlogregr
source_table             | test3
out_table                | test3_output
dependent_varname        | cat
independent_varname      | ARRAY[1, feat1, feat2]
optimizer_params         | max_iter=20, optimizer=irls, precision=0.0001
ref_category             | 0
num_categories           | 3
num_rows_processed       | 57
num_missing_rows_skipped | 0
variance_covariance      | {{4.54052482732554,3.01080140927409,-0.551901021610841,-0.380754019900586,-0.0784151362989211,-0.0510014701718268},{3.01080140927409,6.35564309998514,-0.351902272617974,-0.766730342510818,-0.051877550252329,-0.0954432017695571},{-0.551901021610841,-0.351902272617974,0.34225034424253,0.231740815080827,-0.00117521831508331,-0.00114043921343171},{-0.380754019900586,-0.766730342510818,0.231740815080827,0.409057314366954,-0.000556498286025567,-0.000404735750986327},{-0.0784151362989211,-0.051877550252329,-0.00117521831508331,-0.000556498286025569,0.00186181338639984,0.00121080293928445},{-0.0510014701718268,-0.0954432017695571,-0.00114043921343171,-0.000404735750986325,0.00121080293928446,0.00198699715795504}}
coef                     | {{1.45474045211601,0.0849956182104023,-0.0172383499601956},{-7.12908167688326,0.87648787696783,0.127886153027713}}


Technical Background
Multinomial logistic regression models the outcomes of categorical dependent random variables (denoted $$Y \in \{ 0,1,2 \ldots k \}$$). The model assumes that the conditional mean of the dependent categorical variables is the logistic function of an affine combination of independent variables (usually denoted $$\boldsymbol x$$). That is,

$E[Y \mid \boldsymbol x] = \sigma(\boldsymbol c^T \boldsymbol x)$

for some unknown vector of coefficients $$\boldsymbol c$$ and where $$\sigma(x) = \frac{1}{1 + \exp(-x)}$$ is the logistic function. Multinomial logistic regression finds the vector of coefficients $$\boldsymbol c$$ that maximizes the likelihood of the observations.

Let

• $$\boldsymbol y \in \{ 0,1 \}^{n \times k}$$ denote the vector of observed dependent variables, with $$n$$ rows and $$k$$ columns, containing the observed values of the dependent variable,
• $$X \in \mathbf R^{n \times k}$$ denote the design matrix with $$k$$ columns and $$n$$ rows, containing all observed vectors of independent variables $$\boldsymbol x_i$$ as rows.

By definition,

$P[Y = y_i | \boldsymbol x_i] = \sigma((-1)^{y_i} \cdot \boldsymbol c^T \boldsymbol x_i) \,.$

Maximizing the likelihood $$\prod_{i=1}^n \Pr(Y = y_i \mid \boldsymbol x_i)$$ is equivalent to maximizing the log-likelihood $$\sum_{i=1}^n \log \Pr(Y = y_i \mid \boldsymbol x_i)$$, which simplifies to

$l(\boldsymbol c) = -\sum_{i=1}^n \log(1 + \exp((-1)^{y_i} \cdot \boldsymbol c^T \boldsymbol x_i)) \,.$

The Hessian of this objective is $$H = -X^T A X$$ where $$A = \text{diag}(a_1, \dots, a_n)$$ is the diagonal matrix with $$a_i = \sigma(\boldsymbol c^T \boldsymbol x) \cdot \sigma(-\boldsymbol c^T \boldsymbol x) \,.$$ Since $$H$$ is non-positive definite, $$l(\boldsymbol c)$$ is convex. There are many techniques for solving convex optimization problems. Currently, logistic regression in MADlib can use:

• Iteratively Reweighted Least Squares

We estimate the standard error for coefficient $$i$$ as

$\mathit{se}(c_i) = \left( (X^T A X)^{-1} \right)_{ii} \,.$

The Wald z-statistic is

$z_i = \frac{c_i}{\mathit{se}(c_i)} \,.$

The Wald $$p$$-value for coefficient $$i$$ gives the probability (under the assumptions inherent in the Wald test) of seeing a value at least as extreme as the one observed, provided that the null hypothesis ( $$c_i = 0$$) is true. Letting $$F$$ denote the cumulative density function of a standard normal distribution, the Wald $$p$$-value for coefficient $$i$$ is therefore

$p_i = \Pr(|Z| \geq |z_i|) = 2 \cdot (1 - F( |z_i| ))$

where $$Z$$ is a standard normally distributed random variable.

The odds ratio for coefficient $$i$$ is estimated as $$\exp(c_i)$$.

The condition number is computed as $$\kappa(X^T A X)$$ during the iteration immediately preceding convergence (i.e., $$A$$ is computed using the coefficients of the previous iteration). A large condition number (say, more than 1000) indicates the presence of significant multicollinearity.

The multinomial logistic regression uses a default reference category of zero, and the regression coefficients in the output are in the order described below. For a problem with $$K$$ dependent variables $$(1, ..., K)$$ and $$J$$ categories $$(0, ..., J-1)$$, let $${m_{k,j}}$$ denote the coefficient for dependent variable $$k$$ and category $$j$$. The output is $${m_{k_1, j_0}, m_{k_1, j_1} \ldots m_{k_1, j_{J-1}}, m_{k_2, j_0}, m_{k_2, j_1}, \ldots m_{k_2, j_{J-1}} \ldots m_{k_K, j_{J-1}}}$$. The order is NOT CONSISTENT with the multinomial regression marginal effect calculation with function marginal_mlogregr. This is deliberate because the interfaces of all multinomial regressions (robust, clustered, ...) will be moved to match that used in marginal.

Literature

A collection of nice write-ups, with valuable pointers into further literature:

[1] Annette J. Dobson: An Introduction to Generalized Linear Models, Second Edition. Nov 2001

[2] Cosma Shalizi: Statistics 36-350: Data Mining, Lecture Notes, 18 November 2009, http://www.stat.cmu.edu/~cshalizi/350/lectures/26/lecture-26.pdf

[3] Scott A. Czepiel: Maximum Likelihood Estimation of Logistic Regression Models: Theory and Implementation, Retrieved Jul 12 2012, http://czep.net/stat/mlelr.pdf

Related Topics

File multilogistic.sql_in documenting the multinomial logistic regression functions

Logistic Regression