EM vs. SCD for fitting a Poisson NMF model and a topic model to a small, simulated data set
Peter Carbonetto
Last updated: 2021-03-11
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Knit directory: fastTopics-experiments/analysis/
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| Rmd | 509961e | Peter Carbonetto | 2021-03-11 | Implemented plotting functions for smallsim demo. |
| Rmd | 0526659 | Peter Carbonetto | 2021-03-10 | Added exploratory scripts smallsimlda.R and smallsimlda2.R. |
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| Rmd | 275fb51 | Peter Carbonetto | 2021-03-05 | Implemented functions simulate_sizes and simulate_factors. |
Here we perform a small experiment with simulated data to illustrate the behaviour of the EM and SCD algorithms for fitting Poisson NMF models. This example suggests that the EM updates have difficulty with correlations between topics, even when they are quite modest, The results also suggest that the basic variational EM for LDA also experiences similar difficulties.
Load the packages used in the analysis below, as well as additional functions that we will use to simulate the data.
library(tm)
library(topicmodels)
library(fastTopics)
library(mvtnorm)
library(ggplot2)
library(cowplot)
source("../code/smallsim_functions.R")Set the seed so that the results can be reproduced.
set.seed(1)Independent topics scenario
In this first example, we simulate a \(100 \times 400\) counts matrix from a multinomial topic model with \(K = 6\) topics.
n <- 100
m <- 400
k <- 6
S <- 13*diag(k) - 2
F <- simulate_factors(m,k)
L <- simulate_loadings(n,k,S)
s <- simulate_sizes(n)
X <- simulate_multinom_counts(L,F,s)
X <- X[,colSums(X > 0) > 0]The topic proportions for each of the 100 samples—that is, a row of the counts matrix—are randomly drawn according to the correlated topic model: \(\eta_i\) for row \(i\) is drawn from the multivariate normal with mean zero and covariance matrix \(S\), such that \(s_{kk} = 11\), \(s_{jk} = -2\) for all \(j \neq k\). Generated in this way, the topic proportions tend to be roughly orthogonal:
topic_colors <- c("dodgerblue","darkorange","forestgreen","darkblue",
"gold","skyblue")
p1 <- simdata_structure_plot(L,topic_colors)
print(p1)
Here we compare two different updates for fitting a Poisson NMF model to the simulated counts: EM updates, and sequential coordinate descent (SCD). We perform 100 iterations of each. The model fitting is initialized by first running 50 EM updates, with the aim of better ensuring that the same local maximum is recovered by both runs.
control <- list(extrapolate = FALSE,numiter = 4)
fit0 <- fit_poisson_nmf(X,k,numiter = 50,method = "em",control = control)
fit1 <- fit_poisson_nmf(X,fit0=fit0,numiter=100,method="em",control=control)
fit2 <- fit_poisson_nmf(X,fit0=fit0,numiter=100,method="scd",control=control)
fit0 <- poisson2multinom(fit0)
fit1 <- poisson2multinom(fit1)
fit2 <- poisson2multinom(fit2)This next plot shows the improvement in the solution over time for the EM and SCD updates. The Y axis shows the difference between the current log-likelihood and the best log-likelihood achieved by the two methods.
pdat <- rbind(data.frame(iter = 1:150,
loglik = fit1$progress$loglik.multinom,
res = fit1$progress$res,
method = "em"),
data.frame(iter = 1:150,
loglik = fit2$progress$loglik.multinom,
res = fit2$progress$res,
method = "scd"))
pdat <- subset(pdat,iter >= 50)
pdat <- transform(pdat,
iter = iter - 50,
loglik = max(loglik) - loglik + 0.1)
p2 <- ggplot(pdat,aes(x = iter,y = loglik,color = method)) +
geom_line(size = 0.75) +
scale_y_continuous(trans = "log10") +
scale_color_manual(values = c("dodgerblue","darkorange")) +
labs(x = "iteration",y = "loglik difference") +
theme_cowplot(font_size = 10)
p3 <- ggplot(pdat,aes(x = iter,y = res,color = method)) +
geom_line(size = 0.75) +
scale_color_manual(values = c("dodgerblue","darkorange")) +
labs(x = "iteration",y = "max KKT residual") +
theme_cowplot(font_size = 10)
plot_grid(p2,p3)
| Version | Author | Date |
|---|---|---|
| daf189c | Peter Carbonetto | 2021-03-09 |
| 47ed425 | Peter Carbonetto | 2021-03-09 |
| 907addd | Peter Carbonetto | 2021-03-08 |
| 1838ec8 | Peter Carbonetto | 2021-03-08 |
| 50f34a9 | Peter Carbonetto | 2021-03-07 |
| 1185ab4 | Peter Carbonetto | 2021-03-07 |
| 913316c | Peter Carbonetto | 2021-03-07 |
| 51c5321 | Peter Carbonetto | 2021-03-06 |
| 59a8594 | Peter Carbonetto | 2021-03-05 |
| ffad471 | Peter Carbonetto | 2021-03-05 |
Among the two methods compared, the SCD updates progress more rapidly toward a solution. Still, the EM updates recover the same solution after a reasonable number of iterations. Indeed, the EM and SCD estimates of the topic proportions are almost the same:
p4 <- loadings_scatterplot(fit1,fit2,topic_colors,"em","scd")
print(p4)
Next, we turn to the problem of fitting an LDA model to the same data. Although the LDA fitting problem is different—we are now fitting a (approximate) posterior distribution, and so the estimates are approximate posterior means rather than MELs—initializing the LDA fit using the MLEs greatly improves the LDA model fitting, as we will see here.
We perform 400 iterations of variational EM, initializing the LDA model fits using the MLEs computed above.
lda0 <- run_lda(X,fit0,numiter = 400)
lda1 <- run_lda(X,fit1,numiter = 400)
lda2 <- run_lda(X,fit2,numiter = 400)Even after 400 iterations, variational EM without a good initialization does not approach the quality of the LDA model fits initialized using the EM and SCD estimates.
pdat <- rbind(data.frame(iter = 1:400,elbo = lda0@logLiks,init = "none"),
data.frame(iter = 1:400,elbo = lda1@logLiks,init = "em"),
data.frame(iter = 1:400,elbo = lda2@logLiks,init = "scd"))
pdat <- transform(pdat,elbo = max(elbo) - elbo + 0.1)
p5 <- ggplot(pdat,aes(x = iter,y = elbo,color = init)) +
geom_line(size = 0.75) +
scale_y_continuous(trans = "log10") +
scale_color_manual(values=c("darkblue","dodgerblue","darkorange")) +
labs(x = "iteration",y = "ELBO difference") +
theme_cowplot(font_size = 10)
print(p5)
Next we will see an example in which EM updates fail to make reasonable progress.
Correlated topics scenario
The count data in this second example are simulated as before, with one difference: by setting \(s_{56} = s_{65} = 8\), the mixture proportions for topics 5 and 6 are no longer close to orthogonal.
set.seed(1)
S[5,6] <- 8
S[6,5] <- 8
L <- simulate_loadings(n,k,S)
X <- simulate_multinom_counts(L,F,s)
X <- X[,colSums(X > 0) > 0]Compare this Structure plot to the one above—there is more mixing of topics 5 and 6:
y <- apply(L,1,which.max)
y <- rank(y,ties.method = "random")
y <- qqnorm(y,plot.it = FALSE)$x
fit <- list(L = L)
class(fit) <- c("multinom_topic_model_fit","list")
structure_plot(fit,topics = 1:6,colors = topic_colors,perplexity = 30,
Y_init = matrix(y),verbose = FALSE)
As before, we run the EM and SCD updates to fit the multinomial topic model, with a twist that we perform another round of SCD updates after running the EM updates. This will be explained shortly.
fit0 <- fit_poisson_nmf(X,k,numiter = 50,method = "em",
control = list(extrapolate = FALSE,numiter = 4))
fit1 <- fit_poisson_nmf(X,fit0 = fit0,numiter = 750,method = "em",
control = list(extrapolate = FALSE,numiter = 4))
fit2 <- fit_poisson_nmf(X,fit0 = fit0,numiter = 950,method = "scd",
control = list(extrapolate = FALSE,numiter = 4))
fit3 <- fit_poisson_nmf(X,fit0 = fit1,numiter = 200,method = "scd",
control = list(extrapolate = FALSE,numiter = 4))
fit1 <- fit_poisson_nmf(X,fit0 = fit1,numiter = 200,method = "em",
control = list(extrapolate = FALSE,numiter = 4))
fit1 <- poisson2multinom(fit1)
fit2 <- poisson2multinom(fit2)
fit3 <- poisson2multinom(fit3)In this second example, after initially making good progress, the EM estimates remain very far from the solution achieved by SCD even after hundreds of EM updates. This isn’t a case where the EM updates have settled on a different local solution—the SCD updates quickly “rescue” the EM estimates.
pdat <- rbind(data.frame(iter = 1:1000,
loglik = fit1$progress$loglik.multinom,
res = fit1$progress$res,
method = "em"),
data.frame(iter = 1:1000,
loglik = fit2$progress$loglik.multinom,
res = fit2$progress$res,
method = "scd"),
data.frame(iter = 800:1000,
loglik = fit3$progress[800:1000,"loglik.multinom"],
res = fit3$progress[800:1000,"res"],
method = "em+scd"))
pdat <- transform(pdat,loglik = max(loglik) - loglik)
pdat <- subset(pdat,iter >= 50)
p3 <- ggplot(pdat,aes(x = iter,y = loglik,color = method)) +
geom_line(size = 0.75) +
scale_color_manual(values = c("dodgerblue","darkorange","magenta")) +
labs(x = "iteration",y = "log-likelihood difference") +
theme_cowplot(font_size = 10)
p4 <- ggplot(pdat,aes(x = iter,y = res,color = method)) +
geom_line(size = 0.75) +
scale_color_manual(values = c("dodgerblue","darkorange","magenta")) +
ylim(0,10) +
labs(x = "iteration",y = "max KKT residual") +
theme_cowplot(font_size = 10)
plot_grid(p3,p4)
| Version | Author | Date |
|---|---|---|
| daf189c | Peter Carbonetto | 2021-03-09 |
| 47ed425 | Peter Carbonetto | 2021-03-09 |
| a967f97 | Peter Carbonetto | 2021-03-08 |
| 1838ec8 | Peter Carbonetto | 2021-03-08 |
| 50f34a9 | Peter Carbonetto | 2021-03-07 |
| 1185ab4 | Peter Carbonetto | 2021-03-07 |
| 7e3d55b | Peter Carbonetto | 2021-03-07 |
| 913316c | Peter Carbonetto | 2021-03-07 |
| 59a8594 | Peter Carbonetto | 2021-03-05 |
| ffad471 | Peter Carbonetto | 2021-03-05 |
This large difference in likelihood is not due to a trivial difference in solution—for example, there are many large differences in the topic proportion estimates:
pdat <- data.frame(x = as.vector(fit1$L),
y = as.vector(fit2$L),
k = factor(rep(1:6,each = 100)))
ggplot(pdat,aes(x = x,y = y,fill = k)) +
geom_point(color = "white",shape = 21,size = 1.75) +
geom_abline(intercept = 0,slope = 1,color = "skyblue",linetype = "dotted") +
scale_fill_manual(values = topic_colors) +
labs(x = "em",y = "scd") +
theme_cowplot(font_size = 10)
Most of the samples contributing to the large difference in likehood are samples generated from combinations of topics 5 and 6 (the X and Y axes in this scatterplot show the per-sample log-likelihoods):
pdat <- data.frame(x = loglik_multinom_topic_model(X,fit1),
y = loglik_multinom_topic_model(X,fit2))
ggplot(pdat,aes(x = x,y = y,fill = L[,5] + L[,6])) +
geom_point(color = "white",shape = 21,size = 1.75) +
geom_abline(intercept = 0,slope = 1,color = "black",linetype = "dotted") +
scale_fill_gradient(low = "skyblue",high = "orangered") +
xlim(-700,-100) +
ylim(-700,-100) +
labs(x = "em",y = "scd",fill = "topic 5 + 6") +
theme_cowplot(font_size = 10)
These results suggest that the EM algorithm may perform poorly in settings where the topics are correlated, even if the correlations are quite modest.
sessionInfo()
# R version 3.6.2 (2019-12-12)
# Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin15.6.0 (64-bit)
# Running under: macOS Catalina 10.15.7
#
# Matrix products: default
# BLAS: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.6/Resources/lib/libRblas.0.dylib
# LAPACK: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.6/Resources/lib/libRlapack.dylib
#
# locale:
# [1] en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/C/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8
#
# attached base packages:
# [1] stats graphics grDevices utils datasets methods base
#
# other attached packages:
# [1] cowplot_1.0.0 ggplot2_3.3.0 mvtnorm_1.0-11 fastTopics_0.5-24
# [5] topicmodels_0.2-9 tm_0.7-7 NLP_0.2-0
#
# loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
# [1] httr_1.4.2 tidyr_1.0.0 jsonlite_1.6
# [4] viridisLite_0.3.0 RcppParallel_4.4.2 assertthat_0.2.1
# [7] mixsqp_0.3-44 stats4_3.6.2 progress_1.2.2
# [10] yaml_2.2.0 slam_0.1-47 ggrepel_0.9.0
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# [40] magrittr_1.5 crayon_1.3.4 mcmc_0.9-6
# [43] evaluate_0.14 fs_1.3.1 MASS_7.3-51.4
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# [61] htmlwidgets_1.5.1 labeling_0.3 rmarkdown_2.3
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