James D. McCaffrey

As usual with complex problems, explaining what the problem is, is more difficult than explaining the solution. So bear with me. But the bottom line is that I tried an experiment that worked, but gave only a small improvement to the standard approach.

The goal of a machine learning regression problem is to predict a single numeric value. For example, a bank might want to predict the maximum safe loan amount to a customer, based on age, account balance, current debt, and so on.

There are many regression techniques. The techniques fall into two main categories: 1.) classical math-based techniques (linear regression, nearest neighbors regression, quadratic regression, kernel ridge regression, neural network regression, and others) and 2.) tree-based techniques (random forest regression, Extra Trees (“extreme random”) regression, AdaBoost regression, Gradient Boost regression, and others).

The tree-based Gradient Boosting regression technique uses a collection of simple decision trees — they’re called the learners or the estimators. Each tree is constructed sequentially, based on error information of the previous tree. Each tree gets slightly better. The final prediction is based on the sum of indirect predictions of the trees (it’s a bit complicated to explain).

Although Gradient Boosting regression almost always uses standard decision trees as the learners, in theory, any kind of simple regression technique can be used. Paradoxically, the base learners need to be weak instead of powerful, but that’s another long and complicated story.

I decided to implement Gradient Boost regression using Blind Trees learners. Bottom line: For my demo dataset, the technique worked surprisingly well.

Blind Trees are even weaker than standard decision trees. When constructing a standard decision tree, for each tree node, an optimal split column and split value are found. When constructing a Blind Trees tree, for each node, a split value is selected blindly, without looking at the target y values, and without computing variance reduction. This makes blind Trees very fast to construct.

For my demo, I used one of my standard datasets It looks like:

-0.1660,  0.4406, -0.9998, -0.3953, -0.7065,  0.4840
 0.0776, -0.1616,  0.3704, -0.5911,  0.7562,  0.1568
-0.9452,  0.3409, -0.1654,  0.1174, -0.7192,  0.8054
. . .

The data is synthetic. The first five values on each line are the predictors. The last value on each line is the target to predict. There are 200 training items and 40 test items.

The key parts of the output of my demo are:

Begin C# Gradient Boosting with Blind Trees demo

Loading synthetic train (200) and test (40) data
Done

First three train X:
 -0.1660  0.4406 -0.9998 -0.3953 -0.7065
  0.0776 -0.1616  0.3704 -0.5911  0.7562
 -0.9452  0.3409 -0.1654  0.1174 -0.7192

First three train y:
  0.4840
  0.1568
  0.8054

Setting numTrees = 600
Setting maxDepth = 6
Setting minSamples = 2
Setting minLeaf = 1
Setting lrnRate = 0.0500

Creating and training GradientBoostRegression model
Done

Evaluating model

Accuracy train (within 0.10) = 1.0000
Accuracy test (within 0.10) = 0.8250

MSE train = 0.0000
MSE test = 0.0013

R2 train = 1.0000
R2 test = 0.9533

Predicting for x =
  -0.1660   0.4406  -0.9998  -0.3953  -0.7065

Initial prediction: 0.3493
t =   0  pred_res =  0.1700  delta =  0.0085  pred =  0.3578
t =   1  pred_res =  0.1785  delta =  0.0089  pred =  0.3668
t =   2  pred_res =  0.1230  delta =  0.0061  pred =  0.3729
t =   3  pred_res =  0.2392  delta =  0.0120  pred =  0.3849
t =   4  pred_res =  0.2090  delta =  0.0105  pred =  0.3953
. . .
t = 598  pred_res = -0.0001  delta = -0.0000  pred =  0.4844
t = 599  pred_res = -0.0001  delta = -0.0000  pred =  0.4844
Predicted y = 0.4844

End demo

A very interesting investigation.

Gradient Boost regression code is a wrapper around a collection of weak learners. I’m a big fan of science fiction movies of the 1950s. Several of these movies had aliens that were obviously just actors wrapped in costumes of some kind, but this didn’t reduce the appeal for me. Here are two of my favorites.

Right: In “This Island Earth” (1955), human-like aliens from Metaluna come to Earth to seek scientific help in their war against the planet of Zagon. The Metaluna aliens use 7-foot tall mutants as general purpose helpers and for security. My grade = A-.

Demo program. Very long, quite complex. Replace “lt” (less than), “gt”, “lte”, “gte” with Boolean operator symbols. (My blog editor chokes on symbols).

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace GradientBoostWithBlindTrees
{
  internal class GradientBoostWithBlindTreesProgram
  {
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      Console.WriteLine("\nBegin C# Gradient Boosting" +
        " with Blind Trees demo ");

      // 1. load data
      Console.WriteLine("\nLoading synthetic train" +
        " (200) and test (40) data");
      string trainFile =
        "..\\..\\..\\Data\\synthetic_train_200.txt";
      int[] colsX = new int[] { 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 };
      double[][] trainX =
        MatLoad(trainFile, colsX, ',', "#");
      double[] trainY =
        MatToVec(MatLoad(trainFile,
        [5], ',', "#"));

      string testFile =
        "..\\..\\..\\Data\\synthetic_test_40.txt";
      double[][] testX =
        MatLoad(testFile, colsX, ',', "#");
      double[] testY =
        MatToVec(MatLoad(testFile,
        [5], ',', "#"));
      Console.WriteLine("Done ");

      Console.WriteLine("\nFirst three train X: ");
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" 3; ++i)
        VecShow(trainX[i], 4, 8);

      Console.WriteLine("\nFirst three train y: ");
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" 3; ++i)
        Console.WriteLine(trainY[i].ToString("F4").
          PadLeft(8));

      int numTrees = 600;
      int maxDepth = 6;
      int minSamples = 2;
      int minLeaf = 1;
      int numSplitCols = -1; // use all columns
      double lrnRate = 0.05;  // 0.9900 .8250  0  .0013 

      Console.WriteLine("\nSetting numTrees = " +
        numTrees);
      Console.WriteLine("Setting maxDepth = " +
        maxDepth);
      Console.WriteLine("Setting minSamples = " +
        minSamples);
      Console.WriteLine("Setting minLeaf = " +
        minLeaf);
      Console.WriteLine("Setting lrnRate = " +
        lrnRate.ToString("F4"));

      Console.WriteLine("\nCreating and training" +
        " GradientBoostRegression model ");
      GradientBoostRegressor gbr =
        new GradientBoostRegressor(numTrees, maxDepth,
        minSamples, minLeaf, numSplitCols, lrnRate, 0);
      gbr.Train(trainX, trainY);
      Console.WriteLine("Done ");

      // 3. evaluate model
      Console.WriteLine("\nEvaluating model ");
      double accTrain = gbr.Accuracy(trainX, trainY, 0.10);
      Console.WriteLine("\nAccuracy train (within 0.10) = " +
        accTrain.ToString("F4"));
      double accTest = gbr.Accuracy(testX, testY, 0.10);
      Console.WriteLine("Accuracy test (within 0.10) = " +
        accTest.ToString("F4"));

      double mseTrain = gbr.MSE(trainX, trainY);
      Console.WriteLine("\nMSE train = " +
        mseTrain.ToString("F4"));
      double mseTest = gbr.MSE(testX, testY);
      Console.WriteLine("MSE test = " +
        mseTest.ToString("F4"));

      double r2Train = gbr.R2(trainX, trainY);
      Console.WriteLine("\nR2 train = " +
        r2Train.ToString("F4"));
      double r2Test = gbr.R2(testX, testY);
      Console.WriteLine("R2 test = " +
        r2Test.ToString("F4"));

      // 4. use model
      double[] x = trainX[0];
      Console.WriteLine("\nPredicting for x = ");
      VecShow(x, 4, 9);
      double predY = gbr.Predict(x, verbose: true);
      Console.WriteLine("Predicted y = " +
        predY.ToString("F4"));

      Console.WriteLine("\nEnd demo ");
      Console.ReadLine();
    } // Main()

    // ------------------------------------------------------
    // helpers for Main()
    // ------------------------------------------------------

    static double[][] MatLoad(string fn, int[] usecols,
      char sep, string comment)
    {
      List"lt"double[]"gt" result = new List"lt"double[]"gt"();
      string line = "";
      FileStream ifs = new FileStream(fn, FileMode.Open);
      StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(ifs);
      while ((line = sr.ReadLine()) != null)
      {
        if (line.StartsWith(comment) == true)
          continue;
        string[] tokens = line.Split(sep);
        List"lt"double"gt" lst = new List"lt"double"gt"();
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" usecols.Length; ++j)
          lst.Add(double.Parse(tokens[usecols[j]]));
        double[] row = lst.ToArray();
        result.Add(row);
      }
      sr.Close(); ifs.Close();
      return result.ToArray();
    }

    static double[] MatToVec(double[][] mat)
    {
      int nRows = mat.Length;
      int nCols = mat[0].Length;
      double[] result = new double[nRows * nCols];
      int k = 0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" nCols; ++j)
          result[k++] = mat[i][j];
      return result;
    }

    static void VecShow(double[] vec, int dec, int wid)
    {
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" vec.Length; ++i)
        Console.Write(vec[i].ToString("F" + dec).
          PadLeft(wid));
      Console.WriteLine("");
    }

  } // class Program

  // ========================================================

  public class GradientBoostRegressor
  {
    public double lrnRate;
    public int nTrees;
    public int maxDepth;
    public int minSamples;
    public int minLeaf;
    public int numSplitCols;
    public List"lt"BlindTreeRegressor"gt" trees;
    public double pred0;  // initial prediction
    private Random rnd;

    public GradientBoostRegressor(int nTrees, int maxDepth,
      int minSamples, int minLeaf, int numSplitCols,
      double lrnRate, int seed=0)
    {
      this.nTrees = nTrees;
      this.maxDepth = maxDepth;
      this.minSamples = minSamples;
      this.minLeaf = minLeaf;
      this.numSplitCols = numSplitCols;
      this.trees = new List"lt"BlindTreeRegressor"gt"();
      this.lrnRate = lrnRate;
      this.rnd = new Random(seed);
    }

    public void Train(double[][] trainX, double[] trainY)
    {
      int n = trainX.Length;
      this.pred0 = Mean(trainY);

      double[] preds = new double[n]; //each data item
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
        preds[i] = this.pred0;

      for (int t = 0; t "lt" this.nTrees; ++t) // each tree
      {
        double[] residuals = new double[n]; // for curr tree
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
          residuals[i] = trainY[i] - preds[i];

        BlindTreeRegressor bt =
          new BlindTreeRegressor(this.maxDepth,
          this.minSamples, this.minLeaf, this.numSplitCols,
          false, this.rnd.Next(0,1_000_000));
        bt.Train(trainX, residuals); // predict residuals

        for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
        {
          double predResidual = bt.Predict(trainX[i]);
          preds[i] += this.lrnRate * predResidual;
        }
        this.trees.Add(bt);
      }
    } // Train

    public double Predict(double[] x, bool verbose = false)
    {
      double result = this.pred0;
      if (verbose == true)
      {
        Console.WriteLine("\nInitial prediction: " +
        result.ToString("F4"));
      }
      for (int t = 0; t "lt" this.nTrees; ++t)
      {
        double predResidual = this.trees[t].Predict(x);
        double delta = this.lrnRate * predResidual;
        result += delta;

        if (verbose == true)
        {
          if (t "gte" 0 && t "lte" 4 ||
            t "gte" this.nTrees - 2 &&
            t "lte" this.nTrees - 1)
          {
            Console.Write("t = " + t.ToString().PadLeft(3) +
              "  pred_res = " + predResidual.ToString("F4").
              PadLeft(7));
            Console.Write("  delta = " + delta.ToString("F4").
              PadLeft(7));
            Console.WriteLine("  pred = " +
              result.ToString("F4").PadLeft(7));
          }
          if (t == 5)
            Console.WriteLine(". . . ");
        }
      }
      return result;
    }

    public double Accuracy(double[][] dataX, double[] dataY,
      double pctClose)
    {
      int numCorrect = 0; int numWrong = 0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" dataX.Length; ++i)
      {
        double actualY = dataY[i];
        double predY = Predict(dataX[i]);
        if (Math.Abs(predY - actualY) "lt"
          (pctClose * Math.Abs(actualY)))
          ++numCorrect;
        else
          ++numWrong;
      }
      return (numCorrect * 1.0) / (numWrong + numCorrect);
    }

    public double MSE(double[][] dataX,
      double[] dataY)
    {
      int n = dataX.Length;
      double sum = 0.0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
      {
        double actualY = dataY[i];
        double predY = this.Predict(dataX[i]);
        sum += (actualY - predY) * (actualY - predY);
      }
      return sum / n;
    }

    public double R2(double[][] dataX, double[] dataY)
    {
      // coefficient of determination
      int n = dataX.Length;
      double sum = 0.0;

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
        sum += dataY[i];
      double meanActual = sum / n;

      double ssRes = 0.0;
      double ssTot = 0.0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
      {
        double predY = this.Predict(dataX[i]);
        ssRes += (dataY[i] - predY) * (dataY[i] - predY);
        ssTot += (dataY[i] - meanActual) *
          (dataY[i] - meanActual);
      }
      if (Math.Abs(ssTot) "lt" 1.0e-12)
        return 0.0;
      else
        return 1.0 - (ssRes / ssTot);
    }

    private static double Mean(double[] data)
    {
      int n = data.Length;
      double sum = 0.0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
        sum += data[i];
      return sum / n;
    }

  } // class GradientBoostRegression

 // ========================================================

  public class BlindTreeRegressor
  {
    public int maxDepth;
    public int minSamples;
    public int minLeaf;
    public int numSplitCols;
    public List"lt"Node"gt" tree;
    public Random rnd;
    public bool saveRows;
    public double[][] trainX;
    public double[] trainY;

    // ............................................

    public class Node
    {
      public int id;
      public int colIdx;
      public double thresh;
      public int left;
      public int right;
      public double value;
      public bool isLeaf;
      public List"lt"int"gt" rows;

      public Node()
      {
        this.id = -1;
        this.colIdx = -1;
        this.thresh = 0.0;
        this.left = -1;
        this.right = -1;
        this.value = 0.0;
        this.isLeaf = false;
        this.rows = null;
      }
    }

    // ............................................

    public BlindTreeRegressor(int maxDepth = 3,
      int minSamples = 2, int minLeaf = 1,
      int numSplitCols = -1, bool saveRows = false,
      int seed = 0)
    {
      this.maxDepth = maxDepth;
      this.minSamples = minSamples;
      this.minLeaf = minLeaf;
      this.numSplitCols = numSplitCols;
      this.saveRows = saveRows;
      this.tree = new List"lt"Node"gt"();

      int numNodes = (int)Math.Pow(2, (maxDepth + 1)) - 1;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" numNodes; ++i)
        this.tree.Add(null);
      this.rnd = new Random(seed);
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------
    // public: ctor(), Train(), Predict()
    // private: BestSplit(), TreeTargetMean()
    // ------------------------------------------------------

    public void Train(double[][] trainX, double[] trainY)
    {
      this.trainX = trainX;
      this.trainY = trainY;

      // boundary IDs based on max allowed depth
      int maxID = (int)Math.Pow(2, (this.maxDepth + 1)) - 2;
      int maxStartID = (int)Math.Pow(2, this.maxDepth) - 1;

      // initialize root data rows
      List"lt"int"gt" allRows = 
        new List"lt"int"gt"(this.trainX.Length);
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" this.trainX.Length; ++i)
        allRows.Add(i);
      double grandMean = this.TreeTargetMean(allRows);

      Node root = new Node();
      root.id = 0;
      root.value = grandMean;
      root.isLeaf = false;
      root.rows = allRows;
      this.tree[0] = root;

      // build tree breadth-first
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" this.tree.Count; ++i)
      {
        Node currNode = this.tree[i];
        if (currNode == null) continue;

        // safety checks
        if (currNode.id "gte" maxStartID ||
          currNode.rows.Count "lt" this.minSamples)
        {
          currNode.isLeaf = true;
          currNode.left = -1;   // Explicitly isolate node boundaries
          currNode.right = -1;
          currNode.colIdx = -1;
          continue;
        }

        double[] splitInfo = this.BestSplit(currNode.rows);
        int colIdx = (int)splitInfo[0];
        double splitVal = splitInfo[1];

        // check for split failure
        if (colIdx == -1)
        {
          currNode.isLeaf = true;
          currNode.left = -1;
          currNode.right = -1;
          currNode.colIdx = -1;
          continue;
        }

        // got a valid split point
        currNode.colIdx = colIdx;
        currNode.thresh = splitVal;

        // avoid continuous resizing allocations
        List"lt"int"gt" leftIdxs =
          new List"lt"int"gt"(currNode.rows.Count);
        List"lt"int"gt" rightIdxs =
          new List"lt"int"gt"(currNode.rows.Count);

        for (int k = 0; k "lt" currNode.rows.Count; ++k)
        {
          int r = currNode.rows[k];
          if (this.trainX[r][colIdx] "lte" splitVal)
            leftIdxs.Add(r);
          else
            rightIdxs.Add(r);
        }

        int leftID = currNode.id * 2 + 1;
        int rightID = currNode.id * 2 + 2;

        // check both branches
        bool leftValid = (leftID "lte" maxID &&
          leftIdxs.Count "gte" this.minLeaf);
        bool rightValid = (rightID "lte" maxID &&
          rightIdxs.Count "gte" this.minLeaf);

        if (leftValid == true && rightValid == true)
        {
          // create child nodes
          currNode.left = leftID;
          Node leftNode = new Node();
          leftNode.id = leftID;
          leftNode.rows = leftIdxs;
          leftNode.value =
            this.TreeTargetMean(leftNode.rows);
          this.tree[leftID] = leftNode;

          currNode.right = rightID;
          Node rightNode = new Node();
          rightNode.id = rightID;
          rightNode.rows = rightIdxs;
          rightNode.value =
            this.TreeTargetMean(rightNode.rows);
          this.tree[rightID] = rightNode;
        }
        else
        {
          // structural asymmetry/failure edge case
          // make parent into a leaf node
          currNode.isLeaf = true;
          currNode.left = -1;
          currNode.right = -1;
          currNode.colIdx = -1;
        }
      }

      // delete row info (for ensembles)
      if (this.saveRows == false)
      {
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" this.tree.Count; ++i)
          if (this.tree[i] != null)
            this.tree[i].rows = null;
      }
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    public double Predict(double[] x)
    {
      int p = 0;
      double lastValidValue = 0.0;
      while (p != -1 && p "lt" this.tree.Count)
      {
        Node currNode = this.tree[p];

        if (currNode == null) break;

        lastValidValue = currNode.value;

        if (currNode.isLeaf == true ||
          currNode.colIdx == -1 ||
          currNode.left "gte" this.tree.Count ||
          currNode.right "gte" this.tree.Count)
          break;

        if (x[currNode.colIdx] "lte" currNode.thresh)
          p = currNode.left;
        else
          p = currNode.right;
      }
      return lastValidValue;
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    private double[] BestSplit(List"lt"int"gt" rows)
    {
      int nRows = rows.Count;
      int nCols = this.trainX[0].Length;

      if (nRows == 0)
        throw new Exception("Empty data in BestSplit()");

      // 1. Randomly pick ONE column from active columns
      int nColsToUse = (this.numSplitCols != -1)
          ? Math.Min(this.numSplitCols, nCols)
          : nCols;

      int chosenColIdx = this.rnd.Next(0, nColsToUse);

      // 2. Find min and max for the chosen column
      double minVal = double.MaxValue;
      double maxVal = double.MinValue;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
      {
        double val = this.trainX[rows[i]][chosenColIdx];
        if (val "lt" minVal) minVal = val;
        if (val "gt" maxVal) maxVal = val;
      }

      if (minVal == maxVal)
        return new double[] { -1.0, 0.0 }; // no split

      // 3. Geometric Midpoint (Fast O(N), no sorting!)
      double baseThresh = (minVal + maxVal) / 2.0;

      // 4. Bias threshold slightly to mean of active rows
      double randThresh = 
        minVal + (maxVal - minVal) * this.rnd.NextDouble();
      double finalThresh = 
        (0.75 * baseThresh) + (0.25 * randThresh);

      // 5. Verify minLeaf condition
      int leftCount = 0;
      int rightCount = 0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
      {
        if (this.trainX[rows[i]][chosenColIdx] "lte" 
          finalThresh)
          leftCount++;
        else
          rightCount++;
      }

      if (leftCount "lt" this.minLeaf || 
        rightCount "lt" this.minLeaf)
        return new double[] { -1.0, 0.0 };

      return new double[] { chosenColIdx, finalThresh };
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    private double TreeTargetMean(List"lt"int"gt" rows)
    {
      if (rows == null || rows.Count == 0) return 0.0;
      double sum = 0.0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" rows.Count; ++i)
      {
        sum += this.trainY[rows[i]];
      }
      return sum / rows.Count;
    }

  } // class BlindTreeRegressor

  // ========================================================
 
} // ns

Training data:

# synthetic_train_200.txt
#
-0.1660,  0.4406, -0.9998, -0.3953, -0.7065,  0.4840
 0.0776, -0.1616,  0.3704, -0.5911,  0.7562,  0.1568
-0.9452,  0.3409, -0.1654,  0.1174, -0.7192,  0.8054
 0.9365, -0.3732,  0.3846,  0.7528,  0.7892,  0.1345
-0.8299, -0.9219, -0.6603,  0.7563, -0.8033,  0.7955
 0.0663,  0.3838, -0.3690,  0.3730,  0.6693,  0.3206
-0.9634,  0.5003,  0.9777,  0.4963, -0.4391,  0.7377
-0.1042,  0.8172, -0.4128, -0.4244, -0.7399,  0.4801
-0.9613,  0.3577, -0.5767, -0.4689, -0.0169,  0.6861
-0.7065,  0.1786,  0.3995, -0.7953, -0.1719,  0.5569
 0.3888, -0.1716, -0.9001,  0.0718,  0.3276,  0.2500
 0.1731,  0.8068, -0.7251, -0.7214,  0.6148,  0.3297
-0.2046, -0.6693,  0.8550, -0.3045,  0.5016,  0.2129
 0.2473,  0.5019, -0.3022, -0.4601,  0.7918,  0.2613
-0.1438,  0.9297,  0.3269,  0.2434, -0.7705,  0.5171
 0.1568, -0.1837, -0.5259,  0.8068,  0.1474,  0.3307
-0.9943,  0.2343, -0.3467,  0.0541,  0.7719,  0.5581
 0.2467, -0.9684,  0.8589,  0.3818,  0.9946,  0.1092
-0.6553, -0.7257,  0.8652,  0.3936, -0.8680,  0.7018
 0.8460,  0.4230, -0.7515, -0.9602, -0.9476,  0.1996
-0.9434, -0.5076,  0.7201,  0.0777,  0.1056,  0.5664
 0.9392,  0.1221, -0.9627,  0.6013, -0.5341,  0.1533
 0.6142, -0.2243,  0.7271,  0.4942,  0.1125,  0.1661
 0.4260,  0.1194, -0.9749, -0.8561,  0.9346,  0.2230
 0.1362, -0.5934, -0.4953,  0.4877, -0.6091,  0.3810
 0.6937, -0.5203, -0.0125,  0.2399,  0.6580,  0.1460
-0.6864, -0.9628, -0.8600, -0.0273,  0.2127,  0.5387
 0.9772,  0.1595, -0.2397,  0.1019,  0.4907,  0.1611
 0.3385, -0.4702, -0.8673, -0.2598,  0.2594,  0.2270
-0.8669, -0.4794,  0.6095, -0.6131,  0.2789,  0.4700
 0.0493,  0.8496, -0.4734, -0.8681,  0.4701,  0.3516
 0.8639, -0.9721, -0.5313,  0.2336,  0.8980,  0.1412
 0.9004,  0.1133,  0.8312,  0.2831, -0.2200,  0.1782
 0.0991,  0.8524,  0.8375, -0.2102,  0.9265,  0.2150
-0.6521, -0.7473, -0.7298,  0.0113, -0.9570,  0.7422
 0.6190, -0.3105,  0.8802,  0.1640,  0.7577,  0.1056
 0.6895,  0.8108, -0.0802,  0.0927,  0.5972,  0.2214
 0.1982, -0.9689,  0.1870, -0.1326,  0.6147,  0.1310
-0.3695,  0.7858,  0.1557, -0.6320,  0.5759,  0.3773
-0.1596,  0.3581,  0.8372, -0.9992,  0.9535,  0.2071
-0.2468,  0.9476,  0.2094,  0.6577,  0.1494,  0.4132
 0.1737,  0.5000,  0.7166,  0.5102,  0.3961,  0.2611
 0.7290, -0.3546,  0.3416, -0.0983, -0.2358,  0.1332
-0.3652,  0.2438, -0.1395,  0.9476,  0.3556,  0.4170
-0.6029, -0.1466, -0.3133,  0.5953,  0.7600,  0.4334
-0.4596, -0.4953,  0.7098,  0.0554,  0.6043,  0.2775
 0.1450,  0.4663,  0.0380,  0.5418,  0.1377,  0.2931
-0.8636, -0.2442, -0.8407,  0.9656, -0.6368,  0.7429
 0.6237,  0.7499,  0.3768,  0.1390, -0.6781,  0.2185
-0.5499,  0.1850, -0.3755,  0.8326,  0.8193,  0.4399
-0.4858, -0.7782, -0.6141, -0.0008,  0.4572,  0.4197
 0.7033, -0.1683,  0.2334, -0.5327, -0.7961,  0.1776
 0.0317, -0.0457, -0.6947,  0.2436,  0.0880,  0.3345
 0.5031, -0.5559,  0.0387,  0.5706, -0.9553,  0.3107
-0.3513,  0.7458,  0.6894,  0.0769,  0.7332,  0.3170
 0.2205,  0.5992, -0.9309,  0.5405,  0.4635,  0.3532
-0.4806, -0.4859,  0.2646, -0.3094,  0.5932,  0.3202
 0.9809, -0.3995, -0.7140,  0.8026,  0.0831,  0.1600
 0.9495,  0.2732,  0.9878,  0.0921,  0.0529,  0.1289
-0.9476, -0.6792,  0.4913, -0.9392, -0.2669,  0.5966
 0.7247,  0.3854,  0.3819, -0.6227, -0.1162,  0.1550
-0.5922, -0.5045, -0.4757,  0.5003, -0.0860,  0.5863
-0.8861,  0.0170, -0.5761,  0.5972, -0.4053,  0.7301
 0.6877, -0.2380,  0.4997,  0.0223,  0.0819,  0.1404
 0.9189,  0.6079, -0.9354,  0.4188, -0.0700,  0.1907
-0.1428, -0.7820,  0.2676,  0.6059,  0.3936,  0.2790
 0.5324, -0.3151,  0.6917, -0.1425,  0.6480,  0.1071
-0.8432, -0.9633, -0.8666, -0.0828, -0.7733,  0.7784
-0.9444,  0.5097, -0.2103,  0.4939, -0.0952,  0.6787
-0.0520,  0.6063, -0.1952,  0.8094, -0.9259,  0.4836
 0.5477, -0.7487,  0.2370, -0.9793,  0.0773,  0.1241
 0.2450,  0.8116,  0.9799,  0.4222,  0.4636,  0.2355
 0.8186, -0.1983, -0.5003, -0.6531, -0.7611,  0.1511
-0.4714,  0.6382, -0.3788,  0.9648, -0.4667,  0.5950
 0.0673, -0.3711,  0.8215, -0.2669, -0.1328,  0.2677
-0.9381,  0.4338,  0.7820, -0.9454,  0.0441,  0.5518
-0.3480,  0.7190,  0.1170,  0.3805, -0.0943,  0.4724
-0.9813,  0.1535, -0.3771,  0.0345,  0.8328,  0.5438
-0.1471, -0.5052, -0.2574,  0.8637,  0.8737,  0.3042
-0.5454, -0.3712, -0.6505,  0.2142, -0.1728,  0.5783
 0.6327, -0.6297,  0.4038, -0.5193,  0.1484,  0.1153
-0.5424,  0.3282, -0.0055,  0.0380, -0.6506,  0.6613
 0.1414,  0.9935,  0.6337,  0.1887,  0.9520,  0.2540
-0.9351, -0.8128, -0.8693, -0.0965, -0.2491,  0.7353
 0.9507, -0.6640,  0.9456,  0.5349,  0.6485,  0.1059
-0.0462, -0.9737, -0.2940, -0.0159,  0.4602,  0.2606
-0.0627, -0.0852, -0.7247, -0.9782,  0.5166,  0.2977
 0.0478,  0.5098, -0.0723, -0.7504, -0.3750,  0.3335
 0.0090,  0.3477,  0.5403, -0.7393, -0.9542,  0.4415
-0.9748,  0.3449,  0.3736, -0.1015,  0.8296,  0.4358
 0.2887, -0.9895, -0.0311,  0.7186,  0.6608,  0.2057
 0.1570, -0.4518,  0.1211,  0.3435, -0.2951,  0.3244
 0.7117, -0.6099,  0.4946, -0.4208,  0.5476,  0.1096
-0.2929, -0.5726,  0.5346, -0.3827,  0.4665,  0.2465
 0.4889, -0.5572, -0.5718, -0.6021, -0.7150,  0.2163
-0.7782,  0.3491,  0.5996, -0.8389, -0.5366,  0.6516
-0.5847,  0.8347,  0.4226,  0.1078, -0.3910,  0.6134
 0.8469,  0.4121, -0.0439, -0.7476,  0.9521,  0.1571
-0.6803, -0.5948, -0.1376, -0.1916, -0.7065,  0.7156
 0.2878,  0.5086, -0.5785,  0.2019,  0.4979,  0.2980
 0.2764,  0.1943, -0.4090,  0.4632,  0.8906,  0.2960
-0.8877,  0.6705, -0.6155, -0.2098, -0.3998,  0.7107
-0.8398,  0.8093, -0.2597,  0.0614, -0.0118,  0.6502
-0.8476,  0.0158, -0.4769, -0.2859, -0.7839,  0.7715
 0.5751, -0.7868,  0.9714, -0.6457,  0.1448,  0.1175
 0.4802, -0.7001,  0.1022, -0.5668,  0.5184,  0.1090
 0.4458, -0.6469,  0.7239, -0.9604,  0.7205,  0.0779
 0.5175,  0.4339,  0.9747, -0.4438, -0.9924,  0.2879
 0.8678,  0.7158,  0.4577,  0.0334,  0.4139,  0.1678
 0.5406,  0.5012,  0.2264, -0.1963,  0.3946,  0.2088
-0.9938,  0.5498,  0.7928, -0.5214, -0.7585,  0.7687
 0.7661,  0.0863, -0.4266, -0.7233, -0.4197,  0.1466
 0.2277, -0.3517, -0.0853, -0.1118,  0.6563,  0.1767
 0.3499, -0.5570, -0.0655, -0.3705,  0.2537,  0.1632
 0.7547, -0.1046,  0.5689, -0.0861,  0.3125,  0.1257
 0.8186,  0.2110,  0.5335,  0.0094, -0.0039,  0.1391
 0.6858, -0.8644,  0.1465,  0.8855,  0.0357,  0.1845
-0.4967,  0.4015,  0.0805,  0.8977,  0.2487,  0.4663
 0.6760, -0.9841,  0.9787, -0.8446, -0.3557,  0.1509
-0.1203, -0.4885,  0.6054, -0.0443, -0.7313,  0.4854
 0.8557,  0.7919, -0.0169,  0.7134, -0.1628,  0.2002
 0.0115, -0.6209,  0.9300, -0.4116, -0.7931,  0.4052
-0.7114, -0.9718,  0.4319,  0.1290,  0.5892,  0.3661
 0.3915,  0.5557, -0.1870,  0.2955, -0.6404,  0.2954
-0.3564, -0.6548, -0.1827, -0.5172, -0.1862,  0.4622
 0.2392, -0.4959,  0.5857, -0.1341, -0.2850,  0.2470
-0.3394,  0.3947, -0.4627,  0.6166, -0.4094,  0.5325
 0.7107,  0.7768, -0.6312,  0.1707,  0.7964,  0.2757
-0.1078,  0.8437, -0.4420,  0.2177,  0.3649,  0.4028
-0.3139,  0.5595, -0.6505, -0.3161, -0.7108,  0.5546
 0.4335,  0.3986,  0.3770, -0.4932,  0.3847,  0.1810
-0.2562, -0.2894, -0.8847,  0.2633,  0.4146,  0.4036
 0.2272,  0.2966, -0.6601, -0.7011,  0.0284,  0.2778
-0.0743, -0.1421, -0.0054, -0.6770, -0.3151,  0.3597
-0.4762,  0.6891,  0.6007, -0.1467,  0.2140,  0.4266
-0.4061,  0.7193,  0.3432,  0.2669, -0.7505,  0.6147
-0.0588,  0.9731,  0.8966,  0.2902, -0.6966,  0.4955
-0.0627, -0.1439,  0.1985,  0.6999,  0.5022,  0.3077
 0.1587,  0.8494, -0.8705,  0.9827, -0.8940,  0.4263
-0.7850,  0.2473, -0.9040, -0.4308, -0.8779,  0.7199
 0.4070,  0.3369, -0.2428, -0.6236,  0.4940,  0.2215
-0.0242,  0.0513, -0.9430,  0.2885, -0.2987,  0.3947
-0.5416, -0.1322, -0.2351, -0.0604,  0.9590,  0.3683
 0.1055,  0.7783, -0.2901, -0.5090,  0.8220,  0.2984
-0.9129,  0.9015,  0.1128, -0.2473,  0.9901,  0.4776
-0.9378,  0.1424, -0.6391,  0.2619,  0.9618,  0.5368
 0.7498, -0.0963,  0.4169,  0.5549, -0.0103,  0.1614
-0.2612, -0.7156,  0.4538, -0.0460, -0.1022,  0.3717
 0.7720,  0.0552, -0.1818, -0.4622, -0.8560,  0.1685
-0.4177,  0.0070,  0.9319, -0.7812,  0.3461,  0.3052
-0.0001,  0.5542, -0.7128, -0.8336, -0.2016,  0.3803
 0.5356, -0.4194, -0.5662, -0.9666, -0.2027,  0.1776
-0.2378,  0.3187, -0.8582, -0.6948, -0.9668,  0.5474
-0.1947, -0.3579,  0.1158,  0.9869,  0.6690,  0.2992
 0.3992,  0.8365, -0.9205, -0.8593, -0.0520,  0.3154
-0.0209,  0.0793,  0.7905, -0.1067,  0.7541,  0.1864
-0.4928, -0.4524, -0.3433,  0.0951, -0.5597,  0.6261
-0.8118,  0.7404, -0.5263, -0.2280,  0.1431,  0.6349
 0.0516, -0.8480,  0.7483,  0.9023,  0.6250,  0.1959
-0.3212,  0.1093,  0.9488, -0.3766,  0.3376,  0.2735
-0.3481,  0.5490, -0.3484,  0.7797,  0.5034,  0.4379
-0.5785, -0.9170, -0.3563, -0.9258,  0.3877,  0.4121
 0.3407, -0.1391,  0.5356,  0.0720, -0.9203,  0.3458
-0.3287, -0.8954,  0.2102,  0.0241,  0.2349,  0.3247
-0.1353,  0.6954, -0.0919, -0.9692,  0.7461,  0.3338
 0.9036, -0.8982, -0.5299, -0.8733, -0.1567,  0.1187
 0.7277, -0.8368, -0.0538, -0.7489,  0.5458,  0.0830
 0.9049,  0.8878,  0.2279,  0.9470, -0.3103,  0.2194
 0.7957, -0.1308, -0.5284,  0.8817,  0.3684,  0.2172
 0.4647, -0.4931,  0.2010,  0.6292, -0.8918,  0.3371
-0.7390,  0.6849,  0.2367,  0.0626, -0.5034,  0.7039
-0.1567, -0.8711,  0.7940, -0.5932,  0.6525,  0.1710
 0.7635, -0.0265,  0.1969,  0.0545,  0.2496,  0.1445
 0.7675,  0.1354, -0.7698, -0.5460,  0.1920,  0.1728
-0.5211, -0.7372, -0.6763,  0.6897,  0.2044,  0.5217
 0.1913,  0.1980,  0.2314, -0.8816,  0.5006,  0.1998
 0.8964,  0.0694, -0.6149,  0.5059, -0.9854,  0.1825
 0.1767,  0.7104,  0.2093,  0.6452,  0.7590,  0.2832
-0.3580, -0.7541,  0.4426, -0.1193, -0.7465,  0.5657
-0.5996,  0.5766, -0.9758, -0.3933, -0.9572,  0.6800
 0.9950,  0.1641, -0.4132,  0.8579,  0.0142,  0.2003
-0.4717, -0.3894, -0.2567, -0.5111,  0.1691,  0.4266
 0.3917, -0.8561,  0.9422,  0.5061,  0.6123,  0.1212
-0.0366, -0.1087,  0.3449, -0.1025,  0.4086,  0.2475
 0.3633,  0.3943,  0.2372, -0.6980,  0.5216,  0.1925
-0.5325, -0.6466, -0.2178, -0.3589,  0.6310,  0.3568
 0.2271,  0.5200, -0.1447, -0.8011, -0.7699,  0.3128
 0.6415,  0.1993,  0.3777, -0.0178, -0.8237,  0.2181
-0.5298, -0.0768, -0.6028, -0.9490,  0.4588,  0.4356
 0.6870, -0.1431,  0.7294,  0.3141,  0.1621,  0.1632
-0.5985,  0.0591,  0.7889, -0.3900,  0.7419,  0.2945
 0.3661,  0.7984, -0.8486,  0.7572, -0.6183,  0.3449
 0.6995,  0.3342, -0.3113, -0.6972,  0.2707,  0.1712
 0.2565,  0.9126,  0.1798, -0.6043, -0.1413,  0.2893
-0.3265,  0.9839, -0.2395,  0.9854,  0.0376,  0.4770
 0.2690, -0.1722,  0.9818,  0.8599, -0.7015,  0.3954
-0.2102, -0.0768,  0.1219,  0.5607, -0.0256,  0.3949
 0.8216, -0.9555,  0.6422, -0.6231,  0.3715,  0.0801
-0.2896,  0.9484, -0.7545, -0.6249,  0.7789,  0.4370
-0.9985, -0.5448, -0.7092, -0.5931,  0.7926,  0.5402

Test data:

# synthetic_test_40.txt
#
 0.7462,  0.4006, -0.0590,  0.6543, -0.0083,  0.1935
 0.8495, -0.2260, -0.0142, -0.4911,  0.7699,  0.1078
-0.2335, -0.4049,  0.4352, -0.6183, -0.7636,  0.5088
 0.1810, -0.5142,  0.2465,  0.2767, -0.3449,  0.3136
-0.8650,  0.7611, -0.0801,  0.5277, -0.4922,  0.7140
-0.2358, -0.7466, -0.5115, -0.8413, -0.3943,  0.4533
 0.4834,  0.2300,  0.3448, -0.9832,  0.3568,  0.1360
-0.6502, -0.6300,  0.6885,  0.9652,  0.8275,  0.3046
-0.3053,  0.5604,  0.0929,  0.6329, -0.0325,  0.4756
-0.7995,  0.0740, -0.2680,  0.2086,  0.9176,  0.4565
-0.2144, -0.2141,  0.5813,  0.2902, -0.2122,  0.4119
-0.7278, -0.0987, -0.3312, -0.5641,  0.8515,  0.4438
 0.3793,  0.1976,  0.4933,  0.0839,  0.4011,  0.1905
-0.8568,  0.9573, -0.5272,  0.3212, -0.8207,  0.7415
-0.5785,  0.0056, -0.7901, -0.2223,  0.0760,  0.5551
 0.0735, -0.2188,  0.3925,  0.3570,  0.3746,  0.2191
 0.1230, -0.2838,  0.2262,  0.8715,  0.1938,  0.2878
 0.4792, -0.9248,  0.5295,  0.0366, -0.9894,  0.3149
-0.4456,  0.0697,  0.5359, -0.8938,  0.0981,  0.3879
 0.8629, -0.8505, -0.4464,  0.8385,  0.5300,  0.1769
 0.1995,  0.6659,  0.7921,  0.9454,  0.9970,  0.2330
-0.0249, -0.3066, -0.2927, -0.4923,  0.8220,  0.2437
 0.4513, -0.9481, -0.0770, -0.4374, -0.9421,  0.2879
-0.3405,  0.5931, -0.3507, -0.3842,  0.8562,  0.3987
 0.9538,  0.0471,  0.9039,  0.7760,  0.0361,  0.1706
-0.0887,  0.2104,  0.9808,  0.5478, -0.3314,  0.4128
-0.8220, -0.6302,  0.0537, -0.1658,  0.6013,  0.4306
-0.4123, -0.2880,  0.9074, -0.0461, -0.4435,  0.5144
 0.0060,  0.2867, -0.7775,  0.5161,  0.7039,  0.3599
-0.7968, -0.5484,  0.9426, -0.4308,  0.8148,  0.2979
 0.7811,  0.8450, -0.6877,  0.7594,  0.2640,  0.2362
-0.6802, -0.1113, -0.8325, -0.6694, -0.6056,  0.6544
 0.3821,  0.1476,  0.7466, -0.5107,  0.2592,  0.1648
 0.7265,  0.9683, -0.9803, -0.4943, -0.5523,  0.2454
-0.9049, -0.9797, -0.0196, -0.9090, -0.4433,  0.6447
-0.4607,  0.1811, -0.2389,  0.4050, -0.0078,  0.5229
 0.2664, -0.2932, -0.4259, -0.7336,  0.8742,  0.1834
-0.4507,  0.1029, -0.6294, -0.1158, -0.6294,  0.6081
 0.8948, -0.0124,  0.9278,  0.2899, -0.0314,  0.1534
-0.1323, -0.8813, -0.0146, -0.0697,  0.6135,  0.2386

I wrote an article titled “Neural Network Bistratum Regression Using C#” in the October 2026 edition of Microsoft Visual Studio Magazine. See https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2026/10/01/neural-network-bistratum-regression-using-csharp.aspx.

Neural network bistratum regression is a machine learning technique that uses a neural network with exactly two hidden layers to predict a single numeric value.

A simple neural network has one hidden layer of processing nodes. The term deep neural network means a neural network that has two or more hidden layers. In practice, the term deep neural network is usually applied to a network used for image processing or natural language processing, and which has hundreds of layers. For convenience, I use the non-standard term bistratum (“two layers”, borrowed from biology) to indicate a neural network that has exactly two hidden layers.

I put together a demo using C#. I used one of my standard synthetic datasets. The data looks like:

-0.1660,  0.4406, -0.9998, -0.3953, -0.7065,  0.4840
 0.0776, -0.1616,  0.3704, -0.5911,  0.7562,  0.1568
-0.9452,  0.3409, -0.1654,  0.1174, -0.7192,  0.8054
. . .

The first five fields on each line are predictors (often called features). The last value is the target to predict. There are 200 training items and 40 test items.

The output of the demo program is:

Neural network bistratum regression using C#

Loading synthetic train (200) and test (40) data
Done

First three train X:
 -0.1660  0.4406 -0.9998 -0.3953 -0.7065
  0.0776 -0.1616  0.3704 -0.5911  0.7562
 -0.9452  0.3409 -0.1654  0.1174 -0.7192

First three train y:
  0.4840
  0.1568
  0.8054

Creating 5-(10-10)-1 tanh() identity() neural
 network regressor

Setting lrnRate = 0.0600
Setting maxEpochs = 30000
Setting decay = 0.00000100

Starting training
epoch:      0  MSE = 0.0354  acc = 0.0600
epoch:   6000  MSE = 0.0001  acc = 0.8100
epoch:  12000  MSE = 0.0001  acc = 0.7900
epoch:  18000  MSE = 0.0001  acc = 0.8100
epoch:  24000  MSE = 0.0001  acc = 0.8000
Done

Evaluating model

Accuracy (5%) on train data = 0.8100
Accuracy (5%) on test data  = 0.8000

MSE on train data = 0.0001
MSE on test data = 0.0002

Predicting y for train[0]
Predicted y = 0.4870

End demo

The demo program creates a 5-(10-10)-1 tanh() identity() neural network regression model. This means there are 5 input nodes, two hidden layers with 10 nodes each, and 1 output node. The hidden nodes uses tanh() activation, and the output node uses identity() activation.

Neural network weights and biases are computed by looking at training data with known input values and known correct output values. The idea is to find values of the weights and biases so that computed output values are as close as possible to the target correct values. Put another way, the values of the weights and biases are those that minimize the mean squared error (or some other loss metric) between computed and target values.

There are several algorithms to find the values of neural network weights and biases. For relatively simple neural networks, the most common technique is called stochastic gradient descent (SGD). There are many advanced techniques that are related to SGD including Adam (adaptive moment estimation), RMSProp (root mean squared propagation), and others.

The demo program can be used as a template for most regression problems. The architecture parameter to explore is the number of nodes in the two hidden layers. The training hyperparameters to explore are the max epochs, learning rate, and decay.

I have written software for over 50 years. My experience gives me a pretty good subjective notion of what makes a beautiful machine learning model, and what makes an ugly model.

I better stick to evaluating software, not fashion.

The form of a linear regression prediction equation is y’ = (w0 * x0) + (w1 * x1) + . . + (wn * xn) + b where y’ is the predicted value, the xi are predictor values, the wi are constants called model weights, and b is a constant called the bias. For example, y’ = predicted bank account balance = (-0.54 * age) + (0.38 * height) + (0.11 * experience) + 0.72.

Training the model is the process of finding the values of the weights and bias so that predicted y values are close to known correct target y values in a set of training data.

There are several ways to train a linear regression model. Four of the most common techniques are iterative stochastic gradient descent (SGD) training, closed-form training using explicit matrix pseudo-inverse, closed-form training using implicit matrix pseudo-inverse via a back-substitution solve function, and closed-form training using explicit matrix left pseudo-inverse.

One day, I decided to implement the left pseudo-inverse training technique. Briefly, the math equation for explicit pseudo-inverse training is:

w = pinv(X) * y

Here w is the vector of the weights and the bias you are trying to find. The pinv() function is the Moore-Penrose pseudo-inverse of a matrix. X is a design matrix of the training X predictors of the training data. The * is matrix-to-vector multiplication, and y is a vector of target y values of the training data. The pinv() function can be implemented using singular value decomposition (SVD) or QR decomposition.

A design matrix adds a leading column of 1s, which takes the bias into account. For example, if a set of training predictors stored in a matrix X is:

0.50  0.77  0.32
0.92  0.41  0.84
0.64  0.73  0.43

The associated design matrix is:

1.0  0.50  0.77  0.32
1.0  0.92  0.41  0.84
1.0  0.64  0.73  0.43

By explicit pseudo-inverse training, I mean you use an actual pinv() Moore-Penrose pseudo-inverse function. But instead of using an explicit pseudo-inverse function, it’s possible to simulate pseudo-inverse using a regular matrix inverse function. The math equation of the left pseudo-inverse form of training is:

w = inv(Xt * X) * Xt * y

Here inv() is a any matrix inverse function. Usually Cholesky inverse is used, but any general purpose algorithm such as LUP inverse, or QR inverse, or SVD inverse, or Newton inverse can be used. X is the design matrix, Xt is the transpose of X (rows and columns exchanged). This left pseudo-inverse approach is simpler than using explicit pseudo-inverse, but X * Xt must be invertible, which you won’t know in advance. One way of dealing with this issue is to “condition” the Xt * X matrix by adding a small constant (about 1.0e-6) to the diagonal elements. The Xt * X matrix will be positive definite, so instead of using a general purpose matrix inverse technique (of which there are about a dozen techniques), you can use a simpler matrix inverse based on Cholesky decomposition.

Before I go any further, let me point out that the left pseudo-inverse technique only works for small X matrices. The problem is not the Cholesky inverse, the problem is computing Xt * X. If X has n rows, there will be roughly n^2 multiplications and additions. This could be millions of operations and arithmetic overflow or underflow could easily happen.

I put together a demo. For the demo, I used one of my standard sets of synthetic data that looks like:

-0.1660,  0.4406, -0.9998, -0.3953, -0.7065,  0.4840
 0.0776, -0.1616,  0.3704, -0.5911,  0.7562,  0.1568
-0.9452,  0.3409, -0.1654,  0.1174, -0.7192,  0.8054
. . . 

The first five values on each line are the predictors (sometimes called features). The last value on each line is the target y value to predict. There are 200 training items and 40 test items.

The output of my demo is:

Begin C# linear regression using left
  pseudo-inverse training

Loading synthetic train (200) and test (40) data
Done

First three train X:
 -0.1660  0.4406 -0.9998 -0.3953 -0.7065
  0.0776 -0.1616  0.3704 -0.5911  0.7562
 -0.9452  0.3409 -0.1654  0.1174 -0.7192

First three train y:
  0.4840
  0.1568
  0.8054

Creating and training Linear Regression model
  using left p-inverse
Done

Coefficients/weights:
-0.2656  0.0333  -0.0454  0.0358  -0.1146
Bias/constant: 0.3619

Evaluating model

Accuracy train (within 0.10) = 0.4600
Accuracy test (within 0.10) = 0.6500

MSE train = 0.0026
MSE test = 0.0020

Predicting for x =
  -0.1660   0.4406  -0.9998  -0.3953  -0.7065

Predicted y = 0.5329

End demo

One of the minor design problems when using left pseudo-inverse training is that you have to decide which one of the dozens of possible matrix inverse algorithms to use. For my demo, instead of using Cholesky inverse, just for hoots I arbitrarily decided to use QR decomposition, Householder algorithm. The key statements in the Train() method are:

double[][] X = MatToDesign(trainX);
double[][] Xt = MatTranspose(X);
double[][] XtX = MatProduct(Xt,X);  // this could fail
// optionally condition Xt*X here
double[][] invXtX = MatInverseQR(XtX);  // this could fail
double[][] invXtXXt = MatProduct(invXtX, Xt);
double[] biasAndWts = MatVecProd(invXtXXt, trainY);

The corresponding statements in an explicit pseudo-inverse Train() method would be

double[][] X = MatToDesign(trainX);  // design X
double[][] Xpinv = MatPinv(X); // explicit pseudo-inverse
double[] biasAndWts = MatVecProd(Xpinv, trainY);

An interesting exploration. Again: the code in this blog post is not for real use in a production environment.

Using implicit pseudo-inverse training or explicit pseudo-inverse training is to some extent a matter of style.

I know very little about art, and I know even less about Japanese art. I went to Tokyo a few month ago. Before going, I read a bit about things Japanese. Japanese bijinga is an art genre that translates to “pictures of beautiful women”. Within that genre, different artists have very different styles. Here are three examples of modern bijinga art. Left: By artist Ayana Otake. Center: By artist Yasunari Ikenaga. Right: By artist Ichiro Tsuruta.

Demo code. Replace “lt” (less than), “gt”, “lte”, “gte” with Boolean operator symbols.

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace LinearRegressionPseudoInverseImplicitQR
{
  internal class LinearRegressionProgram
  {
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      Console.WriteLine("\nBegin C# linear regression" +
        " using implicit pseudo-inverse (QR) training ");

      // 1. load data
      Console.WriteLine("\nLoading synthetic train" +
        " (200) and test (40) data");
      string trainFile =
        "..\\..\\..\\Data\\synthetic_train_200.txt";
      int[] colsX = new int[] { 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 };
      double[][] trainX =
        MatLoad(trainFile, colsX, ',', "#");
      double[] trainY =
        MatToVec(MatLoad(trainFile,
        new int[] { 5 }, ',', "#"));

      string testFile =
        "..\\..\\..\\Data\\synthetic_test_40.txt";
      double[][] testX =
         MatLoad(testFile, colsX, ',', "#");
      double[] testY =
        MatToVec(MatLoad(testFile,
        new int[] { 5 }, ',', "#"));
      Console.WriteLine("Done ");

      Console.WriteLine("\nFirst three train X: ");
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" 3; ++i)
        VecShow(trainX[i], 4, 8);

      Console.WriteLine("\nFirst three train y: ");
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" 3; ++i)
        Console.WriteLine(trainY[i].ToString("F4").
          PadLeft(8));

      // 2. create and train implicit pseudo-inverse
      Console.WriteLine("\nCreating and training" +
        " Linear Regression model using implied p-inverse ");
      LinearRegressor model = new LinearRegressor();
      model.Train(trainX, trainY);
      Console.WriteLine("Done ");

      // 2b. show model parameters
      Console.WriteLine("\nCoefficients/weights: ");
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" model.weights.Length; ++i)
        Console.Write(model.weights[i].ToString("F4") + "  ");
      Console.WriteLine("\nBias/constant: " +
        model.bias.ToString("F4"));

      // 3. evaluate model
      Console.WriteLine("\nEvaluating model ");
      double accTrain = model.Accuracy(trainX, trainY, 0.10);
      Console.WriteLine("\nAccuracy train (within 0.10) = " +
        accTrain.ToString("F4"));
      double accTest = model.Accuracy(testX, testY, 0.10);
      Console.WriteLine("Accuracy test (within 0.10) = " +
        accTest.ToString("F4"));

      double mseTrain = model.MSE(trainX, trainY);
      Console.WriteLine("\nMSE train = " +
        mseTrain.ToString("F4"));
      double mseTest = model.MSE(testX, testY);
      Console.WriteLine("MSE test = " +
        mseTest.ToString("F4"));

      // 4. use model to predict first training item
      double[] x = trainX[0];
      Console.WriteLine("\nPredicting for x = ");
      VecShow(x, 4, 9);
      double predY = model.Predict(x);
      Console.WriteLine("\nPredicted y = " +
        predY.ToString("F4"));

      Console.WriteLine("\nEnd demo ");
      Console.ReadLine();
    } // Main()

    // ------------------------------------------------------
    // helpers for Main(): MatLoad(), MatToVec(), VecShow()
    // ------------------------------------------------------

    static double[][] MatLoad(string fn, int[] usecols,
      char sep, string comment)
    {
      List"lt"double[]"gt" result = 
        new List"lt"double[]"gt"();
      string line = "";
      FileStream ifs = new FileStream(fn, FileMode.Open);
      StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(ifs);
      while ((line = sr.ReadLine()) != null)
      {
        if (line.StartsWith(comment) == true)
          continue;
        string[] tokens = line.Split(sep);
        List"lt"double"gt" lst = new List"lt"double"gt"();
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" usecols.Length; ++j)
          lst.Add(double.Parse(tokens[usecols[j]]));
        double[] row = lst.ToArray();
        result.Add(row);
      }
      sr.Close(); ifs.Close();
      return result.ToArray();
    }

    static double[] MatToVec(double[][] mat)
    {
      int nRows = mat.Length;
      int nCols = mat[0].Length;
      double[] result = new double[nRows * nCols];
      int k = 0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" nCols; ++j)
          result[k++] = mat[i][j];
      return result;
    }

    static void VecShow(double[] vec, int dec, int wid)
    {
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" vec.Length; ++i)
        Console.Write(vec[i].ToString("F" + dec).
          PadLeft(wid));
      Console.WriteLine("");
    }

  } // class Program

  // ========================================================

  public class LinearRegressor
  {
    public double[] weights;
    public double bias;
    private Random rnd;

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    public LinearRegressor(int seed = 0)  // ctor
    {
      this.weights = new double[0];
      this.bias = 0;
      this.rnd = new Random(seed); // no need this version
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    public double Predict(double[] x)
    {
      double result = 0.0;
      for (int j = 0; j "lt" x.Length; ++j)
        result += x[j] * this.weights[j];
      result += this.bias;
      return result;
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    public void Train(double[][] trainX, double[] trainY)
    {
      // implicit pseudo-inverse training
      // w = inv(Xt * X) * Xt * y
      int dim = trainX[0].Length;
      this.weights = new double[dim];

      double[][] X = MatToDesign(trainX);
      double[][] Xt = MatTranspose(X);
      double[][] XtX = MatProduct(Xt, X);
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" XtX.Length; ++i)
        XtX[i][i] += 1.0e-6;  // condition Xt*X
      double[][] invXtX = MatInverseQR(XtX);
      double[][] invXtXXt = MatProduct(invXtX, Xt);
      double[] biasAndWts = MatVecProd(invXtXXt, trainY);
      this.bias = biasAndWts[0];
      for (int i = 1; i "lt" biasAndWts.Length; ++i)
        this.weights[i - 1] = biasAndWts[i];
      return;
    } // Train()

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    public double Accuracy(double[][] dataX, double[] dataY,
      double pctClose)
    {
      int numCorrect = 0; int numWrong = 0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" dataX.Length; ++i)
      {
        double actualY = dataY[i];
        double predY = this.Predict(dataX[i]);
        if (Math.Abs(predY - actualY) "lt"
          Math.Abs(pctClose * actualY))
          ++numCorrect;
        else
          ++numWrong;
      }
      return (numCorrect * 1.0) / (numWrong + numCorrect);
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    public double MSE(double[][] dataX, double[] dataY)
    {
      int n = dataX.Length;
      double sum = 0.0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
      {
        double actualY = dataY[i];
        double predY = this.Predict(dataX[i]);
        sum += (actualY - predY) * (actualY - predY);
      }
      return sum / n;
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------
    // helpers
    // ------------------------------------------------------

    private static double[][] MatInverseQR(double[][] M)
    {
      // if A = Q * R, Ainv = Rinv * Qinv
      double[][] Q; double[][] R;
      MatDecomposeQR(M, out Q, out R, reduced: true);

      double[][] Rinv = MatInvUpperTri(R);
      double[][] Qinv = MatTranspose(Q);
      double[][] result = MatProduct(Rinv, Qinv);
      return result;
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    private static void MatDecomposeQR(double[][] M,
      out double[][] Q, out double[][] R, bool reduced)
    {
      // QR decomposition, Householder algorithm.
      // see rosettacode.org/wiki/QR_decomposition
      int m = M.Length;
      int n = M[0].Length;

      if (m "lt" n)
        throw new Exception("No rows less than cols");

      double[][] QQ = MatIdentity(m); // working Q
      double[][] RR = MatCopy(M); // working R

      int end;
      if (m == n) end = n - 1;
      else end = n;

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" end; ++i)
      {
        double[][] H = MatIdentity(m);
        double[] a = new double[m - i]; // corr
        int k = 0;
        for (int ii = i; ii "lt" m; ++ii) // corr
          a[k++] = RR[ii][i];

        double normA = VecNorm(a);
        if (a[0] "lt" 0.0 && normA "gt" 0.0) // corr
          normA = -normA;
        else if (a[0] "gt" 0.0 && normA "lt" 0.0)
          normA = -normA;

        double[] v = new double[a.Length];
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" v.Length; ++j)
          v[j] = a[j] / (a[0] + normA);
        v[0] = 1.0;

        // Householder algorithm
        double[][] h = MatIdentity(a.Length);
        double vvDot = VecDot(v, v);
        double[][] A = VecToMat(v, v.Length, 1);
        double[][] B = VecToMat(v, 1, v.Length);
        double[][] AB = MatProduct(A, B);

        for (int ii = 0; ii "lt" h.Length; ++ii)
          for (int jj = 0; jj "lt" h[0].Length; ++jj)
            h[ii][jj] -= (2.0 / vvDot) * AB[ii][jj];

        // copy h[][] into lower right corner of H[][]
        int d = m - h.Length; // corr
        for (int ii = 0; ii "lt" h.Length; ++ii)
          for (int jj = 0; jj "lt" h[0].Length; ++jj)
            H[ii + d][jj + d] = h[ii][jj];

        QQ = MatProduct(QQ, H);
        RR = MatProduct(H, RR);
      } // i

      if (reduced == false)
      {
        Q = QQ; // working results into the out params
        R = RR;
        return;
      }
      //else if (reduced == true)
      {
        int qRows = QQ.Length; int qCols = QQ[0].Length;
        int rRows = RR.Length; int rCols = RR[0].Length;
        // assumes m "gte" n !!

        // square-up R
        int dim = Math.Min(rRows, rCols);
        double[][] Rsquared = MatMake(dim, dim);
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" dim; ++i)
          for (int j = 0; j "lt" dim; ++j)
            Rsquared[i][j] = RR[i][j];

        // Q needs same number columns as R
        // so that inv(R) * trans(Q) works
        double[][] Qtrimmed = MatMake(qRows, dim);
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" qRows; ++i)
          for (int j = 0; j "lt" dim; ++j)
            Qtrimmed[i][j] = QQ[i][j];

        Q = Qtrimmed;
        R = Rsquared;
        return;
      }
    } // MatDecomposeQR()

    // ------------------------------------------------------
    
    private static double[] MatVecProd(double[][] M,
      double[] v)
    {
      // return a regular vector
      int nRows = M.Length;
      int nCols = M[0].Length;
      int n = v.Length;
      if (nCols != n)
        throw new Exception("non-comform in MatVecProd");

      double[] result = new double[nRows];
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
        for (int k = 0; k "lt" nCols; ++k)
          result[i] += M[i][k] * v[k];

      return result;
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    private static double[][] MatToDesign(double[][] M)
    {
      // add a column of 1s
      int nRows = M.Length;
      int nCols = M[0].Length;
      double[][] result = new double[M.Length][];
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
        result[i] = new double[nCols + 1];

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
      {
        result[i][0] = 1.0;
        for (int j = 1; j "lt" nCols + 1; ++j)
          result[i][j] = M[i][j - 1];
      }

      return result;
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    private static double[][] MatMake(int nRows, int nCols)
    {
      double[][] result = new double[nRows][];
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
        result[i] = new double[nCols];
      return result;
    }
    
    // ------------------------------------------------------

    private static double[][] MatInvUpperTri(double[][] U)
    {
      int n = U.Length;  // must be square matrix
      double[][] result = MatIdentity(n);

      for (int k = 0; k "lt" n; ++k)
      {
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" n; ++j)
        {
          for (int i = 0; i "lt" k; ++i)
          {
            result[j][k] -= result[j][i] * U[i][k];
          }
          result[j][k] /= (U[k][k] + 1.0e-8); // avoid 0
        }
      }
      return result;
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    private static double[][] MatIdentity(int n)
    {
      double[][] result = MatMake(n, n);
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
        result[i][i] = 1.0;
      return result;
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    private static double[][] MatProduct(double[][] A,
      double[][] B)
    {
      int aRows = A.Length;
      int aCols = A[0].Length;
      int bRows = B.Length;
      int bCols = B[0].Length;
      if (aCols != bRows)
        throw new Exception("Non-conformable matrices");

      double[][] result = MatMake(aRows, bCols);

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" aRows; ++i) // each row of A
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" bCols; ++j) // each col of B
          for (int k = 0; k "lt" aCols; ++k)
            result[i][j] += A[i][k] * B[k][j];

      return result;
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    private static double[][] MatTranspose(double[][] M)
    {
      int nr = M.Length;
      int nc = M[0].Length;
      double[][] result = MatMake(nc, nr);  // note
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nr; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" nc; ++j)
          result[j][i] = M[i][j];
      return result;
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    private static double[][] MatCopy(double[][] M)
    {
      int nr = M.Length; int nc = M[0].Length;
      double[][] result = MatMake(nr, nc);
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nr; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" nc; ++j)
          result[i][j] = M[i][j];
      return result;
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    private static double VecNorm(double[] vec)
    {
      int n = vec.Length;
      double sum = 0.0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
        sum += vec[i] * vec[i];
      return Math.Sqrt(sum);
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    private static double[][] VecToMat(double[] vec,
        int nRows, int nCols)
    {
      double[][] result = MatMake(nRows, nCols);
      int k = 0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" nCols; ++j)
          result[i][j] = vec[k++];
      return result;
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    private static double VecDot(double[] v1, double[] v2)
    {
      double result = 0.0;
      int n = v1.Length;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
        result += v1[i] * v2[i];
      return result;
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

  } // class LinearRegressor
} // ns

Training data:

# synthetic_train_200.txt
#
-0.1660,  0.4406, -0.9998, -0.3953, -0.7065,  0.4840
 0.0776, -0.1616,  0.3704, -0.5911,  0.7562,  0.1568
-0.9452,  0.3409, -0.1654,  0.1174, -0.7192,  0.8054
 0.9365, -0.3732,  0.3846,  0.7528,  0.7892,  0.1345
-0.8299, -0.9219, -0.6603,  0.7563, -0.8033,  0.7955
 0.0663,  0.3838, -0.3690,  0.3730,  0.6693,  0.3206
-0.9634,  0.5003,  0.9777,  0.4963, -0.4391,  0.7377
-0.1042,  0.8172, -0.4128, -0.4244, -0.7399,  0.4801
-0.9613,  0.3577, -0.5767, -0.4689, -0.0169,  0.6861
-0.7065,  0.1786,  0.3995, -0.7953, -0.1719,  0.5569
 0.3888, -0.1716, -0.9001,  0.0718,  0.3276,  0.2500
 0.1731,  0.8068, -0.7251, -0.7214,  0.6148,  0.3297
-0.2046, -0.6693,  0.8550, -0.3045,  0.5016,  0.2129
 0.2473,  0.5019, -0.3022, -0.4601,  0.7918,  0.2613
-0.1438,  0.9297,  0.3269,  0.2434, -0.7705,  0.5171
 0.1568, -0.1837, -0.5259,  0.8068,  0.1474,  0.3307
-0.9943,  0.2343, -0.3467,  0.0541,  0.7719,  0.5581
 0.2467, -0.9684,  0.8589,  0.3818,  0.9946,  0.1092
-0.6553, -0.7257,  0.8652,  0.3936, -0.8680,  0.7018
 0.8460,  0.4230, -0.7515, -0.9602, -0.9476,  0.1996
-0.9434, -0.5076,  0.7201,  0.0777,  0.1056,  0.5664
 0.9392,  0.1221, -0.9627,  0.6013, -0.5341,  0.1533
 0.6142, -0.2243,  0.7271,  0.4942,  0.1125,  0.1661
 0.4260,  0.1194, -0.9749, -0.8561,  0.9346,  0.2230
 0.1362, -0.5934, -0.4953,  0.4877, -0.6091,  0.3810
 0.6937, -0.5203, -0.0125,  0.2399,  0.6580,  0.1460
-0.6864, -0.9628, -0.8600, -0.0273,  0.2127,  0.5387
 0.9772,  0.1595, -0.2397,  0.1019,  0.4907,  0.1611
 0.3385, -0.4702, -0.8673, -0.2598,  0.2594,  0.2270
-0.8669, -0.4794,  0.6095, -0.6131,  0.2789,  0.4700
 0.0493,  0.8496, -0.4734, -0.8681,  0.4701,  0.3516
 0.8639, -0.9721, -0.5313,  0.2336,  0.8980,  0.1412
 0.9004,  0.1133,  0.8312,  0.2831, -0.2200,  0.1782
 0.0991,  0.8524,  0.8375, -0.2102,  0.9265,  0.2150
-0.6521, -0.7473, -0.7298,  0.0113, -0.9570,  0.7422
 0.6190, -0.3105,  0.8802,  0.1640,  0.7577,  0.1056
 0.6895,  0.8108, -0.0802,  0.0927,  0.5972,  0.2214
 0.1982, -0.9689,  0.1870, -0.1326,  0.6147,  0.1310
-0.3695,  0.7858,  0.1557, -0.6320,  0.5759,  0.3773
-0.1596,  0.3581,  0.8372, -0.9992,  0.9535,  0.2071
-0.2468,  0.9476,  0.2094,  0.6577,  0.1494,  0.4132
 0.1737,  0.5000,  0.7166,  0.5102,  0.3961,  0.2611
 0.7290, -0.3546,  0.3416, -0.0983, -0.2358,  0.1332
-0.3652,  0.2438, -0.1395,  0.9476,  0.3556,  0.4170
-0.6029, -0.1466, -0.3133,  0.5953,  0.7600,  0.4334
-0.4596, -0.4953,  0.7098,  0.0554,  0.6043,  0.2775
 0.1450,  0.4663,  0.0380,  0.5418,  0.1377,  0.2931
-0.8636, -0.2442, -0.8407,  0.9656, -0.6368,  0.7429
 0.6237,  0.7499,  0.3768,  0.1390, -0.6781,  0.2185
-0.5499,  0.1850, -0.3755,  0.8326,  0.8193,  0.4399
-0.4858, -0.7782, -0.6141, -0.0008,  0.4572,  0.4197
 0.7033, -0.1683,  0.2334, -0.5327, -0.7961,  0.1776
 0.0317, -0.0457, -0.6947,  0.2436,  0.0880,  0.3345
 0.5031, -0.5559,  0.0387,  0.5706, -0.9553,  0.3107
-0.3513,  0.7458,  0.6894,  0.0769,  0.7332,  0.3170
 0.2205,  0.5992, -0.9309,  0.5405,  0.4635,  0.3532
-0.4806, -0.4859,  0.2646, -0.3094,  0.5932,  0.3202
 0.9809, -0.3995, -0.7140,  0.8026,  0.0831,  0.1600
 0.9495,  0.2732,  0.9878,  0.0921,  0.0529,  0.1289
-0.9476, -0.6792,  0.4913, -0.9392, -0.2669,  0.5966
 0.7247,  0.3854,  0.3819, -0.6227, -0.1162,  0.1550
-0.5922, -0.5045, -0.4757,  0.5003, -0.0860,  0.5863
-0.8861,  0.0170, -0.5761,  0.5972, -0.4053,  0.7301
 0.6877, -0.2380,  0.4997,  0.0223,  0.0819,  0.1404
 0.9189,  0.6079, -0.9354,  0.4188, -0.0700,  0.1907
-0.1428, -0.7820,  0.2676,  0.6059,  0.3936,  0.2790
 0.5324, -0.3151,  0.6917, -0.1425,  0.6480,  0.1071
-0.8432, -0.9633, -0.8666, -0.0828, -0.7733,  0.7784
-0.9444,  0.5097, -0.2103,  0.4939, -0.0952,  0.6787
-0.0520,  0.6063, -0.1952,  0.8094, -0.9259,  0.4836
 0.5477, -0.7487,  0.2370, -0.9793,  0.0773,  0.1241
 0.2450,  0.8116,  0.9799,  0.4222,  0.4636,  0.2355
 0.8186, -0.1983, -0.5003, -0.6531, -0.7611,  0.1511
-0.4714,  0.6382, -0.3788,  0.9648, -0.4667,  0.5950
 0.0673, -0.3711,  0.8215, -0.2669, -0.1328,  0.2677
-0.9381,  0.4338,  0.7820, -0.9454,  0.0441,  0.5518
-0.3480,  0.7190,  0.1170,  0.3805, -0.0943,  0.4724
-0.9813,  0.1535, -0.3771,  0.0345,  0.8328,  0.5438
-0.1471, -0.5052, -0.2574,  0.8637,  0.8737,  0.3042
-0.5454, -0.3712, -0.6505,  0.2142, -0.1728,  0.5783
 0.6327, -0.6297,  0.4038, -0.5193,  0.1484,  0.1153
-0.5424,  0.3282, -0.0055,  0.0380, -0.6506,  0.6613
 0.1414,  0.9935,  0.6337,  0.1887,  0.9520,  0.2540
-0.9351, -0.8128, -0.8693, -0.0965, -0.2491,  0.7353
 0.9507, -0.6640,  0.9456,  0.5349,  0.6485,  0.1059
-0.0462, -0.9737, -0.2940, -0.0159,  0.4602,  0.2606
-0.0627, -0.0852, -0.7247, -0.9782,  0.5166,  0.2977
 0.0478,  0.5098, -0.0723, -0.7504, -0.3750,  0.3335
 0.0090,  0.3477,  0.5403, -0.7393, -0.9542,  0.4415
-0.9748,  0.3449,  0.3736, -0.1015,  0.8296,  0.4358
 0.2887, -0.9895, -0.0311,  0.7186,  0.6608,  0.2057
 0.1570, -0.4518,  0.1211,  0.3435, -0.2951,  0.3244
 0.7117, -0.6099,  0.4946, -0.4208,  0.5476,  0.1096
-0.2929, -0.5726,  0.5346, -0.3827,  0.4665,  0.2465
 0.4889, -0.5572, -0.5718, -0.6021, -0.7150,  0.2163
-0.7782,  0.3491,  0.5996, -0.8389, -0.5366,  0.6516
-0.5847,  0.8347,  0.4226,  0.1078, -0.3910,  0.6134
 0.8469,  0.4121, -0.0439, -0.7476,  0.9521,  0.1571
-0.6803, -0.5948, -0.1376, -0.1916, -0.7065,  0.7156
 0.2878,  0.5086, -0.5785,  0.2019,  0.4979,  0.2980
 0.2764,  0.1943, -0.4090,  0.4632,  0.8906,  0.2960
-0.8877,  0.6705, -0.6155, -0.2098, -0.3998,  0.7107
-0.8398,  0.8093, -0.2597,  0.0614, -0.0118,  0.6502
-0.8476,  0.0158, -0.4769, -0.2859, -0.7839,  0.7715
 0.5751, -0.7868,  0.9714, -0.6457,  0.1448,  0.1175
 0.4802, -0.7001,  0.1022, -0.5668,  0.5184,  0.1090
 0.4458, -0.6469,  0.7239, -0.9604,  0.7205,  0.0779
 0.5175,  0.4339,  0.9747, -0.4438, -0.9924,  0.2879
 0.8678,  0.7158,  0.4577,  0.0334,  0.4139,  0.1678
 0.5406,  0.5012,  0.2264, -0.1963,  0.3946,  0.2088
-0.9938,  0.5498,  0.7928, -0.5214, -0.7585,  0.7687
 0.7661,  0.0863, -0.4266, -0.7233, -0.4197,  0.1466
 0.2277, -0.3517, -0.0853, -0.1118,  0.6563,  0.1767
 0.3499, -0.5570, -0.0655, -0.3705,  0.2537,  0.1632
 0.7547, -0.1046,  0.5689, -0.0861,  0.3125,  0.1257
 0.8186,  0.2110,  0.5335,  0.0094, -0.0039,  0.1391
 0.6858, -0.8644,  0.1465,  0.8855,  0.0357,  0.1845
-0.4967,  0.4015,  0.0805,  0.8977,  0.2487,  0.4663
 0.6760, -0.9841,  0.9787, -0.8446, -0.3557,  0.1509
-0.1203, -0.4885,  0.6054, -0.0443, -0.7313,  0.4854
 0.8557,  0.7919, -0.0169,  0.7134, -0.1628,  0.2002
 0.0115, -0.6209,  0.9300, -0.4116, -0.7931,  0.4052
-0.7114, -0.9718,  0.4319,  0.1290,  0.5892,  0.3661
 0.3915,  0.5557, -0.1870,  0.2955, -0.6404,  0.2954
-0.3564, -0.6548, -0.1827, -0.5172, -0.1862,  0.4622
 0.2392, -0.4959,  0.5857, -0.1341, -0.2850,  0.2470
-0.3394,  0.3947, -0.4627,  0.6166, -0.4094,  0.5325
 0.7107,  0.7768, -0.6312,  0.1707,  0.7964,  0.2757
-0.1078,  0.8437, -0.4420,  0.2177,  0.3649,  0.4028
-0.3139,  0.5595, -0.6505, -0.3161, -0.7108,  0.5546
 0.4335,  0.3986,  0.3770, -0.4932,  0.3847,  0.1810
-0.2562, -0.2894, -0.8847,  0.2633,  0.4146,  0.4036
 0.2272,  0.2966, -0.6601, -0.7011,  0.0284,  0.2778
-0.0743, -0.1421, -0.0054, -0.6770, -0.3151,  0.3597
-0.4762,  0.6891,  0.6007, -0.1467,  0.2140,  0.4266
-0.4061,  0.7193,  0.3432,  0.2669, -0.7505,  0.6147
-0.0588,  0.9731,  0.8966,  0.2902, -0.6966,  0.4955
-0.0627, -0.1439,  0.1985,  0.6999,  0.5022,  0.3077
 0.1587,  0.8494, -0.8705,  0.9827, -0.8940,  0.4263
-0.7850,  0.2473, -0.9040, -0.4308, -0.8779,  0.7199
 0.4070,  0.3369, -0.2428, -0.6236,  0.4940,  0.2215
-0.0242,  0.0513, -0.9430,  0.2885, -0.2987,  0.3947
-0.5416, -0.1322, -0.2351, -0.0604,  0.9590,  0.3683
 0.1055,  0.7783, -0.2901, -0.5090,  0.8220,  0.2984
-0.9129,  0.9015,  0.1128, -0.2473,  0.9901,  0.4776
-0.9378,  0.1424, -0.6391,  0.2619,  0.9618,  0.5368
 0.7498, -0.0963,  0.4169,  0.5549, -0.0103,  0.1614
-0.2612, -0.7156,  0.4538, -0.0460, -0.1022,  0.3717
 0.7720,  0.0552, -0.1818, -0.4622, -0.8560,  0.1685
-0.4177,  0.0070,  0.9319, -0.7812,  0.3461,  0.3052
-0.0001,  0.5542, -0.7128, -0.8336, -0.2016,  0.3803
 0.5356, -0.4194, -0.5662, -0.9666, -0.2027,  0.1776
-0.2378,  0.3187, -0.8582, -0.6948, -0.9668,  0.5474
-0.1947, -0.3579,  0.1158,  0.9869,  0.6690,  0.2992
 0.3992,  0.8365, -0.9205, -0.8593, -0.0520,  0.3154
-0.0209,  0.0793,  0.7905, -0.1067,  0.7541,  0.1864
-0.4928, -0.4524, -0.3433,  0.0951, -0.5597,  0.6261
-0.8118,  0.7404, -0.5263, -0.2280,  0.1431,  0.6349
 0.0516, -0.8480,  0.7483,  0.9023,  0.6250,  0.1959
-0.3212,  0.1093,  0.9488, -0.3766,  0.3376,  0.2735
-0.3481,  0.5490, -0.3484,  0.7797,  0.5034,  0.4379
-0.5785, -0.9170, -0.3563, -0.9258,  0.3877,  0.4121
 0.3407, -0.1391,  0.5356,  0.0720, -0.9203,  0.3458
-0.3287, -0.8954,  0.2102,  0.0241,  0.2349,  0.3247
-0.1353,  0.6954, -0.0919, -0.9692,  0.7461,  0.3338
 0.9036, -0.8982, -0.5299, -0.8733, -0.1567,  0.1187
 0.7277, -0.8368, -0.0538, -0.7489,  0.5458,  0.0830
 0.9049,  0.8878,  0.2279,  0.9470, -0.3103,  0.2194
 0.7957, -0.1308, -0.5284,  0.8817,  0.3684,  0.2172
 0.4647, -0.4931,  0.2010,  0.6292, -0.8918,  0.3371
-0.7390,  0.6849,  0.2367,  0.0626, -0.5034,  0.7039
-0.1567, -0.8711,  0.7940, -0.5932,  0.6525,  0.1710
 0.7635, -0.0265,  0.1969,  0.0545,  0.2496,  0.1445
 0.7675,  0.1354, -0.7698, -0.5460,  0.1920,  0.1728
-0.5211, -0.7372, -0.6763,  0.6897,  0.2044,  0.5217
 0.1913,  0.1980,  0.2314, -0.8816,  0.5006,  0.1998
 0.8964,  0.0694, -0.6149,  0.5059, -0.9854,  0.1825
 0.1767,  0.7104,  0.2093,  0.6452,  0.7590,  0.2832
-0.3580, -0.7541,  0.4426, -0.1193, -0.7465,  0.5657
-0.5996,  0.5766, -0.9758, -0.3933, -0.9572,  0.6800
 0.9950,  0.1641, -0.4132,  0.8579,  0.0142,  0.2003
-0.4717, -0.3894, -0.2567, -0.5111,  0.1691,  0.4266
 0.3917, -0.8561,  0.9422,  0.5061,  0.6123,  0.1212
-0.0366, -0.1087,  0.3449, -0.1025,  0.4086,  0.2475
 0.3633,  0.3943,  0.2372, -0.6980,  0.5216,  0.1925
-0.5325, -0.6466, -0.2178, -0.3589,  0.6310,  0.3568
 0.2271,  0.5200, -0.1447, -0.8011, -0.7699,  0.3128
 0.6415,  0.1993,  0.3777, -0.0178, -0.8237,  0.2181
-0.5298, -0.0768, -0.6028, -0.9490,  0.4588,  0.4356
 0.6870, -0.1431,  0.7294,  0.3141,  0.1621,  0.1632
-0.5985,  0.0591,  0.7889, -0.3900,  0.7419,  0.2945
 0.3661,  0.7984, -0.8486,  0.7572, -0.6183,  0.3449
 0.6995,  0.3342, -0.3113, -0.6972,  0.2707,  0.1712
 0.2565,  0.9126,  0.1798, -0.6043, -0.1413,  0.2893
-0.3265,  0.9839, -0.2395,  0.9854,  0.0376,  0.4770
 0.2690, -0.1722,  0.9818,  0.8599, -0.7015,  0.3954
-0.2102, -0.0768,  0.1219,  0.5607, -0.0256,  0.3949
 0.8216, -0.9555,  0.6422, -0.6231,  0.3715,  0.0801
-0.2896,  0.9484, -0.7545, -0.6249,  0.7789,  0.4370
-0.9985, -0.5448, -0.7092, -0.5931,  0.7926,  0.5402

Test data:

# synthetic_test_40.txt
#
 0.7462,  0.4006, -0.0590,  0.6543, -0.0083,  0.1935
 0.8495, -0.2260, -0.0142, -0.4911,  0.7699,  0.1078
-0.2335, -0.4049,  0.4352, -0.6183, -0.7636,  0.5088
 0.1810, -0.5142,  0.2465,  0.2767, -0.3449,  0.3136
-0.8650,  0.7611, -0.0801,  0.5277, -0.4922,  0.7140
-0.2358, -0.7466, -0.5115, -0.8413, -0.3943,  0.4533
 0.4834,  0.2300,  0.3448, -0.9832,  0.3568,  0.1360
-0.6502, -0.6300,  0.6885,  0.9652,  0.8275,  0.3046
-0.3053,  0.5604,  0.0929,  0.6329, -0.0325,  0.4756
-0.7995,  0.0740, -0.2680,  0.2086,  0.9176,  0.4565
-0.2144, -0.2141,  0.5813,  0.2902, -0.2122,  0.4119
-0.7278, -0.0987, -0.3312, -0.5641,  0.8515,  0.4438
 0.3793,  0.1976,  0.4933,  0.0839,  0.4011,  0.1905
-0.8568,  0.9573, -0.5272,  0.3212, -0.8207,  0.7415
-0.5785,  0.0056, -0.7901, -0.2223,  0.0760,  0.5551
 0.0735, -0.2188,  0.3925,  0.3570,  0.3746,  0.2191
 0.1230, -0.2838,  0.2262,  0.8715,  0.1938,  0.2878
 0.4792, -0.9248,  0.5295,  0.0366, -0.9894,  0.3149
-0.4456,  0.0697,  0.5359, -0.8938,  0.0981,  0.3879
 0.8629, -0.8505, -0.4464,  0.8385,  0.5300,  0.1769
 0.1995,  0.6659,  0.7921,  0.9454,  0.9970,  0.2330
-0.0249, -0.3066, -0.2927, -0.4923,  0.8220,  0.2437
 0.4513, -0.9481, -0.0770, -0.4374, -0.9421,  0.2879
-0.3405,  0.5931, -0.3507, -0.3842,  0.8562,  0.3987
 0.9538,  0.0471,  0.9039,  0.7760,  0.0361,  0.1706
-0.0887,  0.2104,  0.9808,  0.5478, -0.3314,  0.4128
-0.8220, -0.6302,  0.0537, -0.1658,  0.6013,  0.4306
-0.4123, -0.2880,  0.9074, -0.0461, -0.4435,  0.5144
 0.0060,  0.2867, -0.7775,  0.5161,  0.7039,  0.3599
-0.7968, -0.5484,  0.9426, -0.4308,  0.8148,  0.2979
 0.7811,  0.8450, -0.6877,  0.7594,  0.2640,  0.2362
-0.6802, -0.1113, -0.8325, -0.6694, -0.6056,  0.6544
 0.3821,  0.1476,  0.7466, -0.5107,  0.2592,  0.1648
 0.7265,  0.9683, -0.9803, -0.4943, -0.5523,  0.2454
-0.9049, -0.9797, -0.0196, -0.9090, -0.4433,  0.6447
-0.4607,  0.1811, -0.2389,  0.4050, -0.0078,  0.5229
 0.2664, -0.2932, -0.4259, -0.7336,  0.8742,  0.1834
-0.4507,  0.1029, -0.6294, -0.1158, -0.6294,  0.6081
 0.8948, -0.0124,  0.9278,  0.2899, -0.0314,  0.1534
-0.1323, -0.8813, -0.0146, -0.0697,  0.6135,  0.2386

One afternoon, I set out to come up with an algorithm for decision tree regression that is as simple as possible. I knew the result would predict poorly, but my ultimate goal is to use many of these super-simple decision trees as weak learners as part of a Gradient Boosting regression system.

After some work, and a lot of help from an AI coding assistant, I came up with some working code. I called my new regression tree design a Blind Tree Regressor, because the tree is completely “blind” to the target y when making its split decisions during the tree construction process.

For my demo, I used one of my standard synthetic datasets. The data looks like:

-0.1660,  0.4406, -0.9998, -0.3953, -0.7065,  0.4840
 0.0776, -0.1616,  0.3704, -0.5911,  0.7562,  0.1568
-0.9452,  0.3409, -0.1654,  0.1174, -0.7192,  0.8054
. . .

The data is synthetic. The first five values on each line are the predictors. The last value on each line is the target to predict. There are 200 training items and 40 test items.

The key parts of the output of my Blind Tree Regression demo:

Begin blind decision tree regression

Loading synthetic train (200) and test (40) data
Done

First three train X:
 -0.1660  0.4406 -0.9998 -0.3953 -0.7065
  0.0776 -0.1616  0.3704 -0.5911  0.7562
 -0.9452  0.3409 -0.1654  0.1174 -0.7192

First three train y:
  0.4840
  0.1568
  0.8054

Setting maxDepth = 8
Setting minSamples = 2
Setting minLeaf = 1
Using default numSplitCols = -1

Creating and training tree
Done

Tree:
ID 0   | sc   3 | sv   0.1514 | L   1 | R   2 | py   0.3493 | leaf F | rc 200
ID 1   | sc   3 | sv  -0.4136 | L   3 | R   4 | py   0.3467 | leaf F | rc 126
ID 2   | sc   1 | sv   0.0312 | L   5 | R   6 | py   0.3538 | leaf F | rc 74
ID 3   | sc   4 | sv  -0.0476 | L   7 | R   8 | py   0.3037 | leaf F | rc 62
. . .
ID 504 | sc  -1 | sv   0.0000 | L  -1 | R  -1 | py   0.4170 | leaf T | rc 1
ID 505 | sc  -1 | sv   0.0000 | L  -1 | R  -1 | py   0.5055 | leaf T | rc 3
ID 506 | sc  -1 | sv   0.0000 | L  -1 | R  -1 | py   0.4770 | leaf T | rc 1

Rows assoc with node [11]:
4 17 18 24 25 31 53 61 65 78 84 90 116 158 174 182

Evaluating model
Accuracy train (within 0.10) = 0.8250
Accuracy test (within 0.10) = 0.3000

MSE train = 0.0020
MSE test = 0.0164

Predicting for trainX[0] =
  -0.1660   0.4406  -0.9998  -0.3953  -0.7065
Predicted y = 0.4840

IF
column 3  <=   0.1514 AND
column 3  >   -0.4136 AND
column 4  <=  -0.0937 AND
column 3  <=  -0.1618 AND
column 1  >    0.1725 AND
column 0  >   -0.5310 AND
column 4  >   -0.7091 AND
THEN node [166] predicted = 0.4840

End demo

Just like standard decision tree regression, the Blind Tree Regressor severely overfits the training data, but since my goal is to use as a weak leraner for Gradient Boost regression, I wasn’t concerned.

The algorithm for node splitting in the BestSplit() method:

1. Select ONE column at random from the active columns.
2. Find the MIN and MAX values of that feature.
3. If MIN equals MAX, return INVALID_SPLIT.
4. Calculate MIDPOINT = (MIN + MAX) / 2.
5. Generate RAND_VAL uniformly between MIN and MAX.
6. Set THRESHOLD = 0.75 * MIDPOINT + 0.25 * RAND_VAL.
7. Count rows going Left of THRESH and Right of THRESH.
8. If Left < minLeaf or Right < minLeaf, INVALID_SPLIT.
9. Return (ChosenColumn, THRESH).

In theory at least, this algorithm should be much, much faster than standard decision tree splitting, and significantly faster than Extra (extreme random) Tree Regression. This is a good thing because Gradient Boost Regression typically uses hundreds, or even thousands of weak learner trees.

Machine learning is based on mathematics. But mathematics has many other applications.

Demo program. Very long and complex. Replace "lt" (less than), "gt", "lte", "gte" with Boolean operator symbols. (My blog editor chokes on symbols).

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Collections.Generic;

// Blind Tree Regression
//
// 1. Target-Blind Selection: The tree is completely "blind"
// to the target y when making its split decisions.
// It doesn't calculate target variance, MSE, or target
// means - it evaluates thresholds purely based on feature
// space geometry.
// 2. Feature-Blind Pick: It picks a single feature randomly
// out of the active set without checking if other features
// have better predictive power.
// 3. Guided Blindness: Like a walking stick guiding someone
// in the dark, using the midpoint prevents the "blind" tree
// from making silly, extreme splits at the outer edges of
// data. It moves blindly, but safely through the center of
// the data space.

namespace BlindTreeRegression
{
  internal class BlindTreeRegressionProgram
  {
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      Console.WriteLine("\nBegin blind decision tree" +
        " regression ");

      // 1. load data
      Console.WriteLine("\nLoading synthetic train" +
        " (200) and test (40) data");
      string trainFile = "..\\..\\..\\Data\\" +
        "synthetic_train_200.txt";
      int[] colsX = new int[] { 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 };
      int colY = 5;
      double[][] trainX =
        MatLoad(trainFile, colsX, ',', "#");
      double[] trainY =
        MatToVec(MatLoad(trainFile,
        new int[] { colY }, ',', "#"));

      string testFile = "..\\..\\..\\Data\\" +
        "synthetic_test_40.txt";
      double[][] testX =
        MatLoad(testFile, colsX, ',', "#");
      double[] testY =
        MatToVec(MatLoad(testFile,
        new int[] { colY }, ',', "#"));
      Console.WriteLine("Done ");

      Console.WriteLine("\nFirst three train X: ");
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" 3; ++i)
        VecShow(trainX[i], 4, 8);

      Console.WriteLine("\nFirst three train y: ");
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" 3; ++i)
        Console.WriteLine(trainY[i].ToString("F4").
          PadLeft(8));

      // 2. create and train/build tree
      // small tree for blog, article
      //int maxDepth = 3; //
      //int minSamples = 2;  // to try split
      //int minLeaf = 18;    // after split
      //int numSplitCols = -1;  // use all columns
      //bool saveRows = true;

      int maxDepth = 8; //
      int minSamples = 2;  // to try split
      int minLeaf = 1;    // after split
      int numSplitCols = -1;  // use all columns
      bool saveRows = true;

      Console.WriteLine("\nSetting maxDepth = " +
        maxDepth);
      Console.WriteLine("Setting minSamples = " +
        minSamples);
      Console.WriteLine("Setting minLeaf = " +
        minLeaf);
      Console.WriteLine("Using default numSplitCols = -1 ");

      Console.WriteLine("\nCreating and training tree ");
      BlindTreeRegressor btr =
        new BlindTreeRegressor(maxDepth, minSamples,
        minLeaf, numSplitCols, saveRows, seed: 0);
      btr.Train(trainX, trainY);
      Console.WriteLine("Done ");

      Console.WriteLine("\nTree: ");
      btr.Display();

      Console.WriteLine("\nRows assoc with node [11]: ");
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" btr.tree[11].rows.Count; ++i)
      {
        if (i "gt" 0 && i % 20 == 0) Console.WriteLine("");
        Console.Write(btr.tree[11].rows[i] + " ");
      }
      Console.WriteLine("");

      // 3. evaluate model
      Console.WriteLine("\nEvaluating model ");
      double accTrain = btr.Accuracy(trainX, trainY, 0.10);
      Console.WriteLine("Accuracy train (within 0.10) = " +
        accTrain.ToString("F4"));
      double accTest = btr.Accuracy(testX, testY, 0.10);
      Console.WriteLine("Accuracy test (within 0.10) = " +
        accTest.ToString("F4"));

      double mseTrain = btr.MSE(trainX, trainY);
      Console.WriteLine("\nMSE train = " +
        mseTrain.ToString("F4"));
      double mseTest = btr.MSE(testX, testY);
      Console.WriteLine("MSE test = " +
        mseTest.ToString("F4"));

      // 4. use model
      Console.WriteLine("\nPredicting for trainX[0] = ");
      double[] x = trainX[0];
      VecShow(x, 4, 9);
      double predY = btr.Predict(x);
      Console.WriteLine("Predicted y = " +
        predY.ToString("F4"));

      btr.Explain(x);

      Console.WriteLine("\nEnd demo ");
      Console.ReadLine();
    } // Main()

    // ------------------------------------------------------
    // helpers for Main():
    //   MatLoad(), MatToVec(), VecShow().
    // ------------------------------------------------------

    static double[][] MatLoad(string fn, int[] usecols,
      char sep, string comment)
    {
      List"lt"double[]"gt" result =
        new List"lt"double[]"gt"();
      string line = "";
      FileStream ifs = new FileStream(fn, FileMode.Open);
      StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(ifs);
      while ((line = sr.ReadLine()) != null)
      {
        if (line.StartsWith(comment) == true)
          continue;
        string[] tokens = line.Split(sep);
        List"lt"double"gt" lst = new List"lt"double"gt"();
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" usecols.Length; ++j)
          lst.Add(double.Parse(tokens[usecols[j]]));
        double[] row = lst.ToArray();
        result.Add(row);
      }
      sr.Close(); ifs.Close();
      return result.ToArray();
    }

    static double[] MatToVec(double[][] mat)
    {
      int nRows = mat.Length;
      int nCols = mat[0].Length;
      double[] result = new double[nRows * nCols];
      int k = 0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" nCols; ++j)
          result[k++] = mat[i][j];
      return result;
    }

    static void VecShow(double[] vec, int dec, int wid)
    {
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" vec.Length; ++i)
        Console.Write(vec[i].ToString("F" + dec).
          PadLeft(wid));
      Console.WriteLine("");
    }

  } // class Program

  // ========================================================

  public class BlindTreeRegressor
  {
    public int maxDepth;
    public int minSamples;
    public int minLeaf;
    public int numSplitCols;
    public List"lt"Node"gt" tree;
    public Random rnd;
    public bool saveRows;
    public double[][] trainX;
    public double[] trainY;

    // ............................................

    public class Node
    {
      public int id;
      public int colIdx;
      public double thresh;
      public int left;
      public int right;
      public double value;
      public bool isLeaf;
      public List"lt"int"gt" rows;

      public Node()
      {
        this.id = -1;
        this.colIdx = -1;
        this.thresh = 0.0;
        this.left = -1;
        this.right = -1;
        this.value = 0.0;
        this.isLeaf = false;
        this.rows = null;
      }
    }

    // ............................................

    public BlindTreeRegressor(int maxDepth = 3,
      int minSamples = 2, int minLeaf = 1,
      int numSplitCols = -1, bool saveRows = false,
      int seed = 0)
    {
      this.maxDepth = maxDepth;
      this.minSamples = minSamples;
      this.minLeaf = minLeaf;
      this.numSplitCols = numSplitCols;
      this.saveRows = saveRows;
      this.tree = new List"lt"Node"gt"();

      int numNodes = (int)Math.Pow(2, (maxDepth + 1)) - 1;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" numNodes; ++i)
        this.tree.Add(null);
      this.rnd = new Random(seed);
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------
    // public: ctor(), Train(), Predict(), Explain(),
    //  Display(), Accuracy(), MSE()
    // private: BestSplit(), TreeTargetMean()
    // ------------------------------------------------------

    public void Train(double[][] trainX, double[] trainY)
    {
      this.trainX = trainX;
      this.trainY = trainY;

      // boundary IDs based on max allowed depth
      int maxID = (int)Math.Pow(2, (this.maxDepth + 1)) - 2;
      int maxStartID = (int)Math.Pow(2, this.maxDepth) - 1;

      // initialize root data rows
      List"lt"int"gt" allRows = 
        new List"lt"int"gt"(this.trainX.Length);
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" this.trainX.Length; ++i)
        allRows.Add(i);
      double grandMean = this.TreeTargetMean(allRows);

      Node root = new Node();
      root.id = 0;
      root.value = grandMean;
      root.isLeaf = false;
      root.rows = allRows;
      this.tree[0] = root;

      // build tree breadth-first
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" this.tree.Count; ++i)
      {
        Node currNode = this.tree[i];
        if (currNode == null) continue;

        // safety checks
        if (currNode.id "gte" maxStartID ||
          currNode.rows.Count "lt" this.minSamples)
        {
          currNode.isLeaf = true;
          currNode.left = -1;   // isolate node boundaries
          currNode.right = -1;
          currNode.colIdx = -1;
          continue;
        }

        double[] splitInfo = this.BestSplit(currNode.rows);
        int colIdx = (int)splitInfo[0];
        double splitVal = splitInfo[1];

        // check for split failure
        if (colIdx == -1)
        {
          currNode.isLeaf = true;
          currNode.left = -1;
          currNode.right = -1;
          currNode.colIdx = -1;
          continue;
        }

        // got a valid split point
        currNode.colIdx = colIdx;
        currNode.thresh = splitVal;

        // avoid continuous resizing allocations
        List"lt"int"gt" leftIdxs =
          new List"lt"int"gt"(currNode.rows.Count);
        List"lt"int"gt" rightIdxs =
          new List"lt"int"gt"(currNode.rows.Count);

        for (int k = 0; k "lt" currNode.rows.Count; ++k)
        {
          int r = currNode.rows[k];
          if (this.trainX[r][colIdx] "lte" splitVal)
            leftIdxs.Add(r);
          else
            rightIdxs.Add(r);
        }

        int leftID = currNode.id * 2 + 1;
        int rightID = currNode.id * 2 + 2;

        // check both branches
        bool leftValid = (leftID "lte" maxID &&
          leftIdxs.Count "gte" this.minLeaf);
        bool rightValid = (rightID "lte" maxID &&
          rightIdxs.Count "gte" this.minLeaf);

        if (leftValid == true && rightValid == true)
        {
          // create child nodes
          currNode.left = leftID;
          Node leftNode = new Node();
          leftNode.id = leftID;
          leftNode.rows = leftIdxs;
          leftNode.value =
            this.TreeTargetMean(leftNode.rows);
          this.tree[leftID] = leftNode;

          currNode.right = rightID;
          Node rightNode = new Node();
          rightNode.id = rightID;
          rightNode.rows = rightIdxs;
          rightNode.value =
            this.TreeTargetMean(rightNode.rows);
          this.tree[rightID] = rightNode;
        }
        else
        {
          // structural asymmetry/failure edge case
          // make parent into a leaf node
          currNode.isLeaf = true;
          currNode.left = -1;
          currNode.right = -1;
          currNode.colIdx = -1;
        }
      }

      // delete row info (for ensembles)
      if (this.saveRows == false)
      {
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" this.tree.Count; ++i)
          if (this.tree[i] != null)
            this.tree[i].rows = null;
      }
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    public double Predict(double[] x)
    {
      int p = 0;
      double lastValidValue = 0.0;
      while (p != -1 && p "lt" this.tree.Count)
      {
        Node currNode = this.tree[p];

        if (currNode == null) break;

        lastValidValue = currNode.value;

        if (currNode.isLeaf == true ||
          currNode.colIdx == -1 ||
          currNode.left "gte" this.tree.Count ||
          currNode.right "gte" this.tree.Count)
          break;

        if (x[currNode.colIdx] "lte" currNode.thresh)
          p = currNode.left;
        else
          p = currNode.right;
      }
      return lastValidValue;
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    public void Explain(double[] x)
    {
      int p = 0;
      double lastValidValue = 0.0;
      Node currNode = null;
      string s = "\nIF \n";

      while (p != -1 && p "lt" this.tree.Count)
      {
        currNode = this.tree[p];
        if (currNode == null) break;

        lastValidValue = currNode.value;
        if (currNode.isLeaf == true) break;

        s += "column " + currNode.colIdx + " ";

        if (x[currNode.colIdx] "lte" currNode.thresh)
        {
          s += " "lte" " +
            currNode.thresh.ToString("F4").PadLeft(8) +
            " AND \n";
          p = currNode.left;
        }
        else
        {
          s += " "gt"  " +
            currNode.thresh.ToString("F4").PadLeft(8) +
            " AND \n";
          p = currNode.right;
        }
      }

      int nid;
      if (currNode == null)
        nid = -1;
      else
        nid = currNode.id;

      s += "THEN node [" + nid + "] predicted = " +
        currNode.value.ToString("F4");
      Console.WriteLine(s);
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    public double Accuracy(double[][] dataX, double[] dataY,
      double pctClose)
    {
      int numCorrect = 0; int numWrong = 0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" dataX.Length; ++i)
      {
        double actualY = dataY[i];
        double predY = this.Predict(dataX[i]);
        if (Math.Abs(predY - actualY) "lt"
          (pctClose * Math.Abs(actualY)))
          ++numCorrect;
        else
          ++numWrong;
      }
      return (numCorrect * 1.0) / (numWrong + numCorrect);
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    public double MSE(double[][] dataX, double[] dataY)
    {
      // standard machine learning MSE, not tree MSE
      int n = dataX.Length;
      double sum = 0.0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
      {
        double actualY = dataY[i];
        double predY = this.Predict(dataX[i]);
        sum += (actualY - predY) * (actualY - predY);
      }
      return sum / n;
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    public void Display()
    {
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" this.tree.Count; ++i)
      {
        Node n = this.tree[i];

        // check for empty nodes
        if (n == null) continue;

        string s1 = "ID " +
          n.id.ToString().PadRight(3) + " | ";
        string s2 = "sc " +
          n.colIdx.ToString().PadLeft(3) + " | ";
        string s3 = "sv " +
          n.thresh.ToString("F4").PadLeft(8) + " | ";
        string s4 = "L " +
          n.left.ToString().PadLeft(3) + " | ";
        string s5 = "R " +
          n.right.ToString().PadLeft(3) + " | ";
        string s6 = "py " +
          n.value.ToString("F4").PadLeft(8) + " | ";
        string s7 = "leaf " +
          (n.isLeaf == true ? "T" : "F") + " | ";

        string s8;
        if (n.rows == null)
          s8 = "rc 0";
        else
          s8 = "rc " + n.rows.Count;

        Console.WriteLine(s1 + s2 + s3 + s4 +
          s5 + s6 + s7 + s8);
      }
    } // Display()

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    public void SaveTree(string fn)
    {
      //ID 0 | sc 0 | sv -0.21 | L 1 | R 2 | py 0.34 | leaf F
      string s = "";

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" this.tree.Count; ++i)
      {
        s += i + ",";  // i is the node ID
        Node n = this.tree[i];
        if (n == null)
          s += "null" + "\n";
        else
        {
          s += n.colIdx + ",";
          s += n.thresh.ToString("F4") + ",";
          s += n.left + ",";
          s += n.right + ",";
          s += n.value.ToString("F4") + ",";
          s += n.isLeaf + "\n";
        }
      }

      FileStream ofs = new FileStream(fn, FileMode.Create);
      StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(ofs);
      sw.Write(s);
      sw.Close(); ofs.Close();
    }

    public void LoadTree(string fn)
    {
      // id, sc, sv, L, R, py, leaf
      // 0,0,-0.2102,1,2,0.3493,F
      // 1,4,0.1431,3,4,0.5345,F
      // . . . 
      // 9,null
      // . . . 
      FileStream ifs = new FileStream(fn, FileMode.Open);
      StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(ifs);
      string line = "";
      string[] tokens = null;
      int i = 0;
      while ((line = sr.ReadLine()) != null)
      {
        tokens = line.Split(",");
        if (tokens[1] == "null")
          this.tree[i++] = null;
        else
        {
          this.tree[i] = new Node();
          this.tree[i].id = int.Parse(tokens[0]);
          this.tree[i].colIdx = int.Parse(tokens[1]);
          this.tree[i].thresh = double.Parse(tokens[2]);
          this.tree[i].left = int.Parse(tokens[3]);
          this.tree[i].right = int.Parse(tokens[4]);
          this.tree[i].value = double.Parse(tokens[5]);
          this.tree[i].isLeaf = bool.Parse(tokens[6]);
          this.tree[i].rows = null;
          ++i;
        }
      }
      sr.Close(); ifs.Close();
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    private double[] BestSplit(List"lt"int"gt" rows)
    {
      int nRows = rows.Count;
      int nCols = this.trainX[0].Length;

      if (nRows == 0)
        throw new Exception("Empty data in BestSplit()");

      // 1. Randomly pick ONE column from active columns
      int nColsToUse = (this.numSplitCols != -1)
          ? Math.Min(this.numSplitCols, nCols)
          : nCols;

      int chosenColIdx = this.rnd.Next(0, nColsToUse);

      // 2. Find min and max for the chosen column
      double minVal = double.MaxValue;
      double maxVal = double.MinValue;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
      {
        double val = this.trainX[rows[i]][chosenColIdx];
        if (val "lt" minVal) minVal = val;
        if (val "gt" maxVal) maxVal = val;
      }

      if (minVal == maxVal)
        return new double[] { -1.0, 0.0 }; // invalid

      // 3. Geometric Midpoint (Fast O(N), no sorting!)
      double baseThresh = (minVal + maxVal) / 2.0;

      // 4. Inject target signal:
      // Bias threshold slightly towards mean of active rows
      double randThresh = 
        minVal + (maxVal - minVal) * this.rnd.NextDouble();
      double finThresh = 
        (0.75 * baseThresh) + (0.25 * randThresh);

      // 5. Verify minLeaf condition
      int leftCount = 0;
      int rightCount = 0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
      {
        if (this.trainX[rows[i]][chosenColIdx] "lte" 
          finThresh)
          leftCount++;
        else
          rightCount++;
      }

      if (leftCount "lt" this.minLeaf ||
        rightCount "lt" this.minLeaf)
        return new double[] { -1.0, 0.0 };

      return new double[] { chosenColIdx, finThresh };
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    private double TreeTargetMean(List"lt"int"gt" rows)
    {
      if (rows == null || rows.Count == 0) return 0.0;
      double sum = 0.0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" rows.Count; ++i)
      {
        sum += this.trainY[rows[i]];
      }
      return sum / rows.Count;
    }

  } // class BlindTreeRegressor

} // ns

Training data:

# synthetic_train_200.txt
#
-0.1660,  0.4406, -0.9998, -0.3953, -0.7065,  0.4840
 0.0776, -0.1616,  0.3704, -0.5911,  0.7562,  0.1568
-0.9452,  0.3409, -0.1654,  0.1174, -0.7192,  0.8054
 0.9365, -0.3732,  0.3846,  0.7528,  0.7892,  0.1345
-0.8299, -0.9219, -0.6603,  0.7563, -0.8033,  0.7955
 0.0663,  0.3838, -0.3690,  0.3730,  0.6693,  0.3206
-0.9634,  0.5003,  0.9777,  0.4963, -0.4391,  0.7377
-0.1042,  0.8172, -0.4128, -0.4244, -0.7399,  0.4801
-0.9613,  0.3577, -0.5767, -0.4689, -0.0169,  0.6861
-0.7065,  0.1786,  0.3995, -0.7953, -0.1719,  0.5569
 0.3888, -0.1716, -0.9001,  0.0718,  0.3276,  0.2500
 0.1731,  0.8068, -0.7251, -0.7214,  0.6148,  0.3297
-0.2046, -0.6693,  0.8550, -0.3045,  0.5016,  0.2129
 0.2473,  0.5019, -0.3022, -0.4601,  0.7918,  0.2613
-0.1438,  0.9297,  0.3269,  0.2434, -0.7705,  0.5171
 0.1568, -0.1837, -0.5259,  0.8068,  0.1474,  0.3307
-0.9943,  0.2343, -0.3467,  0.0541,  0.7719,  0.5581
 0.2467, -0.9684,  0.8589,  0.3818,  0.9946,  0.1092
-0.6553, -0.7257,  0.8652,  0.3936, -0.8680,  0.7018
 0.8460,  0.4230, -0.7515, -0.9602, -0.9476,  0.1996
-0.9434, -0.5076,  0.7201,  0.0777,  0.1056,  0.5664
 0.9392,  0.1221, -0.9627,  0.6013, -0.5341,  0.1533
 0.6142, -0.2243,  0.7271,  0.4942,  0.1125,  0.1661
 0.4260,  0.1194, -0.9749, -0.8561,  0.9346,  0.2230
 0.1362, -0.5934, -0.4953,  0.4877, -0.6091,  0.3810
 0.6937, -0.5203, -0.0125,  0.2399,  0.6580,  0.1460
-0.6864, -0.9628, -0.8600, -0.0273,  0.2127,  0.5387
 0.9772,  0.1595, -0.2397,  0.1019,  0.4907,  0.1611
 0.3385, -0.4702, -0.8673, -0.2598,  0.2594,  0.2270
-0.8669, -0.4794,  0.6095, -0.6131,  0.2789,  0.4700
 0.0493,  0.8496, -0.4734, -0.8681,  0.4701,  0.3516
 0.8639, -0.9721, -0.5313,  0.2336,  0.8980,  0.1412
 0.9004,  0.1133,  0.8312,  0.2831, -0.2200,  0.1782
 0.0991,  0.8524,  0.8375, -0.2102,  0.9265,  0.2150
-0.6521, -0.7473, -0.7298,  0.0113, -0.9570,  0.7422
 0.6190, -0.3105,  0.8802,  0.1640,  0.7577,  0.1056
 0.6895,  0.8108, -0.0802,  0.0927,  0.5972,  0.2214
 0.1982, -0.9689,  0.1870, -0.1326,  0.6147,  0.1310
-0.3695,  0.7858,  0.1557, -0.6320,  0.5759,  0.3773
-0.1596,  0.3581,  0.8372, -0.9992,  0.9535,  0.2071
-0.2468,  0.9476,  0.2094,  0.6577,  0.1494,  0.4132
 0.1737,  0.5000,  0.7166,  0.5102,  0.3961,  0.2611
 0.7290, -0.3546,  0.3416, -0.0983, -0.2358,  0.1332
-0.3652,  0.2438, -0.1395,  0.9476,  0.3556,  0.4170
-0.6029, -0.1466, -0.3133,  0.5953,  0.7600,  0.4334
-0.4596, -0.4953,  0.7098,  0.0554,  0.6043,  0.2775
 0.1450,  0.4663,  0.0380,  0.5418,  0.1377,  0.2931
-0.8636, -0.2442, -0.8407,  0.9656, -0.6368,  0.7429
 0.6237,  0.7499,  0.3768,  0.1390, -0.6781,  0.2185
-0.5499,  0.1850, -0.3755,  0.8326,  0.8193,  0.4399
-0.4858, -0.7782, -0.6141, -0.0008,  0.4572,  0.4197
 0.7033, -0.1683,  0.2334, -0.5327, -0.7961,  0.1776
 0.0317, -0.0457, -0.6947,  0.2436,  0.0880,  0.3345
 0.5031, -0.5559,  0.0387,  0.5706, -0.9553,  0.3107
-0.3513,  0.7458,  0.6894,  0.0769,  0.7332,  0.3170
 0.2205,  0.5992, -0.9309,  0.5405,  0.4635,  0.3532
-0.4806, -0.4859,  0.2646, -0.3094,  0.5932,  0.3202
 0.9809, -0.3995, -0.7140,  0.8026,  0.0831,  0.1600
 0.9495,  0.2732,  0.9878,  0.0921,  0.0529,  0.1289
-0.9476, -0.6792,  0.4913, -0.9392, -0.2669,  0.5966
 0.7247,  0.3854,  0.3819, -0.6227, -0.1162,  0.1550
-0.5922, -0.5045, -0.4757,  0.5003, -0.0860,  0.5863
-0.8861,  0.0170, -0.5761,  0.5972, -0.4053,  0.7301
 0.6877, -0.2380,  0.4997,  0.0223,  0.0819,  0.1404
 0.9189,  0.6079, -0.9354,  0.4188, -0.0700,  0.1907
-0.1428, -0.7820,  0.2676,  0.6059,  0.3936,  0.2790
 0.5324, -0.3151,  0.6917, -0.1425,  0.6480,  0.1071
-0.8432, -0.9633, -0.8666, -0.0828, -0.7733,  0.7784
-0.9444,  0.5097, -0.2103,  0.4939, -0.0952,  0.6787
-0.0520,  0.6063, -0.1952,  0.8094, -0.9259,  0.4836
 0.5477, -0.7487,  0.2370, -0.9793,  0.0773,  0.1241
 0.2450,  0.8116,  0.9799,  0.4222,  0.4636,  0.2355
 0.8186, -0.1983, -0.5003, -0.6531, -0.7611,  0.1511
-0.4714,  0.6382, -0.3788,  0.9648, -0.4667,  0.5950
 0.0673, -0.3711,  0.8215, -0.2669, -0.1328,  0.2677
-0.9381,  0.4338,  0.7820, -0.9454,  0.0441,  0.5518
-0.3480,  0.7190,  0.1170,  0.3805, -0.0943,  0.4724
-0.9813,  0.1535, -0.3771,  0.0345,  0.8328,  0.5438
-0.1471, -0.5052, -0.2574,  0.8637,  0.8737,  0.3042
-0.5454, -0.3712, -0.6505,  0.2142, -0.1728,  0.5783
 0.6327, -0.6297,  0.4038, -0.5193,  0.1484,  0.1153
-0.5424,  0.3282, -0.0055,  0.0380, -0.6506,  0.6613
 0.1414,  0.9935,  0.6337,  0.1887,  0.9520,  0.2540
-0.9351, -0.8128, -0.8693, -0.0965, -0.2491,  0.7353
 0.9507, -0.6640,  0.9456,  0.5349,  0.6485,  0.1059
-0.0462, -0.9737, -0.2940, -0.0159,  0.4602,  0.2606
-0.0627, -0.0852, -0.7247, -0.9782,  0.5166,  0.2977
 0.0478,  0.5098, -0.0723, -0.7504, -0.3750,  0.3335
 0.0090,  0.3477,  0.5403, -0.7393, -0.9542,  0.4415
-0.9748,  0.3449,  0.3736, -0.1015,  0.8296,  0.4358
 0.2887, -0.9895, -0.0311,  0.7186,  0.6608,  0.2057
 0.1570, -0.4518,  0.1211,  0.3435, -0.2951,  0.3244
 0.7117, -0.6099,  0.4946, -0.4208,  0.5476,  0.1096
-0.2929, -0.5726,  0.5346, -0.3827,  0.4665,  0.2465
 0.4889, -0.5572, -0.5718, -0.6021, -0.7150,  0.2163
-0.7782,  0.3491,  0.5996, -0.8389, -0.5366,  0.6516
-0.5847,  0.8347,  0.4226,  0.1078, -0.3910,  0.6134
 0.8469,  0.4121, -0.0439, -0.7476,  0.9521,  0.1571
-0.6803, -0.5948, -0.1376, -0.1916, -0.7065,  0.7156
 0.2878,  0.5086, -0.5785,  0.2019,  0.4979,  0.2980
 0.2764,  0.1943, -0.4090,  0.4632,  0.8906,  0.2960
-0.8877,  0.6705, -0.6155, -0.2098, -0.3998,  0.7107
-0.8398,  0.8093, -0.2597,  0.0614, -0.0118,  0.6502
-0.8476,  0.0158, -0.4769, -0.2859, -0.7839,  0.7715
 0.5751, -0.7868,  0.9714, -0.6457,  0.1448,  0.1175
 0.4802, -0.7001,  0.1022, -0.5668,  0.5184,  0.1090
 0.4458, -0.6469,  0.7239, -0.9604,  0.7205,  0.0779
 0.5175,  0.4339,  0.9747, -0.4438, -0.9924,  0.2879
 0.8678,  0.7158,  0.4577,  0.0334,  0.4139,  0.1678
 0.5406,  0.5012,  0.2264, -0.1963,  0.3946,  0.2088
-0.9938,  0.5498,  0.7928, -0.5214, -0.7585,  0.7687
 0.7661,  0.0863, -0.4266, -0.7233, -0.4197,  0.1466
 0.2277, -0.3517, -0.0853, -0.1118,  0.6563,  0.1767
 0.3499, -0.5570, -0.0655, -0.3705,  0.2537,  0.1632
 0.7547, -0.1046,  0.5689, -0.0861,  0.3125,  0.1257
 0.8186,  0.2110,  0.5335,  0.0094, -0.0039,  0.1391
 0.6858, -0.8644,  0.1465,  0.8855,  0.0357,  0.1845
-0.4967,  0.4015,  0.0805,  0.8977,  0.2487,  0.4663
 0.6760, -0.9841,  0.9787, -0.8446, -0.3557,  0.1509
-0.1203, -0.4885,  0.6054, -0.0443, -0.7313,  0.4854
 0.8557,  0.7919, -0.0169,  0.7134, -0.1628,  0.2002
 0.0115, -0.6209,  0.9300, -0.4116, -0.7931,  0.4052
-0.7114, -0.9718,  0.4319,  0.1290,  0.5892,  0.3661
 0.3915,  0.5557, -0.1870,  0.2955, -0.6404,  0.2954
-0.3564, -0.6548, -0.1827, -0.5172, -0.1862,  0.4622
 0.2392, -0.4959,  0.5857, -0.1341, -0.2850,  0.2470
-0.3394,  0.3947, -0.4627,  0.6166, -0.4094,  0.5325
 0.7107,  0.7768, -0.6312,  0.1707,  0.7964,  0.2757
-0.1078,  0.8437, -0.4420,  0.2177,  0.3649,  0.4028
-0.3139,  0.5595, -0.6505, -0.3161, -0.7108,  0.5546
 0.4335,  0.3986,  0.3770, -0.4932,  0.3847,  0.1810
-0.2562, -0.2894, -0.8847,  0.2633,  0.4146,  0.4036
 0.2272,  0.2966, -0.6601, -0.7011,  0.0284,  0.2778
-0.0743, -0.1421, -0.0054, -0.6770, -0.3151,  0.3597
-0.4762,  0.6891,  0.6007, -0.1467,  0.2140,  0.4266
-0.4061,  0.7193,  0.3432,  0.2669, -0.7505,  0.6147
-0.0588,  0.9731,  0.8966,  0.2902, -0.6966,  0.4955
-0.0627, -0.1439,  0.1985,  0.6999,  0.5022,  0.3077
 0.1587,  0.8494, -0.8705,  0.9827, -0.8940,  0.4263
-0.7850,  0.2473, -0.9040, -0.4308, -0.8779,  0.7199
 0.4070,  0.3369, -0.2428, -0.6236,  0.4940,  0.2215
-0.0242,  0.0513, -0.9430,  0.2885, -0.2987,  0.3947
-0.5416, -0.1322, -0.2351, -0.0604,  0.9590,  0.3683
 0.1055,  0.7783, -0.2901, -0.5090,  0.8220,  0.2984
-0.9129,  0.9015,  0.1128, -0.2473,  0.9901,  0.4776
-0.9378,  0.1424, -0.6391,  0.2619,  0.9618,  0.5368
 0.7498, -0.0963,  0.4169,  0.5549, -0.0103,  0.1614
-0.2612, -0.7156,  0.4538, -0.0460, -0.1022,  0.3717
 0.7720,  0.0552, -0.1818, -0.4622, -0.8560,  0.1685
-0.4177,  0.0070,  0.9319, -0.7812,  0.3461,  0.3052
-0.0001,  0.5542, -0.7128, -0.8336, -0.2016,  0.3803
 0.5356, -0.4194, -0.5662, -0.9666, -0.2027,  0.1776
-0.2378,  0.3187, -0.8582, -0.6948, -0.9668,  0.5474
-0.1947, -0.3579,  0.1158,  0.9869,  0.6690,  0.2992
 0.3992,  0.8365, -0.9205, -0.8593, -0.0520,  0.3154
-0.0209,  0.0793,  0.7905, -0.1067,  0.7541,  0.1864
-0.4928, -0.4524, -0.3433,  0.0951, -0.5597,  0.6261
-0.8118,  0.7404, -0.5263, -0.2280,  0.1431,  0.6349
 0.0516, -0.8480,  0.7483,  0.9023,  0.6250,  0.1959
-0.3212,  0.1093,  0.9488, -0.3766,  0.3376,  0.2735
-0.3481,  0.5490, -0.3484,  0.7797,  0.5034,  0.4379
-0.5785, -0.9170, -0.3563, -0.9258,  0.3877,  0.4121
 0.3407, -0.1391,  0.5356,  0.0720, -0.9203,  0.3458
-0.3287, -0.8954,  0.2102,  0.0241,  0.2349,  0.3247
-0.1353,  0.6954, -0.0919, -0.9692,  0.7461,  0.3338
 0.9036, -0.8982, -0.5299, -0.8733, -0.1567,  0.1187
 0.7277, -0.8368, -0.0538, -0.7489,  0.5458,  0.0830
 0.9049,  0.8878,  0.2279,  0.9470, -0.3103,  0.2194
 0.7957, -0.1308, -0.5284,  0.8817,  0.3684,  0.2172
 0.4647, -0.4931,  0.2010,  0.6292, -0.8918,  0.3371
-0.7390,  0.6849,  0.2367,  0.0626, -0.5034,  0.7039
-0.1567, -0.8711,  0.7940, -0.5932,  0.6525,  0.1710
 0.7635, -0.0265,  0.1969,  0.0545,  0.2496,  0.1445
 0.7675,  0.1354, -0.7698, -0.5460,  0.1920,  0.1728
-0.5211, -0.7372, -0.6763,  0.6897,  0.2044,  0.5217
 0.1913,  0.1980,  0.2314, -0.8816,  0.5006,  0.1998
 0.8964,  0.0694, -0.6149,  0.5059, -0.9854,  0.1825
 0.1767,  0.7104,  0.2093,  0.6452,  0.7590,  0.2832
-0.3580, -0.7541,  0.4426, -0.1193, -0.7465,  0.5657
-0.5996,  0.5766, -0.9758, -0.3933, -0.9572,  0.6800
 0.9950,  0.1641, -0.4132,  0.8579,  0.0142,  0.2003
-0.4717, -0.3894, -0.2567, -0.5111,  0.1691,  0.4266
 0.3917, -0.8561,  0.9422,  0.5061,  0.6123,  0.1212
-0.0366, -0.1087,  0.3449, -0.1025,  0.4086,  0.2475
 0.3633,  0.3943,  0.2372, -0.6980,  0.5216,  0.1925
-0.5325, -0.6466, -0.2178, -0.3589,  0.6310,  0.3568
 0.2271,  0.5200, -0.1447, -0.8011, -0.7699,  0.3128
 0.6415,  0.1993,  0.3777, -0.0178, -0.8237,  0.2181
-0.5298, -0.0768, -0.6028, -0.9490,  0.4588,  0.4356
 0.6870, -0.1431,  0.7294,  0.3141,  0.1621,  0.1632
-0.5985,  0.0591,  0.7889, -0.3900,  0.7419,  0.2945
 0.3661,  0.7984, -0.8486,  0.7572, -0.6183,  0.3449
 0.6995,  0.3342, -0.3113, -0.6972,  0.2707,  0.1712
 0.2565,  0.9126,  0.1798, -0.6043, -0.1413,  0.2893
-0.3265,  0.9839, -0.2395,  0.9854,  0.0376,  0.4770
 0.2690, -0.1722,  0.9818,  0.8599, -0.7015,  0.3954
-0.2102, -0.0768,  0.1219,  0.5607, -0.0256,  0.3949
 0.8216, -0.9555,  0.6422, -0.6231,  0.3715,  0.0801
-0.2896,  0.9484, -0.7545, -0.6249,  0.7789,  0.4370
-0.9985, -0.5448, -0.7092, -0.5931,  0.7926,  0.5402

Test data:

# synthetic_test_40.txt
#
 0.7462,  0.4006, -0.0590,  0.6543, -0.0083,  0.1935
 0.8495, -0.2260, -0.0142, -0.4911,  0.7699,  0.1078
-0.2335, -0.4049,  0.4352, -0.6183, -0.7636,  0.5088
 0.1810, -0.5142,  0.2465,  0.2767, -0.3449,  0.3136
-0.8650,  0.7611, -0.0801,  0.5277, -0.4922,  0.7140
-0.2358, -0.7466, -0.5115, -0.8413, -0.3943,  0.4533
 0.4834,  0.2300,  0.3448, -0.9832,  0.3568,  0.1360
-0.6502, -0.6300,  0.6885,  0.9652,  0.8275,  0.3046
-0.3053,  0.5604,  0.0929,  0.6329, -0.0325,  0.4756
-0.7995,  0.0740, -0.2680,  0.2086,  0.9176,  0.4565
-0.2144, -0.2141,  0.5813,  0.2902, -0.2122,  0.4119
-0.7278, -0.0987, -0.3312, -0.5641,  0.8515,  0.4438
 0.3793,  0.1976,  0.4933,  0.0839,  0.4011,  0.1905
-0.8568,  0.9573, -0.5272,  0.3212, -0.8207,  0.7415
-0.5785,  0.0056, -0.7901, -0.2223,  0.0760,  0.5551
 0.0735, -0.2188,  0.3925,  0.3570,  0.3746,  0.2191
 0.1230, -0.2838,  0.2262,  0.8715,  0.1938,  0.2878
 0.4792, -0.9248,  0.5295,  0.0366, -0.9894,  0.3149
-0.4456,  0.0697,  0.5359, -0.8938,  0.0981,  0.3879
 0.8629, -0.8505, -0.4464,  0.8385,  0.5300,  0.1769
 0.1995,  0.6659,  0.7921,  0.9454,  0.9970,  0.2330
-0.0249, -0.3066, -0.2927, -0.4923,  0.8220,  0.2437
 0.4513, -0.9481, -0.0770, -0.4374, -0.9421,  0.2879
-0.3405,  0.5931, -0.3507, -0.3842,  0.8562,  0.3987
 0.9538,  0.0471,  0.9039,  0.7760,  0.0361,  0.1706
-0.0887,  0.2104,  0.9808,  0.5478, -0.3314,  0.4128
-0.8220, -0.6302,  0.0537, -0.1658,  0.6013,  0.4306
-0.4123, -0.2880,  0.9074, -0.0461, -0.4435,  0.5144
 0.0060,  0.2867, -0.7775,  0.5161,  0.7039,  0.3599
-0.7968, -0.5484,  0.9426, -0.4308,  0.8148,  0.2979
 0.7811,  0.8450, -0.6877,  0.7594,  0.2640,  0.2362
-0.6802, -0.1113, -0.8325, -0.6694, -0.6056,  0.6544
 0.3821,  0.1476,  0.7466, -0.5107,  0.2592,  0.1648
 0.7265,  0.9683, -0.9803, -0.4943, -0.5523,  0.2454
-0.9049, -0.9797, -0.0196, -0.9090, -0.4433,  0.6447
-0.4607,  0.1811, -0.2389,  0.4050, -0.0078,  0.5229
 0.2664, -0.2932, -0.4259, -0.7336,  0.8742,  0.1834
-0.4507,  0.1029, -0.6294, -0.1158, -0.6294,  0.6081
 0.8948, -0.0124,  0.9278,  0.2899, -0.0314,  0.1534
-0.1323, -0.8813, -0.0146, -0.0697,  0.6135,  0.2386

As usual with complex problems, explaining what the problem is, is more difficult than explaining the solution. So bear with me.

The goal of a machine learning regression problem is to predict a single numeric value. For example, a bank might want to predict the maximum safe loan amount to a customer, based on age, account balance, current debt, and so on.

There are many regression techniques. The techniques fall into two main categories: 1.) classical math-based techniques (linear regression, nearest neighbors regression, quadratic regression, kernel ridge regression, neural network regression, and others) and 2.) tree-based techniques (random forest regression, Extra Trees (“extreme random”) regression, AdaBoost regression, Gradient Boost regression, and others).

The tree-based Gradient Boosting regression technique uses a collection of simple decision trees — they’re called the learners or the estimators. Each tree is constructed sequentially, based on error information of the previous tree. Each tree gets slightly better. The final prediction is based on the sum of indirect predictions of the trees (it’s very subtle and extremely complicated to explain).

Although Gradient Boosting regression almost always uses standard decision trees as the learners, in theory, any kind of simple regression technique can be used. Paradoxically, the base learners need to be weak instead of powerful, but that’s another long and complicated story.

I decided to implement Gradient Boost regression using Extra Trees learners. Bottom line: For my demo dataset, the technique worked surprisingly well.

Extra Trees are even weaker than standard decision trees. When constructing a standard decision tree, for each tree node, an optimal split column and split value are found (where “optimal” is a complex topic). When constructing an Extra Trees tree, for each node, a random split value is selected from each column, and then the best of those is used. So Extra Trees trees have a kind of built-in regularization that, at least in one experiment, help Gradient Boost regression.

For my demo, I used one of my standard datasets It looks like:

-0.1660,  0.4406, -0.9998, -0.3953, -0.7065,  0.4840
 0.0776, -0.1616,  0.3704, -0.5911,  0.7562,  0.1568
-0.9452,  0.3409, -0.1654,  0.1174, -0.7192,  0.8054
. . .

The data is synthetic. The first five values on each line are the predictors. The last value on each line is the target to predict. There are 200 training items and 40 test items.

The key parts of the output of my demo are:

Begin C# Gradient Boosting with Extra Trees demo

Loading synthetic train (200) and test (40) data
Done

First three train X:
 -0.1660  0.4406 -0.9998 -0.3953 -0.7065
  0.0776 -0.1616  0.3704 -0.5911  0.7562
 -0.9452  0.3409 -0.1654  0.1174 -0.7192

First three train y:
  0.4840
  0.1568
  0.8054

Setting numTrees = 800
Setting maxDepth = 4
Setting minSamples = 2
Setting minLeaf = 1
Setting lrnRate = 0.0500

Creating and training GradientBoostRegression model
Done

Evaluating model

Accuracy train (within 0.10) = 1.0000
Accuracy test (within 0.10) = 0.8750

MSE train = 0.0000
MSE test = 0.0005

R2 train = 1.0000
R2 test = 0.9835

Predicting for x =
  -0.1660   0.4406  -0.9998  -0.3953  -0.7065

Initial prediction: 0.3493
t =   0  pred_res =  0.0935  delta =  0.0047  pred =  0.3540
t =   1  pred_res = -0.0017  delta = -0.0001  pred =  0.3539
t =   2  pred_res =  0.1130  delta =  0.0056  pred =  0.3596
t =   3  pred_res =  0.0108  delta =  0.0005  pred =  0.3601
t =   4  pred_res =  0.1886  delta =  0.0094  pred =  0.3695
. . .
t = 798  pred_res = -0.0001  delta = -0.0000  pred =  0.4838
t = 799  pred_res =  0.0001  delta =  0.0000  pred =  0.4838
Predicted y = 0.4838

End demo

A very interesting investigation.

Gradient Boost regression code is a wrapper around a collection of weak learners. I’m a big fan of science fiction movies of the 1950s. Many of these movies had creatures that were actors wrapped in costumes of some kind.

Right: In “The Mole People” (1956), an expedition of archaeologists in the Himalayan Mountains discover an underground civilization created by Sumerian descendants. The neo-Sumerians use mole people as slaves to tend to their fungus farms. Objectively, this movie isn’t very good, but I like it anyway. My grade = solid B.

Demo program. Very long, quite complex. Replace “lt” (less than), “gt”, “lte”, “gte” with Boolean operator symbols. (My blog editor chokes on symbols).

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace GradientBoostWithExtraTrees
{
  internal class GradientBoostWithExtraTreesProgram
  {
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      Console.WriteLine("\nBegin C# Gradient Boosting" +
        " with Extra Trees demo ");

      // 1. load data
      Console.WriteLine("\nLoading synthetic train" +
        " (200) and test (40) data");
      string trainFile =
        "..\\..\\..\\Data\\synthetic_train_200.txt";
      int[] colsX = new int[] { 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 };
      double[][] trainX =
        MatLoad(trainFile, colsX, ',', "#");
      double[] trainY =
        MatToVec(MatLoad(trainFile,
        [5], ',', "#"));

      string testFile =
        "..\\..\\..\\Data\\synthetic_test_40.txt";
      double[][] testX =
        MatLoad(testFile, colsX, ',', "#");
      double[] testY =
        MatToVec(MatLoad(testFile,
        [5], ',', "#"));
      Console.WriteLine("Done ");

      Console.WriteLine("\nFirst three train X: ");
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" 3; ++i)
        VecShow(trainX[i], 4, 8);

      Console.WriteLine("\nFirst three train y: ");
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" 3; ++i)
        Console.WriteLine(trainY[i].ToString("F4").
          PadLeft(8));

      // 2. create and train model
            int numTrees = 800;
      int maxDepth = 4;
      int minSamples = 2;
      int minLeaf = 1;
      int numSplitCols = -1; // use all columns
      double lrnRate = 0.05;  // 1.0000 .8750 .0000 .0005

      Console.WriteLine("\nSetting numTrees = " +
        numTrees);
      Console.WriteLine("Setting maxDepth = " +
        maxDepth);
      Console.WriteLine("Setting minSamples = " +
        minSamples);
      Console.WriteLine("Setting minLeaf = " +
        minLeaf);
      Console.WriteLine("Setting lrnRate = " +
        lrnRate.ToString("F4"));

      Console.WriteLine("\nCreating and training" +
        " GradientBoostRegression model ");
      GradientBoostRegressor gbr =
        new GradientBoostRegressor(numTrees, maxDepth,
        minSamples, minLeaf, numSplitCols, lrnRate);
      gbr.Train(trainX, trainY);
      Console.WriteLine("Done ");

      // 3. evaluate model
      Console.WriteLine("\nEvaluating model ");
      double accTrain = gbr.Accuracy(trainX, trainY, 0.10);
      Console.WriteLine("\nAccuracy train (within 0.10) = " +
        accTrain.ToString("F4"));
      double accTest = gbr.Accuracy(testX, testY, 0.10);
      Console.WriteLine("Accuracy test (within 0.10) = " +
        accTest.ToString("F4"));

      double mseTrain = gbr.MSE(trainX, trainY);
      Console.WriteLine("\nMSE train = " +
        mseTrain.ToString("F4"));
      double mseTest = gbr.MSE(testX, testY);
      Console.WriteLine("MSE test = " +
        mseTest.ToString("F4"));

      double r2Train = gbr.R2(trainX, trainY);
      Console.WriteLine("\nR2 train = " +
        r2Train.ToString("F4"));
      double r2Test = gbr.R2(testX, testY);
      Console.WriteLine("R2 test = " +
        r2Test.ToString("F4"));

      // 4. use model
      double[] x = trainX[0];
      Console.WriteLine("\nPredicting for x = ");
      VecShow(x, 4, 9);
      double predY = gbr.Predict(x, verbose: true);
      Console.WriteLine("Predicted y = " +
        predY.ToString("F4"));

      Console.WriteLine("\nEnd demo ");
      Console.ReadLine();
    } // Main()

    // ------------------------------------------------------
    // helpers for Main()
    // ------------------------------------------------------

    static double[][] MatLoad(string fn, int[] usecols,
      char sep, string comment)
    {
      List"lt"double[]"gt" result = new List"lt"double[]"gt"();
      string line = "";
      FileStream ifs = new FileStream(fn, FileMode.Open);
      StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(ifs);
      while ((line = sr.ReadLine()) != null)
      {
        if (line.StartsWith(comment) == true)
          continue;
        string[] tokens = line.Split(sep);
        List"lt"double"gt" lst = new List"lt"double"gt"();
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" usecols.Length; ++j)
          lst.Add(double.Parse(tokens[usecols[j]]));
        double[] row = lst.ToArray();
        result.Add(row);
      }
      sr.Close(); ifs.Close();
      return result.ToArray();
    }

    static double[] MatToVec(double[][] mat)
    {
      int nRows = mat.Length;
      int nCols = mat[0].Length;
      double[] result = new double[nRows * nCols];
      int k = 0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" nCols; ++j)
          result[k++] = mat[i][j];
      return result;
    }

    static void VecShow(double[] vec, int dec, int wid)
    {
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" vec.Length; ++i)
        Console.Write(vec[i].ToString("F" + dec).
          PadLeft(wid));
      Console.WriteLine("");
    }

  } // class Program

  // ========================================================

  public class GradientBoostRegressor
  {
    public double lrnRate;
    public int nTrees;
    public int maxDepth;
    public int minSamples;
    public int minLeaf;
    public int numSplitCols;
    public List"lt"ExtraTreesBaseTree"gt" trees;
    public double pred0;  // initial prediction
    private Random rnd;

    public GradientBoostRegressor(int nTrees, int maxDepth,
      int minSamples, int minLeaf, int numSplitCols,
      double lrnRate, int seed=0)
    {
      this.nTrees = nTrees;
      this.maxDepth = maxDepth;
      this.minSamples = minSamples;
      this.minLeaf = minLeaf;
      this.numSplitCols = numSplitCols;
      this.trees = new List"lt"ExtraTreesBaseTree"gt"();
      this.lrnRate = lrnRate;
      this.rnd = new Random(seed);
    }

    public void Train(double[][] trainX, double[] trainY)
    {
      int n = trainX.Length;
      this.pred0 = Mean(trainY);

      double[] preds = new double[n]; //each data item
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
        preds[i] = this.pred0;

      for (int t = 0; t "lt" this.nTrees; ++t) // each tree
      {
        double[] residuals = new double[n]; // for curr tree
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
          residuals[i] = trainY[i] - preds[i];

        ExtraTreesBaseTree et =
          new ExtraTreesBaseTree(this.maxDepth,
          this.minSamples, this.minLeaf, this.numSplitCols,
          false, this.rnd.Next(0,1_000_000));
        et.Train(trainX, residuals); // predict residuals

        for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
        {
          double predResidual = et.Predict(trainX[i]);
          preds[i] += this.lrnRate * predResidual;
        }
        this.trees.Add(et);
      }
    } // Train

    public double Predict(double[] x, bool verbose = false)
    {
      double result = this.pred0;
      if (verbose == true)
      {
        Console.WriteLine("\nInitial prediction: " +
        result.ToString("F4"));
      }
      for (int t = 0; t "lt" this.nTrees; ++t)
      {
        double predResidual = this.trees[t].Predict(x);
        double delta = this.lrnRate * predResidual;
        result += delta;

        if (verbose == true)
        {
          if (t "gte" 0 && t "lte" 4 || t "gte" this.nTrees - 2 &&
            t "lte" this.nTrees - 1)
          {
            Console.Write("t = " + t.ToString().PadLeft(3) +
              "  pred_res = " + predResidual.ToString("F4").
              PadLeft(7));
            Console.Write("  delta = " + delta.ToString("F4").
              PadLeft(7));
            Console.WriteLine("  pred = " +
              result.ToString("F4").PadLeft(7));
          }
          if (t == 5)
            Console.WriteLine(". . . ");
        }
      }
      return result;
    }

    public double Accuracy(double[][] dataX, double[] dataY,
      double pctClose)
    {
      int numCorrect = 0; int numWrong = 0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" dataX.Length; ++i)
      {
        double actualY = dataY[i];
        double predY = Predict(dataX[i]);
        if (Math.Abs(predY - actualY) "lt"
          (pctClose * Math.Abs(actualY)))
          ++numCorrect;
        else
          ++numWrong;
      }
      return (numCorrect * 1.0) / (numWrong + numCorrect);
    }

    public double MSE(double[][] dataX,
      double[] dataY)
    {
      int n = dataX.Length;
      double sum = 0.0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
      {
        double actualY = dataY[i];
        double predY = this.Predict(dataX[i]);
        sum += (actualY - predY) * (actualY - predY);
      }
      return sum / n;
    }

    public double R2(double[][] dataX, double[] dataY)
    {
      // coefficient of determination
      int n = dataX.Length;
      double sum = 0.0;

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
        sum += dataY[i];
      double meanActual = sum / n;

      double ssRes = 0.0;
      double ssTot = 0.0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
      {
        double predY = this.Predict(dataX[i]);
        ssRes += (dataY[i] - predY) * (dataY[i] - predY);
        ssTot += (dataY[i] - meanActual) *
          (dataY[i] - meanActual);
      }
      if (Math.Abs(ssTot) "lt" 1.0e-12)
        return 0.0;
      else
        return 1.0 - (ssRes / ssTot);
    }

    private static double Mean(double[] data)
    {
      int n = data.Length;
      double sum = 0.0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
        sum += data[i];
      return sum / n;
    }

  } // class GradientBoostRegression

  // ========================================================
  // ========================================================

  public class ExtraTreesBaseTree
  {
    // same as DecisionTreeRegressor except BestSplit()
    public int maxDepth;
    public int minSamples;  // aka min_samples_split
    public int minLeaf;  // min number of values in a leaf
    public int numSplitCols;
    public List"lt"Node"gt" tree;
    public Random rnd;  // order in which cols are searched
    public bool saveRows;  // keep rows in Nodes after train

    public double[][] trainX;  // store data by ref
    public double[] trainY;    // more convenient

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    public class Node
    {
      public int id;
      public int colIdx;      // aka feature index
      public double thresh;   // aka split value
      public int left;        // index into List
      public int right;
      public double value;    // aka predicted y
      public bool isLeaf;
      public List"lt"int"gt" rows;  // assoc rows in train data

      public Node()
      {
        this.id = -1;
        this.colIdx = -1;
        this.thresh = 0.0;
        this.left = -1;
        this.right = -1;
        this.value = 0.0;  // aka pred y
        this.isLeaf = false;
        this.rows = null;
      }
    } // class Node

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    public ExtraTreesBaseTree(int maxDepth = 2,
      int minSamples = 2, int minLeaf = 1,
      int numSplitCols = -1, bool saveRows = false,
      int seed = 0)
    {
      // if maxDepth = n, at most 2^(n+1) - 1 nodes
      this.maxDepth = maxDepth;
      this.minSamples = minSamples;
      this.minLeaf = minLeaf;
      this.numSplitCols = numSplitCols;  // -1 = all
      this.saveRows = saveRows;

      this.tree = new List"lt"Node"gt"();

      // create full tree List with null nodes
      int numNodes = (int)Math.Pow(2, (maxDepth + 1)) - 1;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" numNodes; ++i)
        this.tree.Add(null);  // empty nodes

      this.rnd = new Random(seed);
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------
    // public: ctor(), Train(), Predict()
    // private helpers: BestSplit(), TreeTargetMean()
    // ------------------------------------------------------

    public void Train(double[][] trainX, double[] trainY)
    {
      this.trainX = trainX; // useful to avoid passing args
      this.trainY = trainY;

      int maxID = (int)Math.Pow(2, (this.maxDepth + 1)) - 2;
      int maxStartID = (int)Math.Pow(2, this.maxDepth) - 1;

      // prepare root node
      List"lt"int"gt" allRows = new List"lt"int"gt"();
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" this.trainX.Length; ++i)
        allRows.Add(i);
      double grandMean = this.TreeTargetMean(allRows);

      // wait to supply root colIdx and thresh in main loop
      Node root = new Node();
      root.id = 0;
      root.left = 1;
      root.right = 2;
      root.value = grandMean;
      root.isLeaf = false; // (already set)
      root.rows = allRows;
      this.tree[0] = root;

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" this.tree.Count; ++i)
      {
        Node currNode = this.tree[i];
        if (currNode == null) continue;

        if (currNode.id "gte" maxStartID ||
          currNode.rows.Count "lt" this.minSamples)
        {
          // unable to attempt split
          currNode.isLeaf = true;
          continue;
        }

        // try to split curr node
        double[] splitInfo = this.BestSplit(currNode.rows);
        int colIdx = (int)splitInfo[0];
        double splitVal = splitInfo[1];  //split value

        if (colIdx == -1)  // bad split
        {
          currNode.isLeaf = true;
          currNode.left = -1;
          currNode.right = -1;
          continue;
        }

        // got successful split info
        // complete the fields for curr node
        currNode.colIdx = colIdx;
        currNode.thresh = splitVal;

        // compute associated rows for the children
        List"lt"int"gt" leftIdxs = new List"lt"int"gt"();
        List"lt"int"gt" rightIdxs = new List"lt"int"gt"();
        for (int k = 0; k "lt" currNode.rows.Count; ++k)
        {
          int r = currNode.rows[k];
          if (this.trainX[r][colIdx] "lte" splitVal)
            leftIdxs.Add(r);
          else
            rightIdxs.Add(r);
        }

        // explicitly assign child structural
        // pointers to the parent node
        int leftID = currNode.id * 2 + 1;
        if (leftID "lte" maxID && leftIdxs.Count "gte" this.minLeaf)
        {
          currNode.left = leftID;
          Node leftNode = new Node();
          leftNode.id = leftID;
          leftNode.rows = leftIdxs;
          leftNode.value =
            this.TreeTargetMean(leftNode.rows);
          this.tree[leftID] = leftNode;
        }
        else
        {
          currNode.left = -1;
        }

        int rightID = currNode.id * 2 + 2;
        if (rightID "lte" maxID &&
          rightIdxs.Count "gte" this.minLeaf)
        {
          currNode.right = rightID;
          Node rightNode = new Node();
          rightNode.id = rightID;
          rightNode.rows = rightIdxs;
          rightNode.value =
            this.TreeTargetMean(rightNode.rows);
          this.tree[rightID] = rightNode;
        }
        else
        {
          currNode.right = -1;
        }

        // if child splits could not be formed
        // adequately, default parent to leaf
        if (currNode.left == -1 && currNode.right == -1)
        {
          currNode.isLeaf = true;
        }
      }

      if (this.saveRows == false)
      {
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" this.tree.Count; ++i)
          if (this.tree[i] != null)
            this.tree[i].rows = null;
      }
    } // Train()

    // ------------------------------------------------------------------------

    public double Predict(double[] x)
    {
      int p = 0;
      double lastValidValue = 0.0;

      while (p != -1 && p "lt" this.tree.Count)
      {
        Node currNode = this.tree[p];
        if (currNode == null) break;

        lastValidValue = currNode.value;
        if (currNode.isLeaf == true) break;

        if (x[currNode.colIdx] "lte" currNode.thresh)
          p = currNode.left;
        else
          p = currNode.right;
      }
      return lastValidValue;
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    // helpers: BestSplit(), TreeTargetMean()
    // ------------------------------------------------------------------------

    private double[] BestSplit(List"lt"int"gt" rows)
    {
      // special algorithm for Extra Trees Regression
      int bestColIdx = -1;
      double bestThresh = 0.0;
      double bestVar = double.MaxValue;

      int nRows = rows.Count;
      int nCols = this.trainX[0].Length;

      if (nRows == 0)
        throw new Exception("Empty data in BestSplit()");

      // 1. Fisher-Yates the columns
      int[] colIndices = new int[nCols];
      for (int k = 0; k "lt" nCols; ++k) colIndices[k] = k;

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nCols - 1; ++i)
      {
        int ri = rnd.Next(i, nCols);
        int tmp = colIndices[i];
        colIndices[i] = colIndices[ri];
        colIndices[ri] = tmp;
      }

      int nColsToUse;
      if (this.numSplitCols != -1)
        nColsToUse = Math.Min(this.numSplitCols, nCols);
      else
        nColsToUse = nCols;

      int[] activeCols = new int[nColsToUse];
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nColsToUse; ++i)
        activeCols[i] = colIndices[i];

      // pre-calculate total sums for the rows at this node
      double totalSumY = 0.0;
      double totalSumSqY = 0.0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
      {
        int r = rows[i];
        double y = this.trainY[r];
        totalSumY += y;
        totalSumSqY += y * y;
      }

      // evaluate a random thresh in each active column
      for (int j = 0; j "lt" activeCols.Length; ++j)
      {
        int currColIdx = activeCols[j];

        // find min and max val in curr column
        // for the current rows
        double minVal = double.MaxValue;
        double maxVal = double.MinValue;
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
        {
          int r = rows[i];
          double currVal = this.trainX[r][currColIdx];
          if (currVal "lt" minVal) minVal = currVal;
          if (currVal "gt" maxVal) maxVal = currVal;
        }

        if (minVal == maxVal)
          continue; // Cannot split this column

        double ranSplitVal = (maxVal - minVal) * 
          this.rnd.NextDouble() + minVal;

        int leftCount = 0;
        int rightCount = 0;
        double leftSumY = 0.0;
        double leftSumSqY = 0.0;

        for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
        {
          int r = rows[i];
          double yCurr = this.trainY[r];
          if (this.trainX[r][currColIdx] "lte" ranSplitVal)
          {
            ++leftCount;
            leftSumY += yCurr;
            leftSumSqY += yCurr * yCurr;
          }
          else
          {
            ++rightCount;
          }
        }

        // enforce minLeaf
        if (leftCount "lt" this.minLeaf || 
          rightCount "lt" this.minLeaf)
          continue;

        double rightSumY = totalSumY - leftSumY;
        double rightSumSqY = totalSumSqY - leftSumSqY;

        double tmp1 = 
        (leftSumY / leftCount) * (leftSumY / leftCount);
        double leftVar = (leftSumSqY / leftCount) - tmp1;

        double tmp2 = 
        (rightSumY / rightCount) * (rightSumY / rightCount);
        double rightVar = (rightSumSqY / rightCount) - tmp2;

        if (leftVar "lt" 0.0) leftVar = 0.0;
        if (rightVar "lt" 0.0) rightVar = 0.0;

        double weightedVar = 
          ((leftCount * leftVar) + 
          (rightCount * rightVar)) / nRows;

        if (weightedVar "lt" bestVar)
        {
          bestVar = weightedVar;
          bestColIdx = currColIdx;
          bestThresh = ranSplitVal;
        }
      }

      double[] result = new double[2];
      result[0] = 1.0 * bestColIdx;
      result[1] = bestThresh;
      return result;
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    private double TreeTargetMean(List"lt"int"gt" rows)
    {
      // mean of rows items in trainY
      // for node prediction
      if (rows == null || rows.Count == 0) return 0.0;
      double sum = 0.0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" rows.Count; ++i)
      {
        int r = rows[i];
        sum += this.trainY[r];
      }
      return sum / rows.Count;
    }

  } // class ExtraTreesBaseTree

  // ========================================================
 
} // ns

Training data:

# synthetic_train_200.txt
#
-0.1660,  0.4406, -0.9998, -0.3953, -0.7065,  0.4840
 0.0776, -0.1616,  0.3704, -0.5911,  0.7562,  0.1568
-0.9452,  0.3409, -0.1654,  0.1174, -0.7192,  0.8054
 0.9365, -0.3732,  0.3846,  0.7528,  0.7892,  0.1345
-0.8299, -0.9219, -0.6603,  0.7563, -0.8033,  0.7955
 0.0663,  0.3838, -0.3690,  0.3730,  0.6693,  0.3206
-0.9634,  0.5003,  0.9777,  0.4963, -0.4391,  0.7377
-0.1042,  0.8172, -0.4128, -0.4244, -0.7399,  0.4801
-0.9613,  0.3577, -0.5767, -0.4689, -0.0169,  0.6861
-0.7065,  0.1786,  0.3995, -0.7953, -0.1719,  0.5569
 0.3888, -0.1716, -0.9001,  0.0718,  0.3276,  0.2500
 0.1731,  0.8068, -0.7251, -0.7214,  0.6148,  0.3297
-0.2046, -0.6693,  0.8550, -0.3045,  0.5016,  0.2129
 0.2473,  0.5019, -0.3022, -0.4601,  0.7918,  0.2613
-0.1438,  0.9297,  0.3269,  0.2434, -0.7705,  0.5171
 0.1568, -0.1837, -0.5259,  0.8068,  0.1474,  0.3307
-0.9943,  0.2343, -0.3467,  0.0541,  0.7719,  0.5581
 0.2467, -0.9684,  0.8589,  0.3818,  0.9946,  0.1092
-0.6553, -0.7257,  0.8652,  0.3936, -0.8680,  0.7018
 0.8460,  0.4230, -0.7515, -0.9602, -0.9476,  0.1996
-0.9434, -0.5076,  0.7201,  0.0777,  0.1056,  0.5664
 0.9392,  0.1221, -0.9627,  0.6013, -0.5341,  0.1533
 0.6142, -0.2243,  0.7271,  0.4942,  0.1125,  0.1661
 0.4260,  0.1194, -0.9749, -0.8561,  0.9346,  0.2230
 0.1362, -0.5934, -0.4953,  0.4877, -0.6091,  0.3810
 0.6937, -0.5203, -0.0125,  0.2399,  0.6580,  0.1460
-0.6864, -0.9628, -0.8600, -0.0273,  0.2127,  0.5387
 0.9772,  0.1595, -0.2397,  0.1019,  0.4907,  0.1611
 0.3385, -0.4702, -0.8673, -0.2598,  0.2594,  0.2270
-0.8669, -0.4794,  0.6095, -0.6131,  0.2789,  0.4700
 0.0493,  0.8496, -0.4734, -0.8681,  0.4701,  0.3516
 0.8639, -0.9721, -0.5313,  0.2336,  0.8980,  0.1412
 0.9004,  0.1133,  0.8312,  0.2831, -0.2200,  0.1782
 0.0991,  0.8524,  0.8375, -0.2102,  0.9265,  0.2150
-0.6521, -0.7473, -0.7298,  0.0113, -0.9570,  0.7422
 0.6190, -0.3105,  0.8802,  0.1640,  0.7577,  0.1056
 0.6895,  0.8108, -0.0802,  0.0927,  0.5972,  0.2214
 0.1982, -0.9689,  0.1870, -0.1326,  0.6147,  0.1310
-0.3695,  0.7858,  0.1557, -0.6320,  0.5759,  0.3773
-0.1596,  0.3581,  0.8372, -0.9992,  0.9535,  0.2071
-0.2468,  0.9476,  0.2094,  0.6577,  0.1494,  0.4132
 0.1737,  0.5000,  0.7166,  0.5102,  0.3961,  0.2611
 0.7290, -0.3546,  0.3416, -0.0983, -0.2358,  0.1332
-0.3652,  0.2438, -0.1395,  0.9476,  0.3556,  0.4170
-0.6029, -0.1466, -0.3133,  0.5953,  0.7600,  0.4334
-0.4596, -0.4953,  0.7098,  0.0554,  0.6043,  0.2775
 0.1450,  0.4663,  0.0380,  0.5418,  0.1377,  0.2931
-0.8636, -0.2442, -0.8407,  0.9656, -0.6368,  0.7429
 0.6237,  0.7499,  0.3768,  0.1390, -0.6781,  0.2185
-0.5499,  0.1850, -0.3755,  0.8326,  0.8193,  0.4399
-0.4858, -0.7782, -0.6141, -0.0008,  0.4572,  0.4197
 0.7033, -0.1683,  0.2334, -0.5327, -0.7961,  0.1776
 0.0317, -0.0457, -0.6947,  0.2436,  0.0880,  0.3345
 0.5031, -0.5559,  0.0387,  0.5706, -0.9553,  0.3107
-0.3513,  0.7458,  0.6894,  0.0769,  0.7332,  0.3170
 0.2205,  0.5992, -0.9309,  0.5405,  0.4635,  0.3532
-0.4806, -0.4859,  0.2646, -0.3094,  0.5932,  0.3202
 0.9809, -0.3995, -0.7140,  0.8026,  0.0831,  0.1600
 0.9495,  0.2732,  0.9878,  0.0921,  0.0529,  0.1289
-0.9476, -0.6792,  0.4913, -0.9392, -0.2669,  0.5966
 0.7247,  0.3854,  0.3819, -0.6227, -0.1162,  0.1550
-0.5922, -0.5045, -0.4757,  0.5003, -0.0860,  0.5863
-0.8861,  0.0170, -0.5761,  0.5972, -0.4053,  0.7301
 0.6877, -0.2380,  0.4997,  0.0223,  0.0819,  0.1404
 0.9189,  0.6079, -0.9354,  0.4188, -0.0700,  0.1907
-0.1428, -0.7820,  0.2676,  0.6059,  0.3936,  0.2790
 0.5324, -0.3151,  0.6917, -0.1425,  0.6480,  0.1071
-0.8432, -0.9633, -0.8666, -0.0828, -0.7733,  0.7784
-0.9444,  0.5097, -0.2103,  0.4939, -0.0952,  0.6787
-0.0520,  0.6063, -0.1952,  0.8094, -0.9259,  0.4836
 0.5477, -0.7487,  0.2370, -0.9793,  0.0773,  0.1241
 0.2450,  0.8116,  0.9799,  0.4222,  0.4636,  0.2355
 0.8186, -0.1983, -0.5003, -0.6531, -0.7611,  0.1511
-0.4714,  0.6382, -0.3788,  0.9648, -0.4667,  0.5950
 0.0673, -0.3711,  0.8215, -0.2669, -0.1328,  0.2677
-0.9381,  0.4338,  0.7820, -0.9454,  0.0441,  0.5518
-0.3480,  0.7190,  0.1170,  0.3805, -0.0943,  0.4724
-0.9813,  0.1535, -0.3771,  0.0345,  0.8328,  0.5438
-0.1471, -0.5052, -0.2574,  0.8637,  0.8737,  0.3042
-0.5454, -0.3712, -0.6505,  0.2142, -0.1728,  0.5783
 0.6327, -0.6297,  0.4038, -0.5193,  0.1484,  0.1153
-0.5424,  0.3282, -0.0055,  0.0380, -0.6506,  0.6613
 0.1414,  0.9935,  0.6337,  0.1887,  0.9520,  0.2540
-0.9351, -0.8128, -0.8693, -0.0965, -0.2491,  0.7353
 0.9507, -0.6640,  0.9456,  0.5349,  0.6485,  0.1059
-0.0462, -0.9737, -0.2940, -0.0159,  0.4602,  0.2606
-0.0627, -0.0852, -0.7247, -0.9782,  0.5166,  0.2977
 0.0478,  0.5098, -0.0723, -0.7504, -0.3750,  0.3335
 0.0090,  0.3477,  0.5403, -0.7393, -0.9542,  0.4415
-0.9748,  0.3449,  0.3736, -0.1015,  0.8296,  0.4358
 0.2887, -0.9895, -0.0311,  0.7186,  0.6608,  0.2057
 0.1570, -0.4518,  0.1211,  0.3435, -0.2951,  0.3244
 0.7117, -0.6099,  0.4946, -0.4208,  0.5476,  0.1096
-0.2929, -0.5726,  0.5346, -0.3827,  0.4665,  0.2465
 0.4889, -0.5572, -0.5718, -0.6021, -0.7150,  0.2163
-0.7782,  0.3491,  0.5996, -0.8389, -0.5366,  0.6516
-0.5847,  0.8347,  0.4226,  0.1078, -0.3910,  0.6134
 0.8469,  0.4121, -0.0439, -0.7476,  0.9521,  0.1571
-0.6803, -0.5948, -0.1376, -0.1916, -0.7065,  0.7156
 0.2878,  0.5086, -0.5785,  0.2019,  0.4979,  0.2980
 0.2764,  0.1943, -0.4090,  0.4632,  0.8906,  0.2960
-0.8877,  0.6705, -0.6155, -0.2098, -0.3998,  0.7107
-0.8398,  0.8093, -0.2597,  0.0614, -0.0118,  0.6502
-0.8476,  0.0158, -0.4769, -0.2859, -0.7839,  0.7715
 0.5751, -0.7868,  0.9714, -0.6457,  0.1448,  0.1175
 0.4802, -0.7001,  0.1022, -0.5668,  0.5184,  0.1090
 0.4458, -0.6469,  0.7239, -0.9604,  0.7205,  0.0779
 0.5175,  0.4339,  0.9747, -0.4438, -0.9924,  0.2879
 0.8678,  0.7158,  0.4577,  0.0334,  0.4139,  0.1678
 0.5406,  0.5012,  0.2264, -0.1963,  0.3946,  0.2088
-0.9938,  0.5498,  0.7928, -0.5214, -0.7585,  0.7687
 0.7661,  0.0863, -0.4266, -0.7233, -0.4197,  0.1466
 0.2277, -0.3517, -0.0853, -0.1118,  0.6563,  0.1767
 0.3499, -0.5570, -0.0655, -0.3705,  0.2537,  0.1632
 0.7547, -0.1046,  0.5689, -0.0861,  0.3125,  0.1257
 0.8186,  0.2110,  0.5335,  0.0094, -0.0039,  0.1391
 0.6858, -0.8644,  0.1465,  0.8855,  0.0357,  0.1845
-0.4967,  0.4015,  0.0805,  0.8977,  0.2487,  0.4663
 0.6760, -0.9841,  0.9787, -0.8446, -0.3557,  0.1509
-0.1203, -0.4885,  0.6054, -0.0443, -0.7313,  0.4854
 0.8557,  0.7919, -0.0169,  0.7134, -0.1628,  0.2002
 0.0115, -0.6209,  0.9300, -0.4116, -0.7931,  0.4052
-0.7114, -0.9718,  0.4319,  0.1290,  0.5892,  0.3661
 0.3915,  0.5557, -0.1870,  0.2955, -0.6404,  0.2954
-0.3564, -0.6548, -0.1827, -0.5172, -0.1862,  0.4622
 0.2392, -0.4959,  0.5857, -0.1341, -0.2850,  0.2470
-0.3394,  0.3947, -0.4627,  0.6166, -0.4094,  0.5325
 0.7107,  0.7768, -0.6312,  0.1707,  0.7964,  0.2757
-0.1078,  0.8437, -0.4420,  0.2177,  0.3649,  0.4028
-0.3139,  0.5595, -0.6505, -0.3161, -0.7108,  0.5546
 0.4335,  0.3986,  0.3770, -0.4932,  0.3847,  0.1810
-0.2562, -0.2894, -0.8847,  0.2633,  0.4146,  0.4036
 0.2272,  0.2966, -0.6601, -0.7011,  0.0284,  0.2778
-0.0743, -0.1421, -0.0054, -0.6770, -0.3151,  0.3597
-0.4762,  0.6891,  0.6007, -0.1467,  0.2140,  0.4266
-0.4061,  0.7193,  0.3432,  0.2669, -0.7505,  0.6147
-0.0588,  0.9731,  0.8966,  0.2902, -0.6966,  0.4955
-0.0627, -0.1439,  0.1985,  0.6999,  0.5022,  0.3077
 0.1587,  0.8494, -0.8705,  0.9827, -0.8940,  0.4263
-0.7850,  0.2473, -0.9040, -0.4308, -0.8779,  0.7199
 0.4070,  0.3369, -0.2428, -0.6236,  0.4940,  0.2215
-0.0242,  0.0513, -0.9430,  0.2885, -0.2987,  0.3947
-0.5416, -0.1322, -0.2351, -0.0604,  0.9590,  0.3683
 0.1055,  0.7783, -0.2901, -0.5090,  0.8220,  0.2984
-0.9129,  0.9015,  0.1128, -0.2473,  0.9901,  0.4776
-0.9378,  0.1424, -0.6391,  0.2619,  0.9618,  0.5368
 0.7498, -0.0963,  0.4169,  0.5549, -0.0103,  0.1614
-0.2612, -0.7156,  0.4538, -0.0460, -0.1022,  0.3717
 0.7720,  0.0552, -0.1818, -0.4622, -0.8560,  0.1685
-0.4177,  0.0070,  0.9319, -0.7812,  0.3461,  0.3052
-0.0001,  0.5542, -0.7128, -0.8336, -0.2016,  0.3803
 0.5356, -0.4194, -0.5662, -0.9666, -0.2027,  0.1776
-0.2378,  0.3187, -0.8582, -0.6948, -0.9668,  0.5474
-0.1947, -0.3579,  0.1158,  0.9869,  0.6690,  0.2992
 0.3992,  0.8365, -0.9205, -0.8593, -0.0520,  0.3154
-0.0209,  0.0793,  0.7905, -0.1067,  0.7541,  0.1864
-0.4928, -0.4524, -0.3433,  0.0951, -0.5597,  0.6261
-0.8118,  0.7404, -0.5263, -0.2280,  0.1431,  0.6349
 0.0516, -0.8480,  0.7483,  0.9023,  0.6250,  0.1959
-0.3212,  0.1093,  0.9488, -0.3766,  0.3376,  0.2735
-0.3481,  0.5490, -0.3484,  0.7797,  0.5034,  0.4379
-0.5785, -0.9170, -0.3563, -0.9258,  0.3877,  0.4121
 0.3407, -0.1391,  0.5356,  0.0720, -0.9203,  0.3458
-0.3287, -0.8954,  0.2102,  0.0241,  0.2349,  0.3247
-0.1353,  0.6954, -0.0919, -0.9692,  0.7461,  0.3338
 0.9036, -0.8982, -0.5299, -0.8733, -0.1567,  0.1187
 0.7277, -0.8368, -0.0538, -0.7489,  0.5458,  0.0830
 0.9049,  0.8878,  0.2279,  0.9470, -0.3103,  0.2194
 0.7957, -0.1308, -0.5284,  0.8817,  0.3684,  0.2172
 0.4647, -0.4931,  0.2010,  0.6292, -0.8918,  0.3371
-0.7390,  0.6849,  0.2367,  0.0626, -0.5034,  0.7039
-0.1567, -0.8711,  0.7940, -0.5932,  0.6525,  0.1710
 0.7635, -0.0265,  0.1969,  0.0545,  0.2496,  0.1445
 0.7675,  0.1354, -0.7698, -0.5460,  0.1920,  0.1728
-0.5211, -0.7372, -0.6763,  0.6897,  0.2044,  0.5217
 0.1913,  0.1980,  0.2314, -0.8816,  0.5006,  0.1998
 0.8964,  0.0694, -0.6149,  0.5059, -0.9854,  0.1825
 0.1767,  0.7104,  0.2093,  0.6452,  0.7590,  0.2832
-0.3580, -0.7541,  0.4426, -0.1193, -0.7465,  0.5657
-0.5996,  0.5766, -0.9758, -0.3933, -0.9572,  0.6800
 0.9950,  0.1641, -0.4132,  0.8579,  0.0142,  0.2003
-0.4717, -0.3894, -0.2567, -0.5111,  0.1691,  0.4266
 0.3917, -0.8561,  0.9422,  0.5061,  0.6123,  0.1212
-0.0366, -0.1087,  0.3449, -0.1025,  0.4086,  0.2475
 0.3633,  0.3943,  0.2372, -0.6980,  0.5216,  0.1925
-0.5325, -0.6466, -0.2178, -0.3589,  0.6310,  0.3568
 0.2271,  0.5200, -0.1447, -0.8011, -0.7699,  0.3128
 0.6415,  0.1993,  0.3777, -0.0178, -0.8237,  0.2181
-0.5298, -0.0768, -0.6028, -0.9490,  0.4588,  0.4356
 0.6870, -0.1431,  0.7294,  0.3141,  0.1621,  0.1632
-0.5985,  0.0591,  0.7889, -0.3900,  0.7419,  0.2945
 0.3661,  0.7984, -0.8486,  0.7572, -0.6183,  0.3449
 0.6995,  0.3342, -0.3113, -0.6972,  0.2707,  0.1712
 0.2565,  0.9126,  0.1798, -0.6043, -0.1413,  0.2893
-0.3265,  0.9839, -0.2395,  0.9854,  0.0376,  0.4770
 0.2690, -0.1722,  0.9818,  0.8599, -0.7015,  0.3954
-0.2102, -0.0768,  0.1219,  0.5607, -0.0256,  0.3949
 0.8216, -0.9555,  0.6422, -0.6231,  0.3715,  0.0801
-0.2896,  0.9484, -0.7545, -0.6249,  0.7789,  0.4370
-0.9985, -0.5448, -0.7092, -0.5931,  0.7926,  0.5402

Test data:

# synthetic_test_40.txt
#
 0.7462,  0.4006, -0.0590,  0.6543, -0.0083,  0.1935
 0.8495, -0.2260, -0.0142, -0.4911,  0.7699,  0.1078
-0.2335, -0.4049,  0.4352, -0.6183, -0.7636,  0.5088
 0.1810, -0.5142,  0.2465,  0.2767, -0.3449,  0.3136
-0.8650,  0.7611, -0.0801,  0.5277, -0.4922,  0.7140
-0.2358, -0.7466, -0.5115, -0.8413, -0.3943,  0.4533
 0.4834,  0.2300,  0.3448, -0.9832,  0.3568,  0.1360
-0.6502, -0.6300,  0.6885,  0.9652,  0.8275,  0.3046
-0.3053,  0.5604,  0.0929,  0.6329, -0.0325,  0.4756
-0.7995,  0.0740, -0.2680,  0.2086,  0.9176,  0.4565
-0.2144, -0.2141,  0.5813,  0.2902, -0.2122,  0.4119
-0.7278, -0.0987, -0.3312, -0.5641,  0.8515,  0.4438
 0.3793,  0.1976,  0.4933,  0.0839,  0.4011,  0.1905
-0.8568,  0.9573, -0.5272,  0.3212, -0.8207,  0.7415
-0.5785,  0.0056, -0.7901, -0.2223,  0.0760,  0.5551
 0.0735, -0.2188,  0.3925,  0.3570,  0.3746,  0.2191
 0.1230, -0.2838,  0.2262,  0.8715,  0.1938,  0.2878
 0.4792, -0.9248,  0.5295,  0.0366, -0.9894,  0.3149
-0.4456,  0.0697,  0.5359, -0.8938,  0.0981,  0.3879
 0.8629, -0.8505, -0.4464,  0.8385,  0.5300,  0.1769
 0.1995,  0.6659,  0.7921,  0.9454,  0.9970,  0.2330
-0.0249, -0.3066, -0.2927, -0.4923,  0.8220,  0.2437
 0.4513, -0.9481, -0.0770, -0.4374, -0.9421,  0.2879
-0.3405,  0.5931, -0.3507, -0.3842,  0.8562,  0.3987
 0.9538,  0.0471,  0.9039,  0.7760,  0.0361,  0.1706
-0.0887,  0.2104,  0.9808,  0.5478, -0.3314,  0.4128
-0.8220, -0.6302,  0.0537, -0.1658,  0.6013,  0.4306
-0.4123, -0.2880,  0.9074, -0.0461, -0.4435,  0.5144
 0.0060,  0.2867, -0.7775,  0.5161,  0.7039,  0.3599
-0.7968, -0.5484,  0.9426, -0.4308,  0.8148,  0.2979
 0.7811,  0.8450, -0.6877,  0.7594,  0.2640,  0.2362
-0.6802, -0.1113, -0.8325, -0.6694, -0.6056,  0.6544
 0.3821,  0.1476,  0.7466, -0.5107,  0.2592,  0.1648
 0.7265,  0.9683, -0.9803, -0.4943, -0.5523,  0.2454
-0.9049, -0.9797, -0.0196, -0.9090, -0.4433,  0.6447
-0.4607,  0.1811, -0.2389,  0.4050, -0.0078,  0.5229
 0.2664, -0.2932, -0.4259, -0.7336,  0.8742,  0.1834
-0.4507,  0.1029, -0.6294, -0.1158, -0.6294,  0.6081
 0.8948, -0.0124,  0.9278,  0.2899, -0.0314,  0.1534
-0.1323, -0.8813, -0.0146, -0.0697,  0.6135,  0.2386

RBF networks for regression had a brief period of popularity in the 1990s. They are now rarely used because other techniques, notably, neural networks, kernel ridge regression, and gradient boost regression, are much easier to train and typically have better prediction accuracy.

Just for fun, I decided to implement RBF network regression, from scratch, using the C# language. The effort was made much easier through the use of AI coding assistance.

For my demo, I used one of my standard synthetic datasets. The data looks like:

-0.1660,  0.4406, -0.9998, -0.3953, -0.7065,  0.4840
 0.0776, -0.1616,  0.3704, -0.5911,  0.7562,  0.1568
-0.9452,  0.3409, -0.1654,  0.1174, -0.7192,  0.8054
. . .

The first five values on each line are predictors. The last value is the target to predict. There are 200 training items and 40 test items.

The output of my demo is:

Begin RBF network regression using C#

Loading synthetic train (200) and test (40) data
Done

First three train X:
 -0.1660  0.4406 -0.9998 -0.3953 -0.7065
  0.0776 -0.1616  0.3704 -0.5911  0.7562
 -0.9452  0.3409 -0.1654  0.1174 -0.7192

First three train y:
  0.4840
  0.1568
  0.8054

Creating 5-100-1 RBF network
Done

Setting lrnRate = 0.0010
Setting maxEpochs = 500000
Setting decay = 0.0e+0

Starting training
epoch:      0   MSE = 0.0329   acc = 0.0500
epoch:  25000   MSE = 0.0002   acc = 0.7350
epoch:  50000   MSE = 0.0002   acc = 0.7400
epoch:  75000   MSE = 0.0002   acc = 0.7150
. . . 
epoch: 425000   MSE = 0.0001   acc = 0.7850
epoch: 450000   MSE = 0.0001   acc = 0.7800
epoch: 475000   MSE = 0.0001   acc = 0.7950
Done

Evaluating model

Accuracy (5%) on train data = 0.7850
Accuracy (5%) on test data  = 0.8250

MSE on train data = 0.0001
MSE on test data = 0.0001

Predicting for x =
  -0.1660   0.4406  -0.9998  -0.3953  -0.7065
Predicted y = 0.4917

End demo

An interesting exploration.

Writing machine learning code is kind of like solving a mystery.

Right: Inspector Lestrade on the left (actor Archie Duncan) believes the murdered man’s fiance is the murderer, but Watson and Holmes prove that the victim’s brother is the villain.

Demo program. Replace “lt” (less than), “gt”, “lte”, “gte”, “lte’ with Boolean operator symbols (my blog editor chokes on symbols).

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;

// Four reasons why RBF networks are rarely used:
// 1. Because Gaussian RBFs rely on Euclidean distance,
//  they only cover localized regions.
// 2. RBF centers are selected using K-Means clustering,
//  which places centers where X data density is highest,
//  blind to the y target values.
// 3. RBF hyperparameters are extremely sensitive:
//  number centers, center positions, gamma.
// 4. Other techniques -- neural network regression,
//  kernel ridge regression, gradient boost regression -- are
//  easier to train and therefore usually predict better.

// RBF networks sometimes useful for incremental learning:
// Because RBF nodes are local, updating a weight only
// changes predictions in the immediate neighborhood of
// that center.

namespace RbfNetworkRegression
{
  internal class RbfNetworkRegressionProgram
  {
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      Console.WriteLine("\nBegin RBF network " +
        "regression using C# ");

      // 1. load data
      Console.WriteLine("\nLoading synthetic train (200)" +
        " and test (40) data ");
      string trainFile = 
        "..\\..\\..\\Data\\synthetic_train_200.txt";
      double[][] trainX = MatLoad(trainFile,
        new int[] { 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 }, ',', "#");
      double[] trainY = MatToVec(MatLoad(trainFile,
        new int[] { 5 }, ',', "#"));

      string testFile = 
        "..\\..\\..\\Data\\synthetic_test_40.txt";
      double[][] testX = MatLoad(testFile,
        new int[] { 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 }, ',', "#");
      double[] testY = MatToVec(MatLoad(testFile,
        new int[] { 5 }, ',', "#"));
      Console.WriteLine("Done ");

      Console.WriteLine("\nFirst three train X: ");
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" 3; ++i)
        VecShow(trainX[i], 4, 8);

      Console.WriteLine("\nFirst three train y: ");
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" 3; ++i)
        Console.WriteLine(trainY[i].ToString("F4").
          PadLeft(8));

      // 2. create RBF network
      Console.WriteLine("\nCreating 5-100-1 RBF network ");
      RbfNetworkRegressor nn = 
        new RbfNetworkRegressor(5, 100, 1);
      Console.WriteLine("Done ");

      // 3. train RBF network
      double lrnRate = 0.001;
      int maxEpochs = 500000;
      double decay = 0.00000;

      Console.WriteLine("\nSetting lrnRate = " +
        lrnRate.ToString("F4"));
      Console.WriteLine("Setting maxEpochs = " +
        maxEpochs);
      Console.WriteLine("Setting decay = " +
        decay.ToString("0.0e+0"));

      Console.WriteLine("\nStarting training ");
      nn.Train(trainX, trainY, lrnRate, maxEpochs, decay);
      Console.WriteLine("Done ");

      // 5. evaluate trained model
      Console.WriteLine("\nEvaluating model ");
      double trainAcc = nn.Accuracy(trainX, trainY, 0.05);
      Console.WriteLine("\nAccuracy (5%) on train data = " +
        trainAcc.ToString("F4"));

      double testAcc = nn.Accuracy(testX, testY, 0.05);
      Console.WriteLine("Accuracy (5%) on test data  = " +
        testAcc.ToString("F4"));

      double trainMSE = nn.MSE(trainX, trainY);
      Console.WriteLine("\nMSE on train data = " +
        trainMSE.ToString("F4"));

      double testMSE = nn.MSE(testX, testY);
      Console.WriteLine("MSE on test data = " +
        testMSE.ToString("F4"));

      // 6. use model
      double[] x = trainX[0];
      Console.WriteLine("\nPredicting for x = ");
      VecShow(x, 4, 9);
      double predY = nn.Predict(x);
      Console.WriteLine("Predicted y = " + 
        predY.ToString("F4"));

      Console.WriteLine("\nEnd demo ");
      Console.ReadLine();
    } // Main

    // ------------------------------------------------------
    // helpers for Main(): MatLoad(), MatToVec(), VecShow()
    // ------------------------------------------------------

    static double[][] MatLoad(string fn, int[] usecols,
      char sep, string comment)
    {
      List"lt"double[]"gt" result = 
        new List"lt"double[]"gt"();
      string line = "";
      FileStream ifs = new FileStream(fn, FileMode.Open);
      StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(ifs);
      while ((line = sr.ReadLine()) != null)
      {
        if (line.StartsWith(comment) == true)
          continue;
        string[] tokens = line.Split(sep);
        List"lt"double"gt" lst = new List"lt"double"gt"();
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" usecols.Length; ++j)
          lst.Add(double.Parse(tokens[usecols[j]]));
        double[] row = lst.ToArray();
        result.Add(row);
      }
      sr.Close(); ifs.Close();
      return result.ToArray();
    }

    static double[] MatToVec(double[][] M)
    {
      int nRows = M.Length;
      int nCols = M[0].Length;
      double[] result = new double[nRows * nCols];
      int k = 0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" nCols; ++j)
          result[k++] = M[i][j];
      return result;
    }

    static void VecShow(double[] vec, int dec, int wid)
    {
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" vec.Length; ++i)
        Console.Write(vec[i].ToString("F" + dec).
          PadLeft(wid));
      Console.WriteLine("");
    }

  } // class Program

  // ========================================================

  public class RbfNetworkRegressor
  {
    public int ni; // number of input features
    public int nh; // number of hidden/RBF nodes
    public int no; // output nodes (1 for regression)

    public Random rnd;

    public double[] iNodes;
    public double[] hNodes;
    public double[] oNodes;

    // RBF specific hidden layer components:
    public double[][] centers; // shape: [nh][ni]
    public double[] gammas;    // shape: [nh]

    // Output layer components:
    public double[][] hoWeights; // shape: [nh][no]
    public double[] oBiases;     // shape: [no]

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    public RbfNetworkRegressor(int numIn, int numHid,
      int numOut, int seed = 0)
    {
      this.ni = numIn;
      this.nh = numHid;
      this.no = numOut;

      this.iNodes = new double[numIn];
      this.hNodes = new double[numHid];
      this.oNodes = new double[numOut];

      this.centers = MatMake(numHid, numIn);
      this.gammas = new double[numHid];

      this.hoWeights = MatMake(numHid, numOut);
      this.oBiases = new double[numOut];

      this.rnd = new Random(seed);
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    public double Predict(double[] x)
    {
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" x.Length; ++i)
        this.iNodes[i] = x[i];

      // 1. hidden node activations via Gaussian RBF
      for (int j = 0; j "lt" this.nh; ++j)
      {
        double distSq = 0.0;
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" this.ni; ++i)
        {
          double diff = this.iNodes[i] - this.centers[j][i];
          distSq += diff * diff;
        }
        this.hNodes[j] = Math.Exp(-this.gammas[j] * distSq);
      }

      // 2. Compute linear output combination
      for (int k = 0; k "lt" this.no; ++k)
      {
        double sum = 0.0;
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" this.nh; ++j)
          sum += this.hNodes[j] * this.hoWeights[j][k];
        sum += this.oBiases[k];
        this.oNodes[k] = Identity(sum);
      }

      return this.oNodes[0];
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------

    public void Train(double[][] trainX, double[] trainY,
      double lrnRate, int maxEpochs, double decay)
    {
      int freq = Math.Max(1, maxEpochs / 20);

      // initialize Centers via K-Means Clustering on trainX
      this.InitCentersKMeans(trainX);

      // set Widths based on distance between centers
      this.InitGammas();

      // Step 3: Initialize output weights randomly
      double lo = -0.01; double hi = +0.01;
      for (int j = 0; j "lt" this.nh; ++j)
        for (int k = 0; k "lt" this.no; ++k)
          this.hoWeights[j][k] = (hi - lo) *
            this.rnd.NextDouble() + lo;

      // Gradient buffers for output layer
      double[][] hoGrads = MatMake(this.nh, this.no);
      double[] obGrads = new double[this.no];
      double[] oSignals = new double[this.no];

      int n = trainX.Length;
      int[] indices = new int[n];
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i) indices[i] = i;

      // train for hidden-to-output weights
      for (int epoch = 0; epoch "lt" maxEpochs; ++epoch)
      {
        this.Shuffle(indices);

        for (int ii = 0; ii "lt" n; ++ii)
        {
          int idx = indices[ii];
          double[] x = trainX[idx];
          double actualY = trainY[idx];
          double predY = this.Predict(x);

          // Compute output node signal
          for (int k = 0; k "lt" this.no; ++k)
          {
            double derivative = 1.0; // Identity derivative
            oSignals[k] = derivative * (predY - actualY);
          }

          // gradients for hidden-to-output weights & biases
          for (int j = 0; j "lt" this.nh; ++j)
            for (int k = 0; k "lt" this.no; ++k)
              hoGrads[j][k] = oSignals[k] * this.hNodes[j];

          for (int k = 0; k "lt" this.no; ++k)
            obGrads[k] = oSignals[k] * 1.0;

          // apply weight decay
          for (int j = 0; j "lt" this.nh; ++j)
            for (int k = 0; k "lt" this.no; ++k)
              this.hoWeights[j][k] *= (1.0 - decay);

          // update output weights and biases using SGD
          for (int j = 0; j "lt" this.nh; ++j)
            for (int k = 0; k "lt" this.no; ++k)
              this.hoWeights[j][k] -= lrnRate *
                hoGrads[j][k];

          for (int k = 0; k "lt" this.no; ++k)
            this.oBiases[k] -= lrnRate * obGrads[k];
        }

        if (epoch % freq == 0)
        {
          double mse = this.MSE(trainX, trainY);
          double acc = this.Accuracy(trainX, trainY, 0.05);

          string s1 = "epoch: " + epoch.ToString().PadLeft(6);
          string s2 = "   MSE = " + mse.ToString("F4");
          string s3 = "   acc = " + acc.ToString("F4");
          Console.WriteLine(s1 + s2 + s3);
        }
      }
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------
    // Helper Methods & Clustering Operations
    // ------------------------------------------------------

    private void InitCentersKMeans(double[][] trainX)
    {
      int n = trainX.Length;
      int[] clustering = new int[n];

      // assign initial centers from data samples
      int[] centerIndices = new int[this.nh];
      for (int j = 0; j "lt" this.nh; ++j)
      {
        int idx = this.rnd.Next(0, n);
        for (int k = 0; k "lt" j; ++k)
        {
          if (centerIndices[k] == idx)
          { 
            --j;
            break;
          } // avoid duplicates
        }
        centerIndices[j] = idx;
        Array.Copy(trainX[idx], this.centers[j], this.ni);
      }

      bool changed = true;
      int maxIter = 100;
      int iter = 0;

      while (changed && iter "lt" maxIter)
      {
        ++iter;
        changed = false;

        // Assign each data point to nearest center
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
        {
          int closest = 0;
          double minDist = EuclideanDistance(trainX[i],
            this.centers[0]);

          for (int j = 1; j "lt" this.nh; ++j)
          {
            double dist = EuclideanDistance(trainX[i],
              this.centers[j]);
            if (dist "lt" minDist)
            {
              minDist = dist;
              closest = j;
            }
          }

          if (clustering[i] != closest)
          {
            clustering[i] = closest;
            changed = true;
          }
        }

        // recalculate cluster centers
        double[][] newCenters = MatMake(this.nh, this.ni);
        int[] counts = new int[this.nh];

        for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
        {
          int c = clustering[i];
          counts[c]++;
          for (int j = 0; j "lt" this.ni; ++j)
            newCenters[c][j] += trainX[i][j];
        }

        for (int j = 0; j "lt" this.nh; ++j)
        {
          if (counts[j] "gt" 0)
          {
            for (int k = 0; k "lt" this.ni; ++k)
              this.centers[j][k] = 
                newCenters[j][k] / counts[j];
          }
        }
      }
    }

    private void InitGammas()
    {
      // gamma = 1 / (2 * sigma^2)
      // using distance between centers
      double totalDist = 0.0;
      int count = 0;

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" this.nh; ++i)
      {
        for (int j = i + 1; j "lt" this.nh; ++j)
        {
          totalDist += 
            EuclideanDistance(this.centers[i],
            this.centers[j]);
          count++;
        }
      }

      //double avgDist = count "gt" 0 ? totalDist / count : 1.0;
      double avgDist;
      if (count "gt" 0)
        avgDist = totalDist / count;
      else
        avgDist = 1.0;
      double sigma = avgDist;
      double gamma = 1.0 / (2.0 * sigma * sigma);

      for (int j = 0; j "lt" this.nh; ++j)
        this.gammas[j] = gamma;
    }

    private static double EuclideanDistance(double[] v1,
      double[] v2)
    {
      double sum = 0.0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" v1.Length; ++i)
      {
        double diff = v1[i] - v2[i];
        sum += diff * diff;
      }
      return Math.Sqrt(sum);
    }

    public double Accuracy(double[][] dataX, double[] dataY,
      double pctClose)
    {
      int n = dataX.Length;
      int nCorrect = 0; int nWrong = 0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
      {
        double predY = this.Predict(dataX[i]);
        double actualY = dataY[i];
        if (Math.Abs(predY - actualY) "lt" 
          (pctClose * Math.Abs(actualY)))
          ++nCorrect;
        else
          ++nWrong;
      }
      return (nCorrect * 1.0) / (nCorrect + nWrong);
    }

    public double MSE(double[][] dataX, double[] dataY)
    {
      int n = dataX.Length;
      double sum = 0.0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
      {
        double predY = this.Predict(dataX[i]);
        double actualY = dataY[i];
        sum += (predY - actualY) * (predY - actualY);
      }
      return sum / n;
    }

    private static double[][] MatMake(int nRows, int nCols)
    {
      double[][] result = new double[nRows][];
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
        result[i] = new double[nCols];
      return result;
    }

    private void Shuffle(int[] indices)
    {
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" indices.Length; ++i)
      {
        int r = this.rnd.Next(i, indices.Length);
        int tmp = indices[r];
        indices[r] = indices[i];
        indices[i] = tmp;
      }
    }

    private static double Identity(double x)
    {
      return x;
    }

  } // RbfNetworkRegressor class

  // ========================================================

} // ns

Training data:

# synthetic_train_200.txt
#
-0.1660,  0.4406, -0.9998, -0.3953, -0.7065,  0.4840
 0.0776, -0.1616,  0.3704, -0.5911,  0.7562,  0.1568
-0.9452,  0.3409, -0.1654,  0.1174, -0.7192,  0.8054
 0.9365, -0.3732,  0.3846,  0.7528,  0.7892,  0.1345
-0.8299, -0.9219, -0.6603,  0.7563, -0.8033,  0.7955
 0.0663,  0.3838, -0.3690,  0.3730,  0.6693,  0.3206
-0.9634,  0.5003,  0.9777,  0.4963, -0.4391,  0.7377
-0.1042,  0.8172, -0.4128, -0.4244, -0.7399,  0.4801
-0.9613,  0.3577, -0.5767, -0.4689, -0.0169,  0.6861
-0.7065,  0.1786,  0.3995, -0.7953, -0.1719,  0.5569
 0.3888, -0.1716, -0.9001,  0.0718,  0.3276,  0.2500
 0.1731,  0.8068, -0.7251, -0.7214,  0.6148,  0.3297
-0.2046, -0.6693,  0.8550, -0.3045,  0.5016,  0.2129
 0.2473,  0.5019, -0.3022, -0.4601,  0.7918,  0.2613
-0.1438,  0.9297,  0.3269,  0.2434, -0.7705,  0.5171
 0.1568, -0.1837, -0.5259,  0.8068,  0.1474,  0.3307
-0.9943,  0.2343, -0.3467,  0.0541,  0.7719,  0.5581
 0.2467, -0.9684,  0.8589,  0.3818,  0.9946,  0.1092
-0.6553, -0.7257,  0.8652,  0.3936, -0.8680,  0.7018
 0.8460,  0.4230, -0.7515, -0.9602, -0.9476,  0.1996
-0.9434, -0.5076,  0.7201,  0.0777,  0.1056,  0.5664
 0.9392,  0.1221, -0.9627,  0.6013, -0.5341,  0.1533
 0.6142, -0.2243,  0.7271,  0.4942,  0.1125,  0.1661
 0.4260,  0.1194, -0.9749, -0.8561,  0.9346,  0.2230
 0.1362, -0.5934, -0.4953,  0.4877, -0.6091,  0.3810
 0.6937, -0.5203, -0.0125,  0.2399,  0.6580,  0.1460
-0.6864, -0.9628, -0.8600, -0.0273,  0.2127,  0.5387
 0.9772,  0.1595, -0.2397,  0.1019,  0.4907,  0.1611
 0.3385, -0.4702, -0.8673, -0.2598,  0.2594,  0.2270
-0.8669, -0.4794,  0.6095, -0.6131,  0.2789,  0.4700
 0.0493,  0.8496, -0.4734, -0.8681,  0.4701,  0.3516
 0.8639, -0.9721, -0.5313,  0.2336,  0.8980,  0.1412
 0.9004,  0.1133,  0.8312,  0.2831, -0.2200,  0.1782
 0.0991,  0.8524,  0.8375, -0.2102,  0.9265,  0.2150
-0.6521, -0.7473, -0.7298,  0.0113, -0.9570,  0.7422
 0.6190, -0.3105,  0.8802,  0.1640,  0.7577,  0.1056
 0.6895,  0.8108, -0.0802,  0.0927,  0.5972,  0.2214
 0.1982, -0.9689,  0.1870, -0.1326,  0.6147,  0.1310
-0.3695,  0.7858,  0.1557, -0.6320,  0.5759,  0.3773
-0.1596,  0.3581,  0.8372, -0.9992,  0.9535,  0.2071
-0.2468,  0.9476,  0.2094,  0.6577,  0.1494,  0.4132
 0.1737,  0.5000,  0.7166,  0.5102,  0.3961,  0.2611
 0.7290, -0.3546,  0.3416, -0.0983, -0.2358,  0.1332
-0.3652,  0.2438, -0.1395,  0.9476,  0.3556,  0.4170
-0.6029, -0.1466, -0.3133,  0.5953,  0.7600,  0.4334
-0.4596, -0.4953,  0.7098,  0.0554,  0.6043,  0.2775
 0.1450,  0.4663,  0.0380,  0.5418,  0.1377,  0.2931
-0.8636, -0.2442, -0.8407,  0.9656, -0.6368,  0.7429
 0.6237,  0.7499,  0.3768,  0.1390, -0.6781,  0.2185
-0.5499,  0.1850, -0.3755,  0.8326,  0.8193,  0.4399
-0.4858, -0.7782, -0.6141, -0.0008,  0.4572,  0.4197
 0.7033, -0.1683,  0.2334, -0.5327, -0.7961,  0.1776
 0.0317, -0.0457, -0.6947,  0.2436,  0.0880,  0.3345
 0.5031, -0.5559,  0.0387,  0.5706, -0.9553,  0.3107
-0.3513,  0.7458,  0.6894,  0.0769,  0.7332,  0.3170
 0.2205,  0.5992, -0.9309,  0.5405,  0.4635,  0.3532
-0.4806, -0.4859,  0.2646, -0.3094,  0.5932,  0.3202
 0.9809, -0.3995, -0.7140,  0.8026,  0.0831,  0.1600
 0.9495,  0.2732,  0.9878,  0.0921,  0.0529,  0.1289
-0.9476, -0.6792,  0.4913, -0.9392, -0.2669,  0.5966
 0.7247,  0.3854,  0.3819, -0.6227, -0.1162,  0.1550
-0.5922, -0.5045, -0.4757,  0.5003, -0.0860,  0.5863
-0.8861,  0.0170, -0.5761,  0.5972, -0.4053,  0.7301
 0.6877, -0.2380,  0.4997,  0.0223,  0.0819,  0.1404
 0.9189,  0.6079, -0.9354,  0.4188, -0.0700,  0.1907
-0.1428, -0.7820,  0.2676,  0.6059,  0.3936,  0.2790
 0.5324, -0.3151,  0.6917, -0.1425,  0.6480,  0.1071
-0.8432, -0.9633, -0.8666, -0.0828, -0.7733,  0.7784
-0.9444,  0.5097, -0.2103,  0.4939, -0.0952,  0.6787
-0.0520,  0.6063, -0.1952,  0.8094, -0.9259,  0.4836
 0.5477, -0.7487,  0.2370, -0.9793,  0.0773,  0.1241
 0.2450,  0.8116,  0.9799,  0.4222,  0.4636,  0.2355
 0.8186, -0.1983, -0.5003, -0.6531, -0.7611,  0.1511
-0.4714,  0.6382, -0.3788,  0.9648, -0.4667,  0.5950
 0.0673, -0.3711,  0.8215, -0.2669, -0.1328,  0.2677
-0.9381,  0.4338,  0.7820, -0.9454,  0.0441,  0.5518
-0.3480,  0.7190,  0.1170,  0.3805, -0.0943,  0.4724
-0.9813,  0.1535, -0.3771,  0.0345,  0.8328,  0.5438
-0.1471, -0.5052, -0.2574,  0.8637,  0.8737,  0.3042
-0.5454, -0.3712, -0.6505,  0.2142, -0.1728,  0.5783
 0.6327, -0.6297,  0.4038, -0.5193,  0.1484,  0.1153
-0.5424,  0.3282, -0.0055,  0.0380, -0.6506,  0.6613
 0.1414,  0.9935,  0.6337,  0.1887,  0.9520,  0.2540
-0.9351, -0.8128, -0.8693, -0.0965, -0.2491,  0.7353
 0.9507, -0.6640,  0.9456,  0.5349,  0.6485,  0.1059
-0.0462, -0.9737, -0.2940, -0.0159,  0.4602,  0.2606
-0.0627, -0.0852, -0.7247, -0.9782,  0.5166,  0.2977
 0.0478,  0.5098, -0.0723, -0.7504, -0.3750,  0.3335
 0.0090,  0.3477,  0.5403, -0.7393, -0.9542,  0.4415
-0.9748,  0.3449,  0.3736, -0.1015,  0.8296,  0.4358
 0.2887, -0.9895, -0.0311,  0.7186,  0.6608,  0.2057
 0.1570, -0.4518,  0.1211,  0.3435, -0.2951,  0.3244
 0.7117, -0.6099,  0.4946, -0.4208,  0.5476,  0.1096
-0.2929, -0.5726,  0.5346, -0.3827,  0.4665,  0.2465
 0.4889, -0.5572, -0.5718, -0.6021, -0.7150,  0.2163
-0.7782,  0.3491,  0.5996, -0.8389, -0.5366,  0.6516
-0.5847,  0.8347,  0.4226,  0.1078, -0.3910,  0.6134
 0.8469,  0.4121, -0.0439, -0.7476,  0.9521,  0.1571
-0.6803, -0.5948, -0.1376, -0.1916, -0.7065,  0.7156
 0.2878,  0.5086, -0.5785,  0.2019,  0.4979,  0.2980
 0.2764,  0.1943, -0.4090,  0.4632,  0.8906,  0.2960
-0.8877,  0.6705, -0.6155, -0.2098, -0.3998,  0.7107
-0.8398,  0.8093, -0.2597,  0.0614, -0.0118,  0.6502
-0.8476,  0.0158, -0.4769, -0.2859, -0.7839,  0.7715
 0.5751, -0.7868,  0.9714, -0.6457,  0.1448,  0.1175
 0.4802, -0.7001,  0.1022, -0.5668,  0.5184,  0.1090
 0.4458, -0.6469,  0.7239, -0.9604,  0.7205,  0.0779
 0.5175,  0.4339,  0.9747, -0.4438, -0.9924,  0.2879
 0.8678,  0.7158,  0.4577,  0.0334,  0.4139,  0.1678
 0.5406,  0.5012,  0.2264, -0.1963,  0.3946,  0.2088
-0.9938,  0.5498,  0.7928, -0.5214, -0.7585,  0.7687
 0.7661,  0.0863, -0.4266, -0.7233, -0.4197,  0.1466
 0.2277, -0.3517, -0.0853, -0.1118,  0.6563,  0.1767
 0.3499, -0.5570, -0.0655, -0.3705,  0.2537,  0.1632
 0.7547, -0.1046,  0.5689, -0.0861,  0.3125,  0.1257
 0.8186,  0.2110,  0.5335,  0.0094, -0.0039,  0.1391
 0.6858, -0.8644,  0.1465,  0.8855,  0.0357,  0.1845
-0.4967,  0.4015,  0.0805,  0.8977,  0.2487,  0.4663
 0.6760, -0.9841,  0.9787, -0.8446, -0.3557,  0.1509
-0.1203, -0.4885,  0.6054, -0.0443, -0.7313,  0.4854
 0.8557,  0.7919, -0.0169,  0.7134, -0.1628,  0.2002
 0.0115, -0.6209,  0.9300, -0.4116, -0.7931,  0.4052
-0.7114, -0.9718,  0.4319,  0.1290,  0.5892,  0.3661
 0.3915,  0.5557, -0.1870,  0.2955, -0.6404,  0.2954
-0.3564, -0.6548, -0.1827, -0.5172, -0.1862,  0.4622
 0.2392, -0.4959,  0.5857, -0.1341, -0.2850,  0.2470
-0.3394,  0.3947, -0.4627,  0.6166, -0.4094,  0.5325
 0.7107,  0.7768, -0.6312,  0.1707,  0.7964,  0.2757
-0.1078,  0.8437, -0.4420,  0.2177,  0.3649,  0.4028
-0.3139,  0.5595, -0.6505, -0.3161, -0.7108,  0.5546
 0.4335,  0.3986,  0.3770, -0.4932,  0.3847,  0.1810
-0.2562, -0.2894, -0.8847,  0.2633,  0.4146,  0.4036
 0.2272,  0.2966, -0.6601, -0.7011,  0.0284,  0.2778
-0.0743, -0.1421, -0.0054, -0.6770, -0.3151,  0.3597
-0.4762,  0.6891,  0.6007, -0.1467,  0.2140,  0.4266
-0.4061,  0.7193,  0.3432,  0.2669, -0.7505,  0.6147
-0.0588,  0.9731,  0.8966,  0.2902, -0.6966,  0.4955
-0.0627, -0.1439,  0.1985,  0.6999,  0.5022,  0.3077
 0.1587,  0.8494, -0.8705,  0.9827, -0.8940,  0.4263
-0.7850,  0.2473, -0.9040, -0.4308, -0.8779,  0.7199
 0.4070,  0.3369, -0.2428, -0.6236,  0.4940,  0.2215
-0.0242,  0.0513, -0.9430,  0.2885, -0.2987,  0.3947
-0.5416, -0.1322, -0.2351, -0.0604,  0.9590,  0.3683
 0.1055,  0.7783, -0.2901, -0.5090,  0.8220,  0.2984
-0.9129,  0.9015,  0.1128, -0.2473,  0.9901,  0.4776
-0.9378,  0.1424, -0.6391,  0.2619,  0.9618,  0.5368
 0.7498, -0.0963,  0.4169,  0.5549, -0.0103,  0.1614
-0.2612, -0.7156,  0.4538, -0.0460, -0.1022,  0.3717
 0.7720,  0.0552, -0.1818, -0.4622, -0.8560,  0.1685
-0.4177,  0.0070,  0.9319, -0.7812,  0.3461,  0.3052
-0.0001,  0.5542, -0.7128, -0.8336, -0.2016,  0.3803
 0.5356, -0.4194, -0.5662, -0.9666, -0.2027,  0.1776
-0.2378,  0.3187, -0.8582, -0.6948, -0.9668,  0.5474
-0.1947, -0.3579,  0.1158,  0.9869,  0.6690,  0.2992
 0.3992,  0.8365, -0.9205, -0.8593, -0.0520,  0.3154
-0.0209,  0.0793,  0.7905, -0.1067,  0.7541,  0.1864
-0.4928, -0.4524, -0.3433,  0.0951, -0.5597,  0.6261
-0.8118,  0.7404, -0.5263, -0.2280,  0.1431,  0.6349
 0.0516, -0.8480,  0.7483,  0.9023,  0.6250,  0.1959
-0.3212,  0.1093,  0.9488, -0.3766,  0.3376,  0.2735
-0.3481,  0.5490, -0.3484,  0.7797,  0.5034,  0.4379
-0.5785, -0.9170, -0.3563, -0.9258,  0.3877,  0.4121
 0.3407, -0.1391,  0.5356,  0.0720, -0.9203,  0.3458
-0.3287, -0.8954,  0.2102,  0.0241,  0.2349,  0.3247
-0.1353,  0.6954, -0.0919, -0.9692,  0.7461,  0.3338
 0.9036, -0.8982, -0.5299, -0.8733, -0.1567,  0.1187
 0.7277, -0.8368, -0.0538, -0.7489,  0.5458,  0.0830
 0.9049,  0.8878,  0.2279,  0.9470, -0.3103,  0.2194
 0.7957, -0.1308, -0.5284,  0.8817,  0.3684,  0.2172
 0.4647, -0.4931,  0.2010,  0.6292, -0.8918,  0.3371
-0.7390,  0.6849,  0.2367,  0.0626, -0.5034,  0.7039
-0.1567, -0.8711,  0.7940, -0.5932,  0.6525,  0.1710
 0.7635, -0.0265,  0.1969,  0.0545,  0.2496,  0.1445
 0.7675,  0.1354, -0.7698, -0.5460,  0.1920,  0.1728
-0.5211, -0.7372, -0.6763,  0.6897,  0.2044,  0.5217
 0.1913,  0.1980,  0.2314, -0.8816,  0.5006,  0.1998
 0.8964,  0.0694, -0.6149,  0.5059, -0.9854,  0.1825
 0.1767,  0.7104,  0.2093,  0.6452,  0.7590,  0.2832
-0.3580, -0.7541,  0.4426, -0.1193, -0.7465,  0.5657
-0.5996,  0.5766, -0.9758, -0.3933, -0.9572,  0.6800
 0.9950,  0.1641, -0.4132,  0.8579,  0.0142,  0.2003
-0.4717, -0.3894, -0.2567, -0.5111,  0.1691,  0.4266
 0.3917, -0.8561,  0.9422,  0.5061,  0.6123,  0.1212
-0.0366, -0.1087,  0.3449, -0.1025,  0.4086,  0.2475
 0.3633,  0.3943,  0.2372, -0.6980,  0.5216,  0.1925
-0.5325, -0.6466, -0.2178, -0.3589,  0.6310,  0.3568
 0.2271,  0.5200, -0.1447, -0.8011, -0.7699,  0.3128
 0.6415,  0.1993,  0.3777, -0.0178, -0.8237,  0.2181
-0.5298, -0.0768, -0.6028, -0.9490,  0.4588,  0.4356
 0.6870, -0.1431,  0.7294,  0.3141,  0.1621,  0.1632
-0.5985,  0.0591,  0.7889, -0.3900,  0.7419,  0.2945
 0.3661,  0.7984, -0.8486,  0.7572, -0.6183,  0.3449
 0.6995,  0.3342, -0.3113, -0.6972,  0.2707,  0.1712
 0.2565,  0.9126,  0.1798, -0.6043, -0.1413,  0.2893
-0.3265,  0.9839, -0.2395,  0.9854,  0.0376,  0.4770
 0.2690, -0.1722,  0.9818,  0.8599, -0.7015,  0.3954
-0.2102, -0.0768,  0.1219,  0.5607, -0.0256,  0.3949
 0.8216, -0.9555,  0.6422, -0.6231,  0.3715,  0.0801
-0.2896,  0.9484, -0.7545, -0.6249,  0.7789,  0.4370
-0.9985, -0.5448, -0.7092, -0.5931,  0.7926,  0.5402

Test data:

# synthetic_test_40.txt
#
 0.7462,  0.4006, -0.0590,  0.6543, -0.0083,  0.1935
 0.8495, -0.2260, -0.0142, -0.4911,  0.7699,  0.1078
-0.2335, -0.4049,  0.4352, -0.6183, -0.7636,  0.5088
 0.1810, -0.5142,  0.2465,  0.2767, -0.3449,  0.3136
-0.8650,  0.7611, -0.0801,  0.5277, -0.4922,  0.7140
-0.2358, -0.7466, -0.5115, -0.8413, -0.3943,  0.4533
 0.4834,  0.2300,  0.3448, -0.9832,  0.3568,  0.1360
-0.6502, -0.6300,  0.6885,  0.9652,  0.8275,  0.3046
-0.3053,  0.5604,  0.0929,  0.6329, -0.0325,  0.4756
-0.7995,  0.0740, -0.2680,  0.2086,  0.9176,  0.4565
-0.2144, -0.2141,  0.5813,  0.2902, -0.2122,  0.4119
-0.7278, -0.0987, -0.3312, -0.5641,  0.8515,  0.4438
 0.3793,  0.1976,  0.4933,  0.0839,  0.4011,  0.1905
-0.8568,  0.9573, -0.5272,  0.3212, -0.8207,  0.7415
-0.5785,  0.0056, -0.7901, -0.2223,  0.0760,  0.5551
 0.0735, -0.2188,  0.3925,  0.3570,  0.3746,  0.2191
 0.1230, -0.2838,  0.2262,  0.8715,  0.1938,  0.2878
 0.4792, -0.9248,  0.5295,  0.0366, -0.9894,  0.3149
-0.4456,  0.0697,  0.5359, -0.8938,  0.0981,  0.3879
 0.8629, -0.8505, -0.4464,  0.8385,  0.5300,  0.1769
 0.1995,  0.6659,  0.7921,  0.9454,  0.9970,  0.2330
-0.0249, -0.3066, -0.2927, -0.4923,  0.8220,  0.2437
 0.4513, -0.9481, -0.0770, -0.4374, -0.9421,  0.2879
-0.3405,  0.5931, -0.3507, -0.3842,  0.8562,  0.3987
 0.9538,  0.0471,  0.9039,  0.7760,  0.0361,  0.1706
-0.0887,  0.2104,  0.9808,  0.5478, -0.3314,  0.4128
-0.8220, -0.6302,  0.0537, -0.1658,  0.6013,  0.4306
-0.4123, -0.2880,  0.9074, -0.0461, -0.4435,  0.5144
 0.0060,  0.2867, -0.7775,  0.5161,  0.7039,  0.3599
-0.7968, -0.5484,  0.9426, -0.4308,  0.8148,  0.2979
 0.7811,  0.8450, -0.6877,  0.7594,  0.2640,  0.2362
-0.6802, -0.1113, -0.8325, -0.6694, -0.6056,  0.6544
 0.3821,  0.1476,  0.7466, -0.5107,  0.2592,  0.1648
 0.7265,  0.9683, -0.9803, -0.4943, -0.5523,  0.2454
-0.9049, -0.9797, -0.0196, -0.9090, -0.4433,  0.6447
-0.4607,  0.1811, -0.2389,  0.4050, -0.0078,  0.5229
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-0.4507,  0.1029, -0.6294, -0.1158, -0.6294,  0.6081
 0.8948, -0.0124,  0.9278,  0.2899, -0.0314,  0.1534
-0.1323, -0.8813, -0.0146, -0.0697,  0.6135,  0.2386