Re: [boost] [Probability] new release of probability library v0.2.2
Brook Milligan <brook <at> biology.nmsu.edu> writes:
I would like to call your attention to a new release of the probability library (v0.2.2). Thanks to comments from Paul Bristow I hope it will work smoothly on MSVC v8.0 as well as gcc v3 and v4. As before it is available in the Vault (boost.probability-0.2.2.tar.gz) as well as at
http://biology.nmsu.edu/software/probability/
The changes are mostly confined to the test cases and infrastructure, but a few work around problems identified by the MSVC compiler.
Please review this library and let me know how to improve it to expand the compiler repertoire or in other ways.
Thanks you very much.
Cheers, Brook _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe & other changes:
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Hi Brook, 1. The exm1.cpp and exm2.cpp are not opening. 2. Apart from catching floating point issues, what other thing this library does? Can we do convolution of probabilities? 3. Is there any way to define sample space and tie probabilities to them? I have not gone through whole docs though. This is a nice effort. Have you looked into integrating your library with boost::random, boost::accumulators and boost math tool kit ? Regards, Reetesh Mukul
Reetesh Mukul writes:
1. The exm1.cpp and exm2.cpp are not opening.
I presume you are referring to thw web page documentation. Thanks for catching that. I forgot to upload the relevant source files. It is fixed now.
2. Apart from catching floating point issues, what other thing this library does? Can we do convolution of probabilities?
The purpose of the library is not exactly to catch floating point issues (at least in the sense of exceptions), but rather to encapsulate the challenge of managing both "normal" probabilities (i.e., constrained within [0,1]) and their logarithms within the same logical framework. This can be especially troublesome when the problem calls for switching between domains as the calculations progress. There are clearly additional operations that could be added, though I am not certain that they don't make better sense at a higher level of organization. For example, convolutions really refers to probability distributions not individual probability quantities. It is the latter that are supported here. Clearly, a probability distribution library could be implemented on top of this that would handle convolutions and other more general operations. Perhaps the whole point of this is to make such possibilities that much easier, because the domain issues can be largely abstracted away. This is also where I see the integration possibilities with other Boost libraries. I have not investigated this in detail, but the ones you mention (random, accumulators, and the math tool kit) as well as units are all natural possibilities. My current feeling is that the integration represents the next step, once this library is "complete." Perhaps in considering this library one criterion should be how well it lends itself to supporting higher level solutions such as you mention. If there is a strong consensus that this library should do much more than encapsulate the basic quantities, that can be accomplished. At this point, though, I feel like it solves a clearly defined problem and provides a natural foundation for the higher level operations you suggest. Ideas are welcome, though. Thanks for your quick look. Now that the examples are actually visible on the web, perhaps this will all be clearer. Any further comments and suggestions are welcome. Cheers, Brook
participants (2)
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Brook Milligan -
Reetesh Mukul