James D. McCaffrey

I like to write code every day. Writing code is a skill that must be practiced, and I enjoy writing code. Over the course of my career, I saw countless colleagues move from an engineering role to an engineering-management role, and they all lost their coding ability with surprising speed.

I decided to combine quadratic regression (QR) with nearest neighbors (NN) regression. The idea is simple: create a container class that holds a QR model, and a NN model. After the two component models are trained independently, the hybrid model prediction is just a weights average of the QR prediction and the NN prediction.

The output of a demo, with basic QR, and basic NN with number nearest neighbors = 3, and the QR model prediction weight = 0.80 and the NN prediction weight = 0.20:

Begin C# hybrid quadratic regression + nearest 
 neighbors 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

Create hybrid quadratic regression + nearest 
 neighbors model
Setting seed for QR model = 0
Setting nNeighbors for NN model = 3
Setting QR predict weight = 0.80
Setting NN predict weight = 0.20
Done

Training hybrid model
Done

QR model base weights:
 -0.2630  0.0354 -0.0421  0.0341 -0.1124

Evaluating hybrid model
Accuracy train (within 0.10) = 0.9050
Accuracy test (within 0.10) = 0.9250

MSE train = 0.0003
MSE test = 0.0004

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

Predicted y = 0.4931

End demo

Of course, the choice of combining QR and NN is arbitrary. Any regression techniques can be used (for example, linear regression, kernel ridge regression, support vector regression, neural network regression, random forest regression, gradient boost regression). And you can use more than two regression techniques.

In practice, I like to use regression techniques that are different from each other (because they will predict different data patterns differently), and techniques with fewer architecture and training parameters (to avoid combinatorial explosion).

The Predict() and Train() methods are simple, because all of the work is done by the component models:

public class Hybid_QR_NN
{
. . .
  public double Predict(double[] x)
  {
    double predQR = this.qrModel.Predict(x);
    double predNN = this.nnModel.Predict(x);
    double result = 
      (predQR * this.weights[0]) + 
      (predNN * this.weights[1]);
    return result;
  }

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

  public void Train(double[][] trainX, double[] trainY)
  {
    this.qrModel.Train(trainX, trainY);
    this.nnModel.Train(trainX, trainY);
  }
. . .

public class QuadraticRegressor { . . . }
public class QRHouseholder { . . . } // helper for QR
public class NearestNeighborsRegressor { . . . }

Instead of wrapping the hybrid regressor in a container class, Hybid_QR_NN_Regressor, it’s perfectly possible to just use the QuadraticRegressor class and the NearestNeighborsRegressor class separately, and then compute a weighted average of their Predict() methods. But putting everything into a container class keeps things more organized and easier to work with.

The scikit-learn library provides a VotingRegressor module that combines two or more scikit regression models.

Most of my friends, and me, get obsessed with all kinds of strange things. For reasons that are unknown to me, I am moderately obsessed with movies that feature a creature that makes noises that are translated to “chittering” in the closed caption text. The are an amazing number of chittering instances in science fiction movies, but you’ll only notice these chitterings if you’re looking for them.

Right: In the science fiction movie “The Tomorrow War” (2021), in the year 2051, aliens invade Earth with fearsome bio-weapons. Humanity is on the verge of extinction, but is able to use a time-travel device to import humans from the present time of 2021. A clever idea. I liked this movie quite a bit more than my friends. I give it a B grade. Most of my friends grade it out at a C or even C-.

Demo program. 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 Hybrid_QR_NN_Regression
{
  internal class HybridProgram
  {
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      Console.WriteLine("\nBegin C# hybrid quadratic " +
        "regression + nearest neighbors 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 model
      Console.WriteLine("\nCreating hybrid quadratic " +
        "regression + nearest neighbors model ");
      int nNeighbors = 3;
      int seed = 0;
      double[] weights = new double[] { 0.80, 0.20 };

     Console.WriteLine("Setting seed for QR model = " +
        seed);
      Console.WriteLine("Setting nNeighbors for NN model = " +
        nNeighbors);
      Console.WriteLine("Setting QR predict weight = " +
        weights[0].ToString("F2"));
      Console.WriteLine("Setting NN predict weight = " +
        weights[1].ToString("F2"));

      Hybid_QR_NN model = 
        new Hybid_QR_NN(nNeighbors, seed, weights);
      Console.WriteLine("Done ");

      Console.WriteLine("\nTraining hybrid model ");
      model.Train(trainX, trainY); // train component models
      Console.WriteLine("Done ");

      // 3. show model weights
      Console.WriteLine("\nQR model base weights: ");
      int dim = trainX[0].Length;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" dim; ++i)
        Console.Write(model.qrModel.weights[i].
          ToString("F4").PadLeft(8));
      Console.WriteLine("");
      // Console.WriteLine("\nModel quadratic weights: ");
      // Console.WriteLine("\nModel interaction weights: ");
      
      // 4. evaluate model
      Console.WriteLine("\nEvaluating hybrid model ");
      double accTrain = model.Accuracy(trainX, trainY, 0.10);
      Console.WriteLine("Accuracy 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"));

      // 5. use model
      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"));

      // 6. TODO: implement model Save() and Load()

      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 Hybid_QR_NN_Regressor
  {
    // training parameters for QR and kNN
    // QR: no parameters needed
    // kNN: only nNeighbors needed

    public int nNeighbors; 
    private Random rnd;  // not used w/ Pinv training
    public double[] weights = new double[0]; // each model

    public QuadraticRegressor qrModel;
    public NearestNeighborsRegressor nnModel;

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

    public Hybid_QR_NN_Regressor(int nNeighbors, int seed,
      double[] weights)
    {
      this.nNeighbors = nNeighbors;
      this.rnd = new Random(seed);
      this.weights = weights;

      this.qrModel = 
        new QuadraticRegressor(seed);
      this.nnModel = 
        new NearestNeighborsRegressor(nNeighbors);
    }

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

    public double Predict(double[] x)
    {
      double predQR = this.qrModel.Predict(x);
      double predNN = this.nnModel.Predict(x);
      double result = 
        (predQR * this.weights[0]) + (predNN * this.weights[1]);
      return result;
    }

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

    public void Train(double[][] trainX, double[] trainY)
    {
      this.qrModel.Train(trainX, trainY);
      this.nnModel.Train(trainX, trainY);
    }

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

    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 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);
    }

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

  } // class Hybid_QR_NN

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

  public class QuadraticRegressor
  {
    public double[] weights;  // regular, quad, interactions
    public double bias;
    private Random rnd;  // not used w/ Pinv training

    public QuadraticRegressor(int seed = 0)
    {
      this.weights = new double[0];  // empty, but not null
      this.bias = 0; // dummy value
      this.rnd = new Random(seed);
    }

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

    public double Predict(double[] x)
    {
      int dim = x.Length;
      double result = 0.0;

      int p = 0; // points into this.weights
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" dim; ++i)   // base terms
        result += x[i] * this.weights[p++];

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" dim; ++i)  // quadratic terms
        result += (x[i] * x[i]) * this.weights[p++];

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" dim-1; ++i)  // interactions
        for (int j = i+1; j "lt" dim; ++j)
          result += (x[i] * x[j]) * this.weights[p++]; 
 
      result += this.bias;
      return result;
    }

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

    public void Train(double[][] trainX, double[] trainY)
    {
      // train using MP pseudo-inverse QR-Householder
      // no regulaization
      // w = pinv(designX) * y
      int nRows = trainX.Length; // not used
      int dim = trainX[0].Length;
      int nInteractions = (dim * (dim - 1)) / 2;
      this.weights = new double[dim + dim + nInteractions];

      double[][] Xa = MatAugment(trainX);  // add quad cols
      double[][] X = MatToDesign(Xa);  // add 1.0s col

      double[][] Xpinv = QRHouseholder.MatPinv(X);

      double[] biasAndWts = MatVecProd(Xpinv, trainY);
      this.bias = biasAndWts[0];  // bias is at [0]
      for (int i = 1; i "lt" biasAndWts.Length; ++i)
        this.weights[i - 1] = biasAndWts[i];
      return;
    }

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

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

    private static double[][] MatAugment(double[][] trainX)
    {
      // add quadratic and interaction columns
      int nRows = trainX.Length;  // src and dest
      int dim = trainX[0].Length;  // src
      int nInteractions = dim * (dim - 1) / 2;
      int nColsDest = dim + dim + nInteractions;

      double[][] result = new double[nRows][];
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; i++)
        result[i] = new double[nColsDest];

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
      {
        int p = 0; // points to column of result

        for (int j = 0; j "lt" dim;  ++j) // base
          result[i][p++] = trainX[i][j];

        for (int j = 0; j "lt" dim;  ++j) // quadratic
          result[i][p++] = trainX[i][j] * trainX[i][j];

        for (int j = 0; j "lt" nInteractions-1; ++j)
          for (int k = j+1; k "lt" dim; ++k)
            result[i][p++] = trainX[i][j] * trainX[i][k];
      }

      return result;
    }

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

    private static double[][] MatToDesign(double[][] X)
    {
      // add leading column of 1.0s to handle bias term
      int nRows = X.Length;  // src and dest
      int dim = X[0].Length;

      double[][] result = new double[nRows][];
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
        result[i] = new double[dim + 1]; // extra col

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
      {
        result[i][0] = 1.0;
        for (int j = 1; j "lt" result[0].Length; ++j)
        {
          result[i][j] = X[i][j - 1];
        }
      }
      return result;
    }

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

    private static double[] MatVecProd(double[][] M,
      double[] v)
    {
      // helper for Train()
      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;
    }

    // ------------------------------------------------------
    
  } // class QuadraticRegressor

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

  public class QRHouseholder
  {
    // for class QuadraticRegressor Train()
    // container for MP pseudo-inverse via QR-Householder
    // A = Q * R
    // pinv(A) = inv(R) * inv(Q)  note order matters
    //         = inv upper tri (easy) * transpose (easy)

    public static double[][] MatPinv(double[][] M)
    {
      double[][] Q; double[][] R;
      MatDecompQR(M, out Q, out R);  // Householder
      double[][] Ri = MatInvUpperTri(R);
      double[][] Qi = MatTranspose(Q);
      double[][] result = MatProduct(Ri, Qi);
      return result;
    }

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

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

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

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

    public 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;
    }

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

    public static double[][] MatTranspose(double[][] M)
    {
      int nRows = M.Length;
      int nCols = M[0].Length;
      double[][] result = MatMake(nCols, nRows);
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" nCols; ++j)
          result[j][i] = M[i][j];
      return result;
    }

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

    public 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 = new double[aRows][];
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" aRows; ++i)
        result[i] = new double[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;
    }

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

    public static void MatDecompQR(double[][] A, 
      out double[][] Q,  out double[][] R)
    {
      // Householder algorithm
      int m = A.Length; int n = A[0].Length;
      if (m "lt" n)
        Console.WriteLine("FATAL: nRows must be gte nCols");

      double[][] QQ = MatMake(m, m); // working full Q
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" m; ++i)
        QQ[i][i] = 1.0;  // identity matrix

      double[][] RR = MatMake(m, n);
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" m; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" n; ++j)
          RR[i][j] = A[i][j]; // copy of A is working R

      int k = Math.Min(m, n);  // or just use n
      for (int j = 0; j "lt" k; ++j) // main processing loop
      {
        int xn = m - j;
        double[] x = new double[xn];
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" xn; ++i)
          x[i] = RR[j + i][j];

        double ss = 0.0;
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" xn; ++i)
          ss += x[i] * x[i];
        double normX = Math.Sqrt(ss);

        // if (normX == 0.0) continue;  // risky
        if (Math.Abs(normX) "lt" 1.0e-12) continue;

        double sign;
        if (x[0] "gte" 0.0) sign = -1.0;
        else sign = 1.0; // counter-intuitive
      
        double[] u = new double[xn];
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" xn; ++i)
          u[i] = x[i] / (x[0] - sign * normX); // check div 0
        u[0] = 1.0;

        // compute scaling factor tau = 2 / (u^T * u)
        double tau = -sign * (x[0] - sign * normX) / normX;

        // dimensions for sub-matrices
        int nRowsSubR = m - j;   int nColsSubR = n - j;
        int nRowsSubQ = m;       int nColsSubQ = m - j;

        double[] vr = new double[nColsSubR];
        for (int c = 0; c "lt" nColsSubR; ++c)
        {
          double acc = 0.0;
          for (int r = 0; r "lt" nRowsSubR; ++r)
            acc += u[r] * RR[j + r][j + c];
          vr[c] = acc;
        }

        double[] vq = new double[nRowsSubQ];
        for (int r = 0; r "lt" nRowsSubQ; ++r)
        {
          double acc = 0.0;
          for (int c = 0; c "lt" nColsSubQ; ++c)
            acc += u[c] * QQ[r][j + c];
          vq[r] = acc;
        }

        // update sub-R
        for (int r = 0; r "lt" nRowsSubR; ++r)
          for (int c = 0; c "lt" nColsSubR; ++c)
            RR[j + r][j + c] -= tau * u[r] * vr[c];

        // update sub-Q
        for (int r = 0; r "lt" nRowsSubQ; ++r)
          for (int c = 0; c "lt" nColsSubQ; ++c)
            QQ[r][j + c] -= tau * vq[r] * u[c];
       
      } // j

      // extract QQ RR into out params
      Q = MatMake(m, n);
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" m; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" n; ++j)
          Q[i][j] = QQ[i][j];

      R = MatMake(n, n);
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" n; ++j)
          R[i][j] = RR[i][j];

      return;
    } // MatDecompQR

  } // class QRHouseholder

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

  public class NearestNeighborsRegressor
  {
    public int nNeighbors;
    public double[] weights;
    public double[][] trainX;
    public double[] trainY;

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

    public NearestNeighborsRegressor(int nNeighbors)
    {
      this.nNeighbors = nNeighbors;
      this.weights = new double[nNeighbors];
      for (int k = 0; k "lt" nNeighbors; ++k)
        this.weights[k] = 1.0 / nNeighbors;
      this.trainX = new double[0][]; // quasi-null
      this.trainY = new double[0];
    }

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

    public void Train(double[][] trainX,
      double[] trainY)
    {
      this.trainX = trainX; // store by ref
      this.trainY = trainY;
    }

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

    public double Predict(double[] x)
    {
      // compute distances from x to all trainX
      int N = trainX.Length;
      double[] dists = new double[N];
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" N; ++i)
        dists[i] = Distance(x, this.trainX[i]);
      // determine sort order
      int[] sortedIdxs = ArgSort(dists);
      double sum = 0.0;
      for (int k = 0; k "lt" this.nNeighbors; ++k)
      {
        int idx = sortedIdxs[k]; // near to far
        sum += this.trainY[idx] * this.weights[k];
      }
      return sum;
    }

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

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

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

    private static int[] ArgSort(double[] values)
    {
      int n = values.Length;
      double[] copy = new double[n];
      int[] indices = new int[n];
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
      {
        copy[i] = values[i];
        indices[i] = i;
      }
      Array.Sort(copy, indices);
      return indices;
    }
  } // class NearestNeighborsRegression

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

} // 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 

The goal of a machine learning regression problem is to predict a single numeric value. Quadratic regression is an enhanced form of basic linear regression. One of several ways to train a quadratic regression model is to use relaxed Moore-Penrose pseudo-inverse via the QR-Householder algorithm. I recently updated my QR-Householder implementation, so I decided to use it for quadratic regression.

Suppose there are five predictors, (x0, x1, x2, x3, x4). The prediction equation for basic linear regression is:

y’ = (w0 * x0) + (w1 * x1) + (w2 * x2) + (w3 * x3) + (w4 * x4) + b

The wi are model weights (aka coefficients), and b is the model bias (aka intercept). The values of the weights and the bias must be determined by training, so that predicted y’ values are close to the known, correct y values in a set of training data.

The prediction equation for quadratic regression with five predictors is:

y’ = (w0 * x0) + (w1 * x1) + (w2 * x2) + (w3 * x3) + (w4 * x4) +

(w5 * x0*x0) + (w6 * x1*x1) + (w7 * x2*x2) +
(w8 * x3*x3) + (w9 * x4*x4) +

(w10 * x0*x1) + (w11 * x0*x2) + (w12 * x0*x3) + (w13 * x0*x4) +
(w14 * x1*x2) + (w15 * x1*x3) + (w16 * x1*x4) +
(w17 * x2*x3) + (w18 * x2*x4) +
(w19 * x3*x4)

+ b

The squared (“quadratic”) xi^2 terms handle non-linear structure. If there are n predictors, there are also n squared terms. The xi * xj terms between all possible pairs of original predictors handle interactions between predictors. If there are n predictors, there (n * (n-1)) / 2 interaction terms.

Training is the process of finding values for the weights and the bias so that the model predicts well. There are several different training techniques, including the relaxed Moore-Penrose pseudo-inverse via QR-Householder technique in this blog post. Two significant alternatives are stochastic gradient descent training, and left pseudo-inverse via normal equations with Cholesky inverse.

The math equation for relaxed MP pseudo-inverse training is w = pinv(X) * y where w is a vector that holds the weights and bias you are looking for, X is an augmented training data matrix that has quadratic columns and interaction columns, and a leading column of 1.0s which handles the bias term. The y is a vector of target y values from the training data, and * is matrix-to-vector multiplication.

Instead of computing an explicit inverse, a common alternative is to compute the inverse implicitly using a technique called Ordinary Least Squares Solve. I posted a demo of that technique a few days ago (Monday, August 24, 2026)..

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
 0.9365, -0.3732,  0.3846,  0.7528,  0.7892,  0.1345
. . .

The first five values on each line are the x predictors. The last value on each line is the target y variable to predict. The data is synthetic, and was generated by a 5-10-1 neural network with randome weights and biases. There are 200 training items and 40 test items.

The output of my demo is:

Begin C# quadratic regression with MP pseudo-inverse
 QR-Householder 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 quadratic regression model

Starting MP pseudo-inverse training
Done

Model base weights:
 -0.2630  0.0354 -0.0421  0.0341 -0.1124

Model quadratic weights:
  0.0655  0.0194  0.0051  0.0047  0.0243

Model interaction weights:
  0.0043  0.0249  0.0071  0.1081 -0.0012 -0.0093
  0.0362  0.0085 -0.0568  0.0016

Model bias/intercept:   0.3220

Evaluating model
Accuracy train (within 0.10) = 0.8850
Accuracy test (within 0.10) = 0.9250

MSE train = 0.0003
MSE test = 0.0005

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

Predicted y = 0.4843

End demo

The model accuracy of 88.50% on the training data (177 out of 200 correct) and 92.50% on the test data (37 out of 40 correct) is very good compared to other regression techniques, and much, much better than simple linear regression. A prediction is scored as correct if it’s within 10% of the true target y value. Quadratic regression has a good balance between predictive accuracy and interpretability.

I worked on the code for this blog post during high school graduation season. While I work, I usually have a browser open to keep an eye on news events, mostly for entertainment value. I am never disappointed by stories about graduation brawls.

Right: Graduates and their families of a high school in Mobile, AL congratulate each other with punches to the face.

Demo program. 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 QuadraticRegressionPinvQRHouseholder
{
  internal class QuadraticRegressionPinvQRProgram
  {
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      Console.WriteLine("\nBegin C# quadratic regression" +
        " with MP pseudo-inverse QR-Householder 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 };
      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 model
      Console.WriteLine("\nCreating quadratic " +
        "regression model ");
      QuadraticRegressor model = new QuadraticRegressor();

      Console.WriteLine("\nStarting MP pseudo-inverse " +
        "training ");
      model.Train(trainX, trainY);
      Console.WriteLine("Done ");

      // 3. show model weights
      Console.WriteLine("\nModel base weights: ");
      int dim = trainX[0].Length;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" dim; ++i)
        Console.Write(model.weights[i].
          ToString("F4").PadLeft(8));
      Console.WriteLine("");

      Console.WriteLine("\nModel quadratic weights: ");
      for (int i = dim; i "lt" dim + dim; ++i)
        Console.Write(model.weights[i].
          ToString("F4").PadLeft(8));
      Console.WriteLine("");

      Console.WriteLine("\nModel interaction weights: ");
      for (int i = dim + dim; i "lt" model.weights.Length; ++i)
      {
        Console.Write(model.weights[i].
          ToString("F4").PadLeft(8));
        if (i "gt" dim+dim && i % dim == 0)
          Console.WriteLine("");
      }
      Console.WriteLine("");

      Console.WriteLine("\nModel bias/intercept: " +
        model.bias.ToString("F4").PadLeft(8));

      // 4. evaluate model
      Console.WriteLine("\nEvaluating model ");
      double accTrain = model.Accuracy(trainX, trainY, 0.10);
      Console.WriteLine("Accuracy 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"));

      // 5. use model
      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"));

      // 6. TODO: implement model Save() and Load()

      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 QuadraticRegressor
  {
    public double[] weights;  // regular, quad, interactions
    public double bias;
    private Random rnd;  // not used w/ Pinv training

    public QuadraticRegressor(int seed = 0)
    {
      this.weights = new double[0];  // empty, but not null
      this.bias = 0; // dummy value
      this.rnd = new Random(seed);
    }

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

    public double Predict(double[] x)
    {
      int dim = x.Length;
      double result = 0.0;

      int p = 0; // points into this.weights
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" dim; ++i)   // base terms
        result += x[i] * this.weights[p++];

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" dim; ++i)  // quadratic terms
        result += (x[i] * x[i]) * this.weights[p++];

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" dim-1; ++i)  // interactions
        for (int j = i+1; j "lt" dim; ++j)
          result += (x[i] * x[j]) * this.weights[p++]; 
 
      result += this.bias;
      return result;
    }

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

    public void Train(double[][] trainX, double[] trainY)
    {
      // w = pinv(designX) * y
      int nRows = trainX.Length; // not used
      int dim = trainX[0].Length;
      int nInteractions = (dim * (dim - 1)) / 2;
      this.weights = new double[dim + dim + nInteractions];

      double[][] X = MatAugment(trainX);  // design X
      double[][] Xpinv = QRHouseholder.MatPinv(X);

      double[] biasAndWts = MatVecProd(Xpinv, trainY);
      this.bias = biasAndWts[0];  // bias is at [0]
      for (int i = 1; i "lt" biasAndWts.Length; ++i)
        this.weights[i - 1] = biasAndWts[i];
      return;
    }

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

    private static double[][] MatAugment(double[][] trainX)
    {
      // add quadratic and interaction terms, and leading
      // column of 1.0s for design matrix.
      int nRows = trainX.Length;  // src and dest
      int dim = trainX[0].Length;
      int nInteractions = dim * (dim - 1) / 2;
      int nColsDest = 1 + dim + dim + nInteractions;

      double[][] result = new double[nRows][];
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; i++)
        result[i] = new double[nColsDest];

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
      {
        int p = 0; // points to column of result

        result[i][p++] = 1.0;  // leading 1.0

        for (int j = 0; j "lt" dim;  ++j) // base
          result[i][p++] = trainX[i][j];

        for (int j = 0; j "lt" dim;  ++j) // quadratic
          result[i][p++] = trainX[i][j] * trainX[i][j];

        for (int j = 0; j "lt" nInteractions-1; ++j)
          for (int k = j+1; k "lt" dim; ++k)
            result[i][p++] = trainX[i][j] * trainX[i][k];
      }

      return result;
    }

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

    private static double[] MatVecProd(double[][] M,
      double[] v)
    {
      // helper for Train()
      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;
    }

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

    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 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);
    }

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

  } // class QuadraticRegressor

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

  public class QRHouseholder
  {
    // container for MP pseudo-inverse via QR-Householder
    // A = Q * R
    // pinv(A) = inv(R) * inv(Q)  note order matters
    //         = inv upper tri (easy) * transpose (easy)

    public static double[][] MatPinv(double[][] M)
    {
      double[][] Q; double[][] R;
      MatDecompQR(M, out Q, out R);  // Householder
      double[][] Ri = MatInvUpperTri(R);
      double[][] Qi = MatTranspose(Q);
      double[][] result = MatProduct(Ri, Qi);
      return result;
    }

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

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

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

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

    public 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;
    }

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

    public static double[][] MatTranspose(double[][] M)
    {
      int nRows = M.Length;
      int nCols = M[0].Length;
      double[][] result = MatMake(nCols, nRows);
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" nCols; ++j)
          result[j][i] = M[i][j];
      return result;
    }

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

    public 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 = new double[aRows][];
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" aRows; ++i)
        result[i] = new double[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;
    }

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

    public static void MatDecompQR(double[][] A, 
      out double[][] Q,  out double[][] R)
    {
      // Householder algorithm
      int m = A.Length; int n = A[0].Length;
      if (m "lt" n)
        Console.WriteLine("FATAL: nRows must be gte nCols");

      double[][] QQ = MatMake(m, m); // working full Q
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" m; ++i)
        QQ[i][i] = 1.0;  // identity matrix

      double[][] RR = MatMake(m, n);
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" m; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" n; ++j)
          RR[i][j] = A[i][j]; // copy of A is working R

      int k = Math.Min(m, n);  // or just use n
      for (int j = 0; j "lt" k; ++j) // main processing loop
      {
        int xn = m - j;
        double[] x = new double[xn];
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" xn; ++i)
          x[i] = RR[j + i][j];

        double ss = 0.0;
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" xn; ++i)
          ss += x[i] * x[i];
        double normX = Math.Sqrt(ss);

        // if (normX == 0.0) continue;  // risky
        if (Math.Abs(normX) "lt" 1.0e-12) continue;

        double sign;
        if (x[0] "gte" 0.0) sign = -1.0;
        else sign = 1.0; // counter-intuitive
      
        double[] u = new double[xn];
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" xn; ++i)
          u[i] = x[i] / (x[0] - sign * normX); // check div 0
        u[0] = 1.0;

        // compute scaling factor tau = 2 / (u^T * u)
        double tau = -sign * (x[0] - sign * normX) / normX;

        // dimensions for sub-matrices
        int nRowsSubR = m - j;   int nColsSubR = n - j;
        int nRowsSubQ = m;       int nColsSubQ = m - j;

        double[] vr = new double[nColsSubR];
        for (int c = 0; c "lt" nColsSubR; ++c)
        {
          double acc = 0.0;
          for (int r = 0; r "lt" nRowsSubR; ++r)
            acc += u[r] * RR[j + r][j + c];
          vr[c] = acc;
        }

        double[] vq = new double[nRowsSubQ];
        for (int r = 0; r "lt" nRowsSubQ; ++r)
        {
          double acc = 0.0;
          for (int c = 0; c "lt" nColsSubQ; ++c)
            acc += u[c] * QQ[r][j + c];
          vq[r] = acc;
        }

        // update sub-R
        for (int r = 0; r "lt" nRowsSubR; ++r)
          for (int c = 0; c "lt" nColsSubR; ++c)
            RR[j + r][j + c] -= tau * u[r] * vr[c];

        // update sub-Q
        for (int r = 0; r "lt" nRowsSubQ; ++r)
          for (int c = 0; c "lt" nColsSubQ; ++c)
            QQ[r][j + c] -= tau * vq[r] * u[c];
       
      } // j

      // extract QQ RR into out params
      Q = MatMake(m, n);
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" m; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" n; ++j)
          Q[i][j] = QQ[i][j];

      R = MatMake(n, n);
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" n; ++j)
          R[i][j] = RR[i][j];

      return;
    } // MatDecompQR

  } // class QRHouseholder

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

} // 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

AdaBoost.R2 (“adaptive boosting regression, version 2”) is a technique to predict a single numeric value. AdaBoost works by creating a collection of simple decision trees. The final prediction is the average of all the tree predictions.

Each tree is trained on a different subset of the source training data. Each subset is constructed based on the results of the predictions of the previous tree, so that data items that were incorrectly predicted are more likely to be in the new subset. This makes the tree concentrate on difficult-to-predict items.

In theory, AdaBoost can use any kind of simple regressor as the base learners, not just decision trees. But in practice, only decision trees are used — paradoxically because they are so weak.

If you use a strong learner, or a learner that is stable with regards to changes in the source dataset, then each learner in the AdaBoost collection is essentially training on the same data.

I knew all this, but one afternoon I sat down and implemented AdaBoost systems using linear regression (too stable), nearest neighbors regression (too sensitive to noise), and kernel ridge regression (too much global smoothness), and as theory predicted, the prediction accuracy of the three versions of AdaBoost was poor.

I search the Internet and found no examples of using Adaboost regression with quadratic regression (QR). So I put together a demo. QR is sort of an enhanced linear regression that handles interactions between predictor variables. To my great surprise, the AdaBoost with quadratic regression technique worked surprisingly well:

Begin AdaBoost.R2 (+quadratic) regression using C#

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

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 nEstimators = 20
Setting lrnRate = 1.0000

Training AdaBoost.R2 model
Done
Created 20 estimators

Accuracy train (within 0.10): 0.8500
Accuracy test (within 0.10): 0.9000

MSE train: 0.0003
MSE test: 0.0005

Predicting for x =
 -0.1660  0.4406 -0.9998 -0.3953 -0.7065
Predicted y = 0.4764

End demo

I speculate that the synthetic datset I used hit a sweet spot for AdaBoost with QR. Put another way, quadratic programming is slightly better and slightly less stable than linear regression, but slightly worse and slightly less smooth than kernel ridge regression, and so QR worked nicely as an AdaBoost regression base learner.

An interesting experiment!

There’s a certain irony that decision tree regressors work so well as Adaboost.R2 learners because they predict so weakly.

Right: It took me a moment to appreciate the irony of this row of Domino’s Pizza delivery scooters that toppled over one after the other.

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

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

namespace AdaBoostWithQR // AdaBoost.R2 algorithm
{
  internal class AdaBoostWithQRProgram
  {
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      Console.WriteLine("\nBegin AdaBoost.R2 (+quadratic) " +
        "regression using C# ");

      // 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("\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 nEstimators = 20;
      double lrnRate = 1.00; // AdaBoost regularizer
      Console.WriteLine("\nSetting nEstimators = " +
        nEstimators);
      Console.WriteLine("Setting lrnRate = " +
        lrnRate.ToString("F4"));

      Console.WriteLine("\nTraining AdaBoost.R2 model ");
      AdaBoostRegressor model =
        new AdaBoostRegressor(nEstimators, "linear",
        lrnRate, 0);
      model.Train(trainX, trainY);
      Console.WriteLine("Done ");
      Console.WriteLine("Created " +
        model.estimators.Count + " estimators ");

      // 3. evaluate 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 make a prediction
      double[] x = trainX[0];
      Console.WriteLine("\nPredicting for x = ");
      VecShow(x, 4, 8);
      double yPred = model.Predict(x);
      Console.WriteLine("Predicted y = " +
        yPred.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[]"gte" result =
        new List"lt"double[]"gte"();
      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"gte" lst = new List"lt"double"gte"();
        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

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

  class AdaBoostRegressor
  {
    public int nEstimators;  // aka nLearners
    public string lossType;
    public double lrnRate;  // AdaBoost

    public List"lt"QuadraticRegressor"gte" estimators;
    public List"lt"double"gte" estimatorWeights; // aka alphas
    private Random rnd;

    public AdaBoostRegressor(int nEstimators,
      string lossType, double lrnRate,
      int seed)
    {
      this.nEstimators = nEstimators; // aka learners
      this.lossType = lossType;
      this.lrnRate = lrnRate;
      this.rnd = new Random(seed);
      this.estimators = new List"lt"QuadraticRegressor"gte"();
      this.estimatorWeights = new List"lt"double"gte"();
    }

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

    public void Train(double[][] trainX, double[] trainY)
    {
      int nSamples = trainX.Length;

      // 1. initialize uniform sample weights
      double[] weights = new double[nSamples];
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nSamples; ++i)
        weights[i] = 1.0 / nSamples;

      for (int t = 0; t "lt" this.nEstimators; ++t)
      {
        // normalize weights
        double sumW = 0.0;
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" nSamples; ++i)
          sumW += weights[i];

        double[] wNormed = new double[nSamples];
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" nSamples; ++i)
          wNormed[i] = weights[i] / sumW;

        // draw weighted bootstrap sample using
        // normalized probabilities
        int[] sampleIndices =
          this.MyChoice(nSamples, nSamples, wNormed);

        // get train data subsets
        int nFeatures = trainX[0].Length;
        double[][] subsetX = MatMake(nSamples, nFeatures);
        double[] ySubset = new double[nSamples];

        for (int i = 0; i "lt" nSamples; ++i)
        {
          int idx = sampleIndices[i];
          ySubset[i] = trainY[idx];
          for (int j = 0; j "lt" nFeatures; ++j)
          {
            subsetX[i][j] = trainX[idx][j];
          }
        }

        // 3. train base KRR on the bootstrap subset
        int qrSeed = this.rnd.Next(0, 1_000_000);
        QuadraticRegressor qr =
          new QuadraticRegressor(qrSeed);
        qr.Train(subsetX, ySubset);

        // compute all predictions on full trainX
        double[] preds = new double[nSamples];
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" nSamples; ++i)
          preds[i] = qr.Predict(trainX[i]);

        // absolute errors and max error
        double[] errors = new double[nSamples];
        double maxError = 1.0e-10; // avoid div by zero
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" nSamples; ++i)
        {
          errors[i] = Math.Abs(preds[i] - trainY[i]);
          if (errors[i] "gte" maxError)
            maxError = errors[i];
        }

        // 5. compute specific loss type
        double[] tLoss = new double[nSamples];
        double eNorm;
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" nSamples; ++i)
        {
          eNorm = errors[i] / maxError; // normed error
          if (this.lossType == "linear")
            tLoss[i] = eNorm;
          else if (this.lossType == "square")
            tLoss[i] = eNorm * eNorm;
          else
            throw new Exception("unknown loss type ");
        }

        // 6. calculate average weighted error
        double avgError = 0.0;
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" nSamples; ++i)
          avgError += (wNormed[i] * tLoss[i]);

        // if base learner is worse than random guessing,
        // stop boosting

        if (avgError "gte" 0.5)
        {
          if (t == 0)  // first estimator/learner
          {
            this.estimators.Add(qr);
            this.estimatorWeights.Add(1.0e-10);
          }
          break;
        }

        // 7. estimator confidence beta and alpha
        double beta = avgError / (1.0 - avgError);
        if (beta == 0.0) beta = 1.0e-10;

        // moderate estimatorWeights using lrnRate
        double alpha = Math.Log(1.0 / beta);
        this.estimators.Add(qr);
        this.estimatorWeights.Add(this.lrnRate * alpha);

        // 8. update sample weights
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" nSamples; ++i)
        {
          double exp = (1.0 - tLoss[i]);
          double tmp = Math.Pow(beta, exp);
          weights[i] = wNormed[i] * tmp;
        }
      }
    }

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

    private int[] MyChoice(int nItems, int size, double[] p)
    {
      // roulette wheel selection
      // select size ints from [0, nItems) with replacement,
      // using values in vector p as weights

      int[] result = new int[size];

      // compute cumulative distribution function (CDF)
      double[] cdf = new double[nItems];
      double runSum = 0.0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nItems; ++i)
      {
        runSum += p[i];
        cdf[i] = runSum;
      }

      for (int j = 0; j "lt" size; ++j)
      {
        double u = this.rnd.NextDouble();
        int selectedIdx = SearchCdf(cdf, u); // fast
        if (selectedIdx "lt" 0)
          selectedIdx = 0;
        else if (selectedIdx "gte" nItems)
          selectedIdx = nItems - 1;
        result[j] = selectedIdx;
      }

      return result;
    } // MyChoice()

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

    private static int SearchCdf(double[] cdf, double target)
    {
      // binary search to isolate the target interval
      int low = 0;
      int high = cdf.Length - 1;

      while (low "lte" high)
      {
        int mid = low + (high - low) / 2;
        if (cdf[mid] "gte" target)
          high = mid - 1;
        else
          low = mid + 1;
      }

      if (low "gte" cdf.Length) // safety
        return cdf.Length - 1;

      return low;
    }

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

    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;
    }

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

    public double Predict(double[] x)
    {
      int nTrees = this.estimators.Count;
      double[] preds = new double[nTrees];
      double[] modelWts = new double[nTrees];

      for (int t = 0; t "lt" nTrees; ++t)
      {
        preds[t] = this.estimators[t].Predict(x);
        modelWts[t] = this.estimatorWeights[t];
      }

      return WeightedMedian(preds, modelWts);
    }

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

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

    // ------------------------------------------------------
    // helper functions for Predict()
    // ------------------------------------------------------

    private static double WeightedMedian(double[] values,
      double[] weights)
    {
      // no interpolation for even n
      // don't assume weights sum to 1.0
      int n = values.Length;
      double sumWts = 0.0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
        sumWts += weights[i];
      double thresh = sumWts / 2;
      int[] sortedIdxs = ArgSort(values);

      double accum = 0.0;
      for (int j = 0; j "lt" n; ++j)
      {
        accum += weights[sortedIdxs[j]];
        if (accum "gte" thresh)
          return values[sortedIdxs[j]];
      }
      return values[sortedIdxs[n - 1]];
    }

    // helper for WeightedMedian()
    private static int[] ArgSort(double[] values)
    {
      int n = values.Length;
      double[] copy = new double[n];
      int[] indices = new int[n];
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
      {
        copy[i] = values[i];
        indices[i] = i;
      }
      Array.Sort(copy, indices);  // in parallel
      return indices;
    }

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

  } // class AdaBoostRegressor

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

  public class QuadraticRegressor
  {
    public double[] weights;  // regular + quad + interactions
    public double bias;
    private Random rnd;       // for SGD training

    public QuadraticRegressor(int seed = 0)
    {
      this.weights = new double[0];  // keep compiler happy
      this.bias = 0;
      this.rnd = new Random(seed);
    }

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

    public double Predict(double[] x)
    {
      int dim = x.Length;
      double result = 0.0;

      int p = 0; // points into this.weights
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" dim; ++i)   // regular
        result += x[i] * this.weights[p++];

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" dim; ++i)  // quadratic
        result += x[i] * x[i] * this.weights[p++];

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" dim - 1; ++i)  // interactions
        for (int j = i + 1; j "lt" dim; ++j)
          result += x[i] * x[j] * this.weights[p++];

      result += this.bias;
      return result;
    }

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

    public void Train(double[][] trainX, double[] trainY)
    {
      // train using MP pseudo-inverse via QR-Householder
      // no regulaization
      // w = pinv(designX) * y
      int nRows = trainX.Length; // not used
      int dim = trainX[0].Length;
      int nInteractions = (dim * (dim - 1)) / 2;
      this.weights = new double[dim + dim + nInteractions];

      double[][] Xa = MatAugment(trainX);  // add columns
      double[][] Xd = MatToDesign(Xa);

      double[][] Xpinv = QRHouseholder.MatPinv(Xd);

      double[] biasAndWts = MatVecProd(Xpinv, trainY);
      this.bias = biasAndWts[0];  // bias is at [0]
      for (int i = 1; i "lt" biasAndWts.Length; ++i)
        this.weights[i - 1] = biasAndWts[i];
      return;
    }

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

    private static double[][] MatAugment(double[][] trainX)
    {
      // add quadratic and interaction columns
      int nRows = trainX.Length;  // src and dest
      int dim = trainX[0].Length;  // src
      int nInteractions = dim * (dim - 1) / 2;
      int nColsDest = dim + dim + nInteractions;

      double[][] result = new double[nRows][];
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; i++)
        result[i] = new double[nColsDest];

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
      {
        int p = 0; // points to column of result

        for (int j = 0; j "lt" dim; ++j) // base
          result[i][p++] = trainX[i][j];

        for (int j = 0; j "lt" dim; ++j) // quadratic
          result[i][p++] = trainX[i][j] * trainX[i][j];

        for (int j = 0; j "lt" nInteractions - 1; ++j)
          for (int k = j + 1; k "lt" dim; ++k)
            result[i][p++] = trainX[i][j] * trainX[i][k];
      }

      return result;
    }

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

    private static double[][] MatToDesign(double[][] X)
    {
      // add leading column of 1.0s to handle bias term
      int nRows = X.Length;  // src and dest
      int dim = X[0].Length;

      double[][] result = MatMake(nRows, dim + 1);  // note
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
      {
        result[i][0] = 1.0;
        for (int j = 1; j "lt" result[0].Length; ++j)
        {
          result[i][j] = X[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[] MatVecProd(double[][] M,
      double[] v)
    {
      // helper for Train()
      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;
    }


  } // class QuadraticRegressor

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

  public class QRHouseholder
  {
    // container for MP pseudo-inverse via QR-Householder
    // A = Q * R
    // pinv(A) = inv(R) * inv(Q)  note order matters
    //         = inv upper tri (easy) * transpose (easy)

    public static double[][] MatPinv(double[][] M)
    {
      double[][] Q; double[][] R;
      MatDecompQR(M, out Q, out R);  // Householder
      double[][] Ri = MatInvUpperTri(R);
      double[][] Qi = MatTranspose(Q);
      double[][] result = MatProduct(Ri, Qi);
      return result;
    }

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

    private static void MatDecompQR(double[][] A,
      out double[][] Q, out double[][] R)
    {
      // Householder algorithm
      int m = A.Length; int n = A[0].Length;
      if (m "lt" n)
        Console.WriteLine("FATAL: nRows must be gte nCols");

      double[][] QQ = MatMake(m, m); // working full Q
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" m; ++i)
        QQ[i][i] = 1.0;  // identity matrix

      double[][] RR = MatMake(m, n);
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" m; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" n; ++j)
          RR[i][j] = A[i][j]; // copy of A is working R

      int k = Math.Min(m, n);  // or just use n
      for (int j = 0; j "lt" k; ++j) // main processing loop
      {
        int xn = m - j;
        double[] x = new double[xn];
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" xn; ++i)
          x[i] = RR[j + i][j];

        double ss = 0.0;
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" xn; ++i)
          ss += x[i] * x[i];
        double normX = Math.Sqrt(ss);

        // if (normX == 0.0) continue;  // risky
        if (Math.Abs(normX) "lt" 1.0e-12) continue;

        double sign;
        if (x[0] "gte" 0.0) sign = -1.0;
        else sign = 1.0; // counter-intuitive

        double[] u = new double[xn];
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" xn; ++i)
          u[i] = x[i] / (x[0] - sign * normX); // check div 0
        u[0] = 1.0;

        // compute scaling factor tau = 2 / (u^T * u)
        double tau = -sign * (x[0] - sign * normX) / normX;

        // dimensions for sub-matrices
        int nRowsSubR = m - j; int nColsSubR = n - j;
        int nRowsSubQ = m; int nColsSubQ = m - j;

        double[] vr = new double[nColsSubR];
        for (int c = 0; c "lt" nColsSubR; ++c)
        {
          double acc = 0.0;
          for (int r = 0; r "lt" nRowsSubR; ++r)
            acc += u[r] * RR[j + r][j + c];
          vr[c] = acc;
        }

        double[] vq = new double[nRowsSubQ];
        for (int r = 0; r "lt" nRowsSubQ; ++r)
        {
          double acc = 0.0;
          for (int c = 0; c "lt" nColsSubQ; ++c)
            acc += u[c] * QQ[r][j + c];
          vq[r] = acc;
        }

        // update sub-R
        for (int r = 0; r "lt" nRowsSubR; ++r)
          for (int c = 0; c "lt" nColsSubR; ++c)
            RR[j + r][j + c] -= tau * u[r] * vr[c];

        // update sub-Q
        for (int r = 0; r "lt" nRowsSubQ; ++r)
          for (int c = 0; c "lt" nColsSubQ; ++c)
            QQ[r][j + c] -= tau * vq[r] * u[c];

      } // j

      // extract QQ RR into out params
      Q = MatMake(m, n);
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" m; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" n; ++j)
          Q[i][j] = QQ[i][j];

      R = MatMake(n, n);
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" n; ++j)
          R[i][j] = RR[i][j];

      return;
    } // MatDecompQR

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

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

      double[][] result = MatMake(n, n);
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
        result[i][i] = 1.0;
      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];
        }
      }
      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[][] MatTranspose(double[][] M)
    {
      int nRows = M.Length;
      int nCols = M[0].Length;
      double[][] result = MatMake(nCols, nRows);
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" nCols; ++j)
          result[j][i] = M[i][j];
      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 = new double[aRows][];
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" aRows; ++i)
        result[i] = new double[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;
    }

  } // class QRHouseholder

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

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

In general, when training a machine learning regression model using stochastic gradient descent, I do not use early-exit from the training loop. Any type of early-exit requires some sort of parameter that must be determined by trial and error, which essentially defeats the purpose of early exit.

But there are scenarios where early exit is useful. One of many approaches is to track Euclidean distance between the old model weights and the newly updated model weights, and early-exit when the change in distance is small for n consecutive times. In pseudo code:

init weights and bias
set count_no_change = 0
loop max_epochs times
  old_weights = copy(curr_weights)
  fetch input x
  fetch target y
  compute predicted y using curr weights and bias
  update weights and bias
  if distance(old_wts, curr_wts) "lt" 0.0001 then
    count_no_change += 1
    if count_no_change == 5 then
      print("early exit at epoch" + epoch)
      break
    end-if
  else
    count_no_change = 0  # rest counter
  end-if
end-loop
return curr_weights

The two parameters for this technique are a no-change tolerance (like 0.0001) and count of consecutive no-change (like 5) to trigger early exit.

I put together a demo, using linear regression. Output:

Begin C# linear regression SGD training with early exit

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 lrnRate = 0.0005
Setting maxEpohcs = 500

Setting exit tol = 0.000010
Setting consec no change = 5

Creating and training Linear Regression model
epoch =     0  MSE =   0.1331
epoch =   100  MSE =   0.0026
epoch =   200  MSE =   0.0026
Early exit at epoch 227
Done

Weights/coefficients:
-0.2655 0.0333 -0.0455 0.0358 -0.1146
Bias/constant: 0.3620

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 = 0.5330

End demo

The demo worked as expected. There are many alternative designs. For example, instead of checking for the Euclidean distance between the old weights and the new weights, you can append the old and new bias to the old weights and new weights, to include the bias in the distance check.

Linear regression with SGD training was invented in 1960 by Bernard Widrow (1929-2025) and Ted Hoff (b. 1937), in a paper “Adaptive Switching Circuits”. The paper described a single layer neural network with no non-linear activation function, making it a linear regression model. They called the training technique the least mean squares delta rule, but it is SGD with a different name.

Left: Widrow on a 1958 TV show. Right: Hoff at Intel in the late 1960s.

Demo program. 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;
using System.ComponentModel;

namespace LinearRegressionSGDEarlyStop
{
  internal class LinearRegressionProgram
  {
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      Console.WriteLine("\nBegin C# linear regression" +
        " SGD training with early exit ");

      // 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 model
      double lrnRate = 0.0005;
      int maxEpochs = 500;
      double exitTol = 0.00001;
      int consecNoChange = 5;
      //int seed = 0;
      Console.WriteLine("\nSetting lrnRate = " +
        lrnRate.ToString("F4"));
      Console.WriteLine("Setting maxEpohcs = " +
        maxEpochs);
      Console.WriteLine("\nSetting exit tol = " +
        exitTol.ToString("F6"));
      Console.WriteLine("Setting consec no change = " +
        consecNoChange);

      Console.WriteLine("\nCreating and training" +
        " Linear Regression model ");
      LinearRegressor model =
        new LinearRegressor();
      model.TrainSGD(trainX, trainY, lrnRate,
        maxEpochs, exitTol, consecNoChange);
      Console.WriteLine("Done ");

      // 2b.show model parameters
      Console.WriteLine("\nWeights/coefficients: ");
      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
      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()
    // ------------------------------------------------------

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

    public LinearRegressor(int seed = 0)
    {
      this.weights = new double[0]; // keep compiler happy
      this.bias = 0;
      this.rnd = new Random(seed);
    }

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

    public int TrainSGD(double[][] trainX,
      double[] trainY, double lrnRate, int maxEpochs,
      double noChangeTol, int consecutiveNoChange)
    {
      // exit when dist(old wts, new wts) lt noChangeTol
      // for consecutiveNoChange times
      int n = trainX.Length;  int dim = trainX[0].Length;
      this.weights = new double[dim];

      // initialize weights and bias
      double low = -0.01; double hi = 0.01;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" dim; ++i)
        this.weights[i] = (hi - low) *
          this.rnd.NextDouble() + low;
      this.bias = (hi - low) *
          this.rnd.NextDouble() + low;

      int[] indices = new int[n];  // of train data
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
        indices[i] = i;

      double[] oldWeightsAndB = new double[dim+1];
      double[] newWeightsAndB = new double[dim+1];
      int countNoChange = 0;
      
      for (int epoch = 0; epoch "lt" maxEpochs; ++epoch)
      {
        Shuffle(indices, this.rnd);
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" dim; ++j)
          oldWeightsAndB[j] = this.weights[j];
        oldWeightsAndB[dim] = this.bias;

        for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i) // each train item
        {
          int ii = indices[i];
          double[] x = trainX[ii];
          double predY = this.Predict(x);
          double actualY = trainY[ii];
          for (int j = 0; j "lt" dim; ++j) // each weight
            this.weights[j] -= lrnRate *
              (predY - actualY) * x[j];
          this.bias -= lrnRate * (predY - actualY);
        }

        // display progress
        if (epoch % (int)(maxEpochs / 5) == 0) // progress
        {
          double mse = this.MSE(trainX, trainY);
          string s = "";
          s += "epoch = " + epoch.ToString().PadLeft(5);
          s += "  MSE = " + mse.ToString("F4").PadLeft(8);
          Console.WriteLine(s);
        }

        // check for early-exit after each epoch
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" dim; ++j)
          newWeightsAndB[j] = this.weights[j];
        newWeightsAndB[dim] = this.bias;
        double d = 
          EuclideanDist(oldWeightsAndB, newWeightsAndB);
        if (d "lt" noChangeTol)
        {
          ++countNoChange;
          if (countNoChange == consecutiveNoChange)
          {
            Console.WriteLine("Early exit at epoch " +
              epoch);
            // break;
            return epoch;
          }
        }
        else
        {
          countNoChange = 0; // reset
        }

      } // epoch
      return maxEpochs;

    } // Train

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

    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 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 * 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;
    }

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

  } // 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

Machine learning quadratic regression is a technique to predict a single numeric value. Thee are many ways to train a quadratic regression model. One training approach that is fast, reliable, and scales to large datasets — but is very complicated — is direct QR-Householder decomposition OLS back-substitution solve.

I implemented a demo using the C# language. The output of the demo is:

Begin C# quadratic regression with direct 
 QR-Householder OLS solver

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 quadratic regression model

Starting direct QR solve training with L2
Setting L2 lamda = 1.0000
Done

Model base weights:
 -0.2590  0.0351 -0.0424  0.0335 -0.1111

Model quadratic weights:
  0.0622  0.0189  0.0054  0.0029  0.0227

Model interaction weights:
  0.0037  0.0245  0.0073  0.1028  0.0007 -0.0097
  0.0347  0.0074 -0.0538  0.0013

Model bias/intercept:   0.3241

Evaluating model
Accuracy train (within 0.10) = 0.8750
Accuracy test (within 0.10) = 0.9500

MSE train = 0.0003
MSE test = 0.0004

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

Predicted y = 0.4850

End demo

For my demo, I used one of my standard synthetic datasets. All of the predictor values are between -1 and +1. When using quadratic regression, technically, it’s not necessary to normalize/scale your data. But normalizing is strongly recommended. There are 200 training items and 40 test items.

The demo uses L2 regularization to discourage model overfitting, when the model fits the training data too well and new, previously unseen data is predicted poorly. Technically L2 is not required but is strongly recommended because the process also conditions the data matrix and discourages failure due to arithmetic overflow or underflow.

The trained model predicts the training data with 87.50% accuracy (175 out of 200 correct) and the test data with 95.00% accuracy (38 out of 40 correct). A prediction is scored correct if it’s within 10% of the true target value.

Understanding Quadratic Regression

Suppose, as in the demo data, there are five predictors, (x0, x1, x2, x3, x4). The prediction equation for basic linear regression (i.e., not quadratic regression) is:

y’ = (w0 * x0) + (w1 * x1) + (w2 * x2) + (w3 * x3) + (w4 * x4) + b

The wi are model weights (aka coefficients), and b is the model bias (aka intercept). The values of the weights and the bias must be determined by training, so that predicted y’ values are close to the known, correct y values in a set of training data.

Basic linear regression is simple but it can’t predict well for data that has an underlying non-linear structure. Also, basic linear regression can’t deal with data that has hidden interactions between the xi predictors.

The prediction equation for quadratic regression with five predictors is:

y' = (w0 * x0) + (w1 * x1) + (w2 * x2) + (w3 * x3) + (w4 * x4) +

   (w5 * x0*x0) + (w6 * x1*x1) + (w7 * x2*x2) +
   (w8 * x3*x3) + (w9 * x4*x4) + 

   (w10 * x0*x1) + (w11 * x0*x2) + (w12 * x0*x3) + (w13 * x0*x4) +
   (w14 * x1*x2) + (w15 * x1*x3) + (w16 * x1*x4) +
   (w17 * x2*x3) + (w18 * x2*x4) +
   (w19 * x3*x4)

   + b

The squared (“quadratic”) xi^2 terms handle non-linear structure. If there are n predictors, there are also n squared terms. The xi * xj terms between all possible pairs of original predictors handle interactions between predictors. If there are n predictors, there are (n * (n-1)) / 2 interaction terms.

Therefore, in general, if there are n original predictor variables, there are a total of n + n + (n * (n-1))/2 model weights and one bias. Behind the scenes, when using when using direct QR solve training, it’s necessary to create an explicit augmented dataset with the derived variables, because all the values must be in a matrix. Despite the multiplication of the base predictors, the model is still a linear model in mathematical terms.

After training, to make a prediction for new, previously unseen data, the derived xi^2 squared terms and the derived xi*xj interactions terms can be computed programmatically on-the-fly.

Quadratic regression might seem strange if you’re new to the technique. Suppose you have a predictor x0 = employee-income and a predictor x1 = employee-age. The x0 * x1 term has no physical meaning — it’s just a new math predictor variable that can deal with hidden interactions between income and age.

Understanding Quadratic Regression Training

The diagram below illustrates how quadratic regression training works. For simplicity, the example has training X data with just 10 rows and 4 (not 5) predictor columns, shown in blue. Because there are 4 predictors, the trained model will have 4 + 4 + 6 = 14 weights and 1 bias. The target y values are shown in pink-ish.

Click to enlarge

The augmented training data is constructed with a leading column of 1.0 values to handle the bias, then the 4 base predictors (blue), then the 4 squared-term predictors (green), then the 6 interaction terms (purple).

To handle L2 regularization, a regularization matrix is added below the augmented data matrix. Most values are 0.0 except for those on the diagonal which get the square root of the L2 regularization constant (except for the upper left cell which stays 0.0 because it is associated with the bias). The target y vector is extended to match the number of rows of the augmented + regularized data matrix. I told you this was complicated.

The key algorithm used in the demo program Train() method is called QR decomposition. A full explanation of exactly how the technique works would require at least a couple of pages and obscure the main ideas. Here is a brief-as-possible explanation, omitting several important details to keep the ideas as clear as possible.

If you have an arbitrary matrix A with m rows and n columns that has more rows than columns (such as training data), and apply QR decomposition, you get a matrix Q and a matrix R so that Q * R = A. The Q matrix will have shape m-by-n and R will be upper triangular and have shape n-by-n.

For quadratic regression, the key math description is X * w = y, where w is a vector that holds the bias and the model weights, X is the augmented design matrix of training data described above, and y is a vector of target values. Training is the process of solving for w:

1. X * w = y
2. (Q * R) * w = y
3. Qt * (Q * R) * w = Qt * y
4. R * w = Qt * y
5. w = Solve(R, Qt * y)

Here Qt is the transpose of Q. Step 4 is a consequence of the fact that Qt * Q = I (the identity matrix), because the columns of Q are orthonormal. The Solve function is solving for “ordinary least squares” (OLS) using a technique called back-substitution. I told you this was complicated.

Quadratic regression is most often used with data that has strictly numeric predictor variables. It is possible to use the technique with categorical data that has an inherent order using equal-interval encoding. For example, a predictor variable height with possible values (short, medium, tall) could be encoded as short = 0.25, medium = 0.50, tall = 0.75.

However, for categorical data without inherent order, such as hair-color with possible values (brown, blonde, red, black), there’s no obvious way to encode the values so that when multiplied with other predictor values you get a meaningful number. That said, I have seen many examples where non-ordered categorical predictor values were equal-interval encoded and the resulting prediction model worked quite well. But there are no solid research results, which I’m aware of, that support this encoding technique for quadratic regression.

Quadratic regression is not always effective – if it were, it would be used far more often than it is. Compared to many other regression techniques, quadratic regression can sometimes provide excellent prediction accuracy for a relatively small investment in effort, and so it’s usually worth exploring.

Sometimes clever machine learning algorithms such as quadratic regression seem to have super prediction powers.

Right: Adam Strange is an ordinary scientist from Earth who travels to and from the planet Rann to confront all kinds of scientific and alien threats.

Demo program. 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 QuadraticRegressionQRDecompSolve
{
  internal class QuadraticRegressionQRDecompSolveProgram
  {
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      Console.WriteLine("\nBegin C# quadratic regression" +
        " with direct QR-Householder OLS solver ");

      // 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 model
      Console.WriteLine("\nCreating quadratic " +
        "regression model ");
      QuadraticRegressor model = new QuadraticRegressor();

      double lamda = 1.0;
      Console.WriteLine("\nStarting direct QR solve " +
        "training with L2 ");
      Console.WriteLine("Setting L2 lamda = " +
        lamda.ToString("F4"));
      model.Train(trainX, trainY, lamda);
      Console.WriteLine("Done ");

      // 3. show model weights
      Console.WriteLine("\nModel base weights: ");
      int dim = trainX[0].Length;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" dim; ++i)
        Console.Write(model.weights[i].
          ToString("F4").PadLeft(8));
      Console.WriteLine("");

      Console.WriteLine("\nModel quadratic weights: ");
      for (int i = dim; i "lt" dim + dim; ++i)
        Console.Write(model.weights[i].
          ToString("F4").PadLeft(8));
      Console.WriteLine("");

      Console.WriteLine("\nModel interaction weights: ");
      for (int i = dim+dim; i "lt" model.weights.Length; ++i)
      {
        Console.Write(model.weights[i].
          ToString("F4").PadLeft(8));
        if (i "gt" dim + dim && i % dim == 0)
          Console.WriteLine("");
      }
      Console.WriteLine("");

      Console.WriteLine("\nModel bias/intercept: " +
        model.bias.ToString("F4").PadLeft(8));

      // 4. evaluate model
      Console.WriteLine("\nEvaluating model ");
      double accTrain = model.Accuracy(trainX, trainY, 0.10);
      Console.WriteLine("Accuracy 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"));

      // 5. use model
      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[][] 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 QuadraticRegressor
  {
    public double[] weights;  // regular, quad, interactions
    public double bias;
    private Random rnd;

    public QuadraticRegressor(int seed = 0)
    {
      this.weights = new double[0];
      this.bias = 0;
      this.rnd = new Random(seed);
    }

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

    public double Predict(double[] x)
    {
      int dim = x.Length;
      double result = 0.0;

      int p = 0; // points into this.weights
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" dim; ++i)   // base terms
        result += x[i] * this.weights[p++];

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" dim; ++i)  // quadratic terms
        result += (x[i] * x[i]) * this.weights[p++];

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" dim - 1; ++i)  // interactions
        for (int j = i + 1; j "lt" dim; ++j)
          result += (x[i] * x[j]) * this.weights[p++]; 

      result += this.bias;
      return result;
    }

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

    public void Train(double[][] trainX, double[] trainY,
      double lamda)
    {
      // train using direct QR Solve + L2 reg
      // R * w = Q^T * Y_padded
      int nRows = trainX.Length;
      int dim = trainX[0].Length;
      int nInteractions = (dim * (dim - 1)) / 2;
      this.weights = new double[dim + dim + nInteractions];

      double[][] Xa = MatAugment(trainX);   // add quad cols
      double[][] Xd = MatToDesign(Xa);      // add col 1.0s
      double[][] Xr = MatRegularize(Xd, lamda); // L2

      int newLen = Xr.Length;
      double[] Y = new double[newLen];
      for (int j = 0; j "lt" nRows; ++j)
        Y[j] = trainY[j];

      double[] biasAndWts = QRHouseholder.MatSolveQR(Xr, Y);
      this.bias = biasAndWts[0];  // bias is at [0]
      for (int i = 1; i "lt" biasAndWts.Length; ++i)
        this.weights[i - 1] = biasAndWts[i];
    }

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

    private static double[][] MatAugment(double[][] trainX)
    {
      int nRows = trainX.Length;
      int dim = trainX[0].Length;
      int nInteractions = dim * (dim - 1) / 2;
      int nColsDest = dim + dim + nInteractions;

      double[][] result = new double[nRows][];
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; i++)
        result[i] = new double[nColsDest];

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
      {
        int p = 0;

        for (int j = 0; j "lt" dim; ++j) // base
          result[i][p++] = trainX[i][j];

        for (int j = 0; j "lt" dim; ++j) // squared
          result[i][p++] = trainX[i][j] * trainX[i][j];

        for (int j = 0; j "lt" dim - 1; ++j) // interactions
          for (int k = j + 1; k "lt" dim; ++k)
            result[i][p++] = trainX[i][j] * trainX[i][k];
      }

      return result;
    }

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

    private static double[][] MatRegularize(double[][] Xd,
      double lamda)
    {
      int nRows = Xd.Length;
      int nCols = Xd[0].Length;
      double[][] result = MatMake(nRows + nCols, nCols);

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" nCols; ++j)
          result[i][j] = Xd[i][j];
        
      int col = 1;
      for (int i = nRows + 1; i "lt" result.Length; ++i)
        result[i][col++] = Math.Sqrt(lamda);
      
      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[][] MatToDesign(double[][] X)
    {
      int nRows = X.Length;
      int dim = X[0].Length;

      double[][] result = new double[nRows][];
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
        result[i] = new double[dim + 1];

      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
      {
        result[i][0] = 1.0;
        for (int j = 1; j "lt" result[0].Length; ++j)
        {
          result[i][j] = X[i][j - 1];
        }
      }
      return result;
    }

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

    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 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);
    }

  } // class QuadraticRegressor

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

  public class QRHouseholder
  {
    // solve OLS (ordinary least squares) directly via QR
    // A * w = y  :  Q * R * w = y  :  R * w = Q^T * y
    
    public static double[] MatSolveQR(double[][] A,
      double[] y)
    {
      double[][] Q; double[][] R;
      MatDecompQR(A, out Q, out R); // Householder QR
      
      // compute z = Q^T * y
      double[] z = MatTransVecProd(Q, y);
      
      // solve upper triangular system R * w = z
      // via back-substitution
      double[] w = SolveUpperTri(R, z);
      
      return w;
    }

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

    private static double[] SolveUpperTri(double[][] R,
      double[] b)
    {
      // helper for MatSolveQR()
      // Solves R * x = b for upper triangular R
      int n = R[0].Length;
      double[] x = new double[n];

      for (int i = n - 1; i "gte" 0; --i)
      {
        double sum = b[i];
        for (int j = i + 1; j "lt" n; ++j)
        {
          sum -= R[i][j] * x[j];
        }
        x[i] = sum / R[i][i];
      }
      return x;
    }

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

    private static double[] MatTransVecProd(double[][] M,
      double[] v)
    {
      // helper for MatSolveQR()
      // Computes M^T * v where M is (m x n)
      // and v is length m
      int m = M.Length;
      int n = M[0].Length;
      if (m != v.Length)
        throw new Exception("Non-conformable " +
          "vector-matrix dimensions");

      double[] result = new double[n];
      for (int j = 0; j "lt" n; ++j)
      {
        double sum = 0.0;
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" m; ++i)
          sum += M[i][j] * v[i];
        result[j] = sum;
      }
      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 void MatDecompQR(double[][] A, 
      out double[][] Q, out double[][] R)
    {
      int m = A.Length; int n = A[0].Length;
      if (m "lt" n)
        Console.WriteLine("FATAL: nRows must be gte nCols");

      double[][] QQ = MatMake(m, m); // working full Q
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" m; ++i)
        QQ[i][i] = 1.0;  // identity matrix

      double[][] RR = MatMake(m, n);
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" m; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" n; ++j)
          RR[i][j] = A[i][j]; // copy of A is working R

      int k = Math.Min(m, n);
      for (int j = 0; j "lt" k; ++j)
      {
        int xn = m - j;
        double[] x = new double[xn];
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" xn; ++i)
          x[i] = RR[j + i][j];

        double ss = 0.0;
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" xn; ++i)
          ss += x[i] * x[i];
        double normX = Math.Sqrt(ss);

        if (Math.Abs(normX) "lt" 1.0e-12) continue;

        double sign;
        if (x[0] "gte" 0.0) sign = -1.0;
        else sign = 1.0;
      
        double[] u = new double[xn];
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" xn; ++i)
          u[i] = x[i] / (x[0] - sign * normX);
        u[0] = 1.0;

        double tau = -sign * (x[0] - sign * normX) / normX;

        int nRowsSubR = m - j;   int nColsSubR = n - j;
        int nRowsSubQ = m;       int nColsSubQ = m - j;

        double[] vr = new double[nColsSubR];
        for (int c = 0; c "lt" nColsSubR; ++c)
        {
          double acc = 0.0;
          for (int r = 0; r "lt" nRowsSubR; ++r)
            acc += u[r] * RR[j + r][j + c];
          vr[c] = acc;
        }

        double[] vq = new double[nRowsSubQ];
        for (int r = 0; r "lt" nRowsSubQ; ++r)
        {
          double acc = 0.0;
          for (int c = 0; c "lt" nColsSubQ; ++c)
            acc += u[c] * QQ[r][j + c];
          vq[r] = acc;
        }

        for (int r = 0; r "lt" nRowsSubR; ++r)
          for (int c = 0; c "lt" nColsSubR; ++c)
            RR[j + r][j + c] -= tau * u[r] * vr[c];

        for (int r = 0; r "lt" nRowsSubQ; ++r)
          for (int c = 0; c "lt" nColsSubQ; ++c)
            QQ[r][j + c] -= tau * vq[r] * u[c];
       
      } // j

      Q = MatMake(m, n);
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" m; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" n; ++j)
          Q[i][j] = QQ[i][j];

      R = MatMake(n, n);
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" n; ++i)
        for (int j = 0; j "lt" n; ++j)
          R[i][j] = RR[i][j];

      return;
    } // MatDecompQR

  } // class QRHouseholder

} // 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 contributed some technical content and opinions to an article titled “AI Hallucinations: Why AI Confidently Lies and the Business Opportunities It Creates” on the Pure AI web site. See https://pureai.com/articles/2026/08/03/ai-hallucinations-why-ai-confidently-lies-and-the-business-opportunities-it-creates.aspx.

An AI hallucination occurs when a generative AI model outputs incorrect or completely illogical information while presenting it as absolute fact. An AI model might invent a fake court case, cite a nonexistent scientific study or incorrectly summarize a financial report.

AI engines operate as hyper-advanced pattern-recognition engines, continually predicting the most likely next word based on vast amounts of training data. Because the model prioritizes producing fluent, coherent human text, it will invent plausible-sounding details to complete a pattern rather than admit it lacks the answer.

The most popular method for preventing hallucinations is retrieval-augmented generation (“RAG”). RAG acts like an “open-book exam” for the AI, fetching verified documents from a company’s internal database and forcing the model to answer in a (mostly) correct way.

I gave some opinions: McCaffrey observed, “AI hallucinations are usually seen as a technical flaw. But they have sparked a thriving ecosystem of new business opportunities.”

“AI companies that build reliable guardrails, produce hallucination-detection software and provide automated fact-checking platforms are finding a massive market. These tools are especially needed by risk-averse industries such as finance, law and healthcare. Solving the trust problem in AI has become a multibillion-dollar market opportunity in its own right.”

AI Hallucinations are stories that are not true, and are most likely harmful. Old science fiction movies are stories that are not true but are entertaining and therefore useful.

Right: The TV series “Men into Space” (one season, 38 episodes, 1959-1960) depicted realistic scenarios in the near future of the time. In episode #4, “Water Tank Rescue”, Taylor plays the wife of astronaut Rick Gordon, who has a heart attack while on the Moon. Gordon could not survive a standard liftoff, so they fill a water tank to absorb G-force shock. My grade for this episode = C+.

A simple decision tree for regression will almost always overfit the training data where the model accuracy on the training data is near 100% but accuracy on new, previously unseen data is very poor.

The simple idea of random forest regression is to create a collection/ensemble of many simple decision trees, where each tree is trained on a different subset of the rows of the training data, and all columns, or optionally a subset of the predictor columns of the training data.

For example, if the source set of training data has 200 rows, you could create 50 simple trees, where each tree is trained on 180 randomly selected rows. The selection is done “with replacement” so for a random subset of training data, some rows will be used more than once and some rows won’t be used at all. An option is to use a random subset of the training data columns for each tree. For example, if a set of training data has 5 predictor columns, and you specify using 4 columns, the first decision tree might use columns [0], [2], [3], [4]. The second tree might use columns [0], [1], [3], [4]. And so on.

Actually, the column selection process is a bit tricky and involves selecting columns at every tree node split, during tree creation.

After all the trees are trained, a prediction for an input vector x is just the average of the predictions of the trees in the collection. A very simple and crude idea that sometimes works well, and sometimes doesn’t work very well.

Note that bagging (bootstrap aggregation) tree regression is a specific kind of random forest regression. In bagging tree regression, the subsets of the training data all use all the columns. In random forest regression, a random subset of columns is used (or you can use all columns).

Even though bagging tree regression is a type of random forest regression, the two techniques are usually considered distinct.

Bagging tree regression was first described in 1994 paper by a fellow named Leo Breiman, even though the idea had been used for at least a decade before. Then the 1995 paper “Random Decision Forests” by Tin Kam Ho introduced the key ideas for random forest regression. Breiman later developed random forest regression ideas in a 2001. paper.

So, even though bagging tree regression is just a special case of random forest regression, the term bagging tree regression had been in use so there was no getting rid of that term.

Bagging tree regression (1994) evolved into random forest regression (1995), which evolved into AdaBoost.R and AdaBoost.R2 regression (1997), which evolved into gradient boosting regression (1999) — a fascinating (but very long) story. Maybe I’ll post that story some day.

I used AI to optimize my random forest regression system. AI was remarkably accurate and found many optimizations. I made a demo. The demo data is synthetic. It was generated by a 5-10-1 neural network with random weight and bias values. 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 on each line is the target value to predict.

Here is the output of a demo run:

Begin C# Random Forest regression 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 nTrees = 100
Setting maxDepth = 6
Setting minSamples = 2
Setting minLeaf = 1
Setting numSplitCols = 4
Setting nRows = 200

Creating and training RandomForestRegressor model
Done

Accuracy train (within 0.10) = 0.8600
Accuracy test (within 0.10) = 0.6500

MSE train = 0.0004
MSE test = 0.0016

Predicting for x =
  -0.1660   0.4406  -0.9998  -0.3953  -0.7065
Predicted y = 0.4783

End demo

Notice that the model still overfits quite a bit. This is because the synthetic data is more or less spread evenly. Because of this weakness, the more powerful gradient boosting regression model is almost always used instead of bagging tree regression or random forest regression. That said however, for some problem scenarios, bagging tree and random forest regression work quite well.

Random forest regression isn’t used as often as other tree-based techniques, especially gradient boosting regression.

Right: In “Beginning of the End” (1957), a U.S. Department of Agriculture lab experiments with using atomic radiation to grow large food. Ooops. Giant grasshoppers / locusts run wild through the nearby forested area. My overall grade = B-.

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

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

namespace RandomForestRegression
{
  internal class RandomForestRegressionProgram
  {
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      Console.WriteLine("\nBegin C# Random Forest" +
        " regression 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,
        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 model
      int nTrees = 100;
      int maxDepth = 6;
      int minSamples = 2;
      int minLeaf = 1;

      // Standard heuristic for Random Forest Regression: 
      // p / 3 (where p is total feature columns = 5).
      //int numSplitCols = (int)(colsX.Length / 3.0); 
      //if (numSplitCols "lt" 1) numSplitCols = 1; 
      int numSplitCols = 4;
      
      // int nRows = 180;  // non-std does not help
      int nRows = trainX.Length; // std

      Console.WriteLine("\nSetting nTrees = " + nTrees);
      Console.WriteLine("Setting maxDepth = " + maxDepth);
      Console.WriteLine("Setting minSamples = " +
        minSamples);
      Console.WriteLine("Setting minLeaf = " + minLeaf);
      Console.WriteLine("Setting numSplitCols = " +
        numSplitCols);
      Console.WriteLine("Setting nRows = " + nRows);

      Console.WriteLine("\nCreating and training" +
        " RandomForestRegressor model ");
      RandomForestRegressor rfr =
        new RandomForestRegressor(nTrees, nRows, maxDepth,
        minSamples, minLeaf, numSplitCols, seed: 0);
      rfr.Train(trainX, trainY);
      Console.WriteLine("Done ");

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

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

      // 4. use model
      double[] x = trainX[0];
      Console.WriteLine("\nPredicting for x = ");
      VecShow(x, 4, 9);
      double predY = rfr.Predict(x);
      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 RandomForestRegressor
  {
    public int nTrees;
    public int maxDepth;
    public int minSamples;
    public int minLeaf;
    public int numSplitCols;
    public int nRows;
    public List"lt"DecisionTreeRegressor"gt" trees;
    public Random rnd;

    public RandomForestRegressor(int nTrees, int nRows,
      int maxDepth, int minSamples, int minLeaf,
      int numSplitCols, int seed = 0)
    {
      this.nTrees = nTrees;
      this.nRows = nRows;  // num train rows, each tree
      this.maxDepth = maxDepth;
      this.minSamples = minSamples;
      this.minLeaf = minLeaf;
      this.numSplitCols = numSplitCols;
      this.trees = 
        new List"lt"DecisionTreeRegressor"gt"();
      this.rnd = new Random(seed);
    }

    public void Train(double[][] trainX, double[] trainY)
    {
      int totalRows = trainX.Length;
      int nCols = trainX[0].Length;

      // reusable buffers for all trees
      double[][] subsetX = new double[this.nRows][];
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" this.nRows; ++i)
        subsetX[i] = new double[nCols];
      
      double[] subsetY = new double[this.nRows];

      // train each tree using buffers
      for (int t = 0; t "lt" this.nTrees; ++t)
      {
        // populate the buffers
        for (int r = 0; r "lt" this.nRows; ++r)
        {
          int rndIndex = this.rnd.Next(0, totalRows);

          // Array.Copy() uses low-level memory moves
          // much faster than a nested C# for-loop
          Array.Copy(trainX[rndIndex], subsetX[r], nCols);
          subsetY[r] = trainY[rndIndex];
        }

        DecisionTreeRegressor dtr =
          new DecisionTreeRegressor(
          this.maxDepth,
          this.minSamples,
          this.minLeaf,
          this.numSplitCols, 
          false,
          this.rnd.Next(0, 1_000_000)
        );

        dtr.Train(subsetX, subsetY); // safe to reuse
        this.trees.Add(dtr);
      }
    } // Train()

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

    public double Predict(double[] x)
    {
      double sum = 0.0;
      for (int t = 0; t "lt" this.nTrees; ++t)
        sum += this.trees[t].Predict(x);
      return sum / this.nTrees;
    }

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

    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;
    }

  } // class RandomForestRegressor

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

  public class DecisionTreeRegressor
  {
    // ChatGPT: "I don't see any fundamental tree-building or
    // indexing bugs. If the inputs are guaranteed to be
    // finite doubles and the parameters are validated 
    // elsewhere, the core regression algorithm is correct."

    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 = -1;
      public double thresh = 0.0;
      public int left = -1;
      public int right = -1;
      public double value = 0.0;
      public bool isLeaf = false;
      public List"lt"int"gt" rows;
    }

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

    public DecisionTreeRegressor(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;

      int maxParentID = (int)Math.Pow(2, this.maxDepth) - 2;

      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);

      // construct root node
      Node root = new Node()
      {
        id = 0,
        value = this.TreeTargetMean(allRows),
        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;

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

        // 1. check before expensive split calcs
        if (currNode.id "gt" maxParentID ||
            currNode.rows.Count "lt" this.minSamples ||
            rightID "gte" this.tree.Count)
        {
          currNode.isLeaf = true;
          continue;
        }

        // 2. find best split
        double[] splitInfo = this.BestSplit(currNode.rows);
        int colIdx = (int)splitInfo[0];
        double splitVal = splitInfo[1];

        if (colIdx == -1) // unable to split
        {
          currNode.isLeaf = true;
          continue;
        }

        // 3. apply split properties
        currNode.colIdx = colIdx;  // aka split col
        currNode.thresh = splitVal;

        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);
        }

        // 4. create and attach children
        currNode.left = leftID;
        this.tree[leftID] = new Node()
        {
          id = leftID,
          rows = leftIdxs,
          value = this.TreeTargetMean(leftIdxs)
        };

        currNode.right = rightID;
        this.tree[rightID] = new Node()
        {
          id = rightID,
          rows = rightIdxs,
          value = this.TreeTargetMean(rightIdxs)
        };
      } // main loop

      // 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;
      }

    } // 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 || 
          currNode.colIdx == -1) 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 bestColIdx = -1;
      double bestThresh = 0.0;
      double bestGain = -1.0;
      int nRows = rows.Count;
      int nCols = this.trainX[0].Length;

      int[] colIndices = new int[nCols];
      for (int k = 0; k "lt" nCols; ++k)
        colIndices[k] = k;

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

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

      int[] sortedRows = new int[nRows];
      double[] featureKeys = new double[nRows];

      double totalSum = 0.0;
      for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
        totalSum += this.trainY[rows[i]];

      for (int j = 0; j "lt" numColsToUse; ++j)
      {
        int colIdx = colIndices[j];
        for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows; ++i)
        {
          int r = rows[i];
          sortedRows[i] = r;
          featureKeys[i] = this.trainX[r][colIdx];
        }

        Array.Sort(featureKeys, sortedRows);
        double leftSum = 0.0;

        for (int i = 0; i "lt" nRows - 1; ++i)
        {
          leftSum += this.trainY[sortedRows[i]];

          int leftCount = i + 1;
          int rightCount = nRows - leftCount;

          if (featureKeys[i] == featureKeys[i + 1])
            continue; // duplicate values
          if (leftCount "lt" this.minLeaf ||
            rightCount "lt" this.minLeaf)
            continue;

          double rightSum = totalSum - leftSum;

          // maximizing Gain = (G_L^2 / N_L) + (G_R^2 / N_R)
          // equivalent to maximizing explicit weighted
          // variance reduction
          double gain = (leftSum * leftSum / leftCount) +
            (rightSum * rightSum / rightCount);

          if (gain "gt" bestGain)
          {
            bestGain = gain;
            bestColIdx = colIdx;
            // bestThresh = 
            //  (featureKeys[i] + featureKeys[i + 1]) / 2.0;
            bestThresh = featureKeys[i] +
              (featureKeys[i + 1] - featureKeys[i]) / 2.0;
          }
        }
      }

      // using a tuple would create version dependency
      double[] result = new double[2];
      result[0] = 1.0 * bestColIdx;
      result[1] = bestThresh;
      return result;
    }

    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;
    }

  } // DecisionTreeRegressor

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


} // 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