IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jss/jstsof/v036i10.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

spam: A Sparse Matrix R Package with Emphasis on MCMC Methods for Gaussian Markov Random Fields

Author

Listed:
  • Furrer, Reinhard
  • Sain, Stephan R.

Abstract

spam is an R package for sparse matrix algebra with emphasis on a Cholesky factorization of sparse positive definite matrices. The implemantation of spam is based on the competing philosophical maxims to be competitively fast compared to existing tools and to be easy to use, modify and extend. The first is addressed by using fast Fortran routines and the second by assuring S3 and S4 compatibility. One of the features of spam is to exploit the algorithmic steps of the Cholesky factorization and hence to perform only a fraction of the workload when factorizing matrices with the same sparsity structure. Simulations show that exploiting this break-down of the factorization results in a speed-up of about a factor 5 and memory savings of about a factor 10 for large matrices and slightly smaller factors for huge matrices. The article is motivated with Markov chain Monte Carlo methods for Gaussian Markov random fields, but many other statistical applications are mentioned that profit from an efficient Cholesky factorization as well.

Suggested Citation

  • Furrer, Reinhard & Sain, Stephan R., 2010. "spam: A Sparse Matrix R Package with Emphasis on MCMC Methods for Gaussian Markov Random Fields," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 36(i10).
  • Handle: RePEc:jss:jstsof:v:036:i10
    DOI: http://hdl.handle.net/10.18637/jss.v036.i10
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.jstatsoft.org/index.php/jss/article/view/v036i10/v36i10.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.jstatsoft.org/index.php/jss/article/downloadSuppFile/v036i10/spam_0.23-0.tar.gz
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.jstatsoft.org/index.php/jss/article/downloadSuppFile/v036i10/v36i10.R
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/http://hdl.handle.net/10.18637/jss.v036.i10?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Roman Flury & Reinhard Furrer, 2021. "Discussion on Competition for Spatial Statistics for Large Datasets," Journal of Agricultural, Biological and Environmental Statistics, Springer;The International Biometric Society;American Statistical Association, vol. 26(4), pages 599-603, December.
    2. Millo, Giovanni, 2014. "Maximum likelihood estimation of spatially and serially correlated panels with random effects," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 914-933.
    3. Ying C. MacNab, 2018. "Some recent work on multivariate Gaussian Markov random fields," TEST: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 27(3), pages 497-541, September.
    4. Gerber, Florian & Furrer, Reinhard, 2015. "Pitfalls in the Implementation of Bayesian Hierarchical Modeling of Areal Count Data: An Illustration Using BYM and Leroux Models," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 63(c01).
    5. Chen, Yewen & Chang, Xiaohui & Luo, Fangzhi & Huang, Hui, 2023. "Additive dynamic models for correcting numerical model outputs," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    6. Davies, Tilman M. & Bryant, David, 2013. "On Circulant Embedding for Gaussian Random Fields in R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 55(i09).
    7. Lee, Duncan, 2013. "CARBayes: An R Package for Bayesian Spatial Modeling with Conditional Autoregressive Priors," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 55(i13).
    8. M. Bevilacqua & A. Fassò & C. Gaetan & E. Porcu & D. Velandia, 2016. "Covariance tapering for multivariate Gaussian random fields estimation," Statistical Methods & Applications, Springer;Società Italiana di Statistica, vol. 25(1), pages 21-37, March.
    9. Padoan, Simone A. & Bevilacqua, Moreno, 2015. "Analysis of Random Fields Using CompRandFld," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 63(i09).
    10. Toshihiro Hirano & Yoshihiro Yajima, 2013. "Covariance tapering for prediction of large spatial data sets in transformed random fields," Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Springer;The Institute of Statistical Mathematics, vol. 65(5), pages 913-939, October.
    11. Bevilacqua, Moreno & Caamaño-Carrillo, Christian & Porcu, Emilio, 2022. "Unifying compactly supported and Matérn covariance functions in spatial statistics," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    12. Schlather, Martin & Malinowski, Alexander & Menck, Peter J. & Oesting, Marco & Strokorb, Kirstin, 2015. "Analysis, Simulation and Prediction of Multivariate Random Fields with Package RandomFields," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 63(i08).
    13. Matthew J. Heaton & Abhirup Datta & Andrew O. Finley & Reinhard Furrer & Joseph Guinness & Rajarshi Guhaniyogi & Florian Gerber & Robert B. Gramacy & Dorit Hammerling & Matthias Katzfuss & Finn Lindgr, 2019. "A Case Study Competition Among Methods for Analyzing Large Spatial Data," Journal of Agricultural, Biological and Environmental Statistics, Springer;The International Biometric Society;American Statistical Association, vol. 24(3), pages 398-425, September.
    14. Corentin M Barbu & Andrew Hong & Jennifer M Manne & Dylan S Small & Javier E Quintanilla Calderón & Karthik Sethuraman & Víctor Quispe-Machaca & Jenny Ancca-Juárez & Juan G Cornejo del Carpio & Fernan, 2013. "The Effects of City Streets on an Urban Disease Vector," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(1), pages 1-9, January.
    15. Furrer, Reinhard & Bachoc, François & Du, Juan, 2016. "Asymptotic properties of multivariate tapering for estimation and prediction," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 177-191.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jss:jstsof:v:036:i10. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.jstatsoft.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.