## Sums products and linear algebra notation - avoiding loops where possible

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Today we examine some methods of linear algebra that allow us to avoid writing explicit loops in Matlab for some kinds of mathematical operations.

Consider the operation on two vectors $$\bf{a}$$ and $$\bf{b}$$.

$$y=\sum\limits_{i=1}^n a_ib_i$$

a = [1 2 3 4 5]

b = [3 6 8 9 10]

## 1 Old-fashioned way with a loop

We can compute this with a loop, where you initialize y, and then add the product of the ith elements of a and b to y in each iteration of the loop. This is known to be slow for large vectors

a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
b = [3, 6, 8, 9, 10]

sum = 0
for i in range(len(a)):
sum = sum + a[i] * b[i]
print sum
125

This is an old fashioned style of coding. A more modern, pythonic approach is:

a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
b = [3, 6, 8, 9, 10]

sum = 0
for x,y in zip(a,b):
sum += x * y
print sum
125

## 2 The numpy approach

The most compact method is to use the methods in numpy.

import numpy as np

a = np.array([1, 2, 3, 4, 5])
b = np.array([3, 6, 8, 9, 10])

print np.sum(a * b)
125

## 3 Matrix algebra approach.

The operation defined above is actually a dot product. We an directly compute the dot product in numpy. Note that with 1d arrays, python knows what to do and does not require any transpose operations.

import numpy as np

a = np.array([1, 2, 3, 4, 5])
b = np.array([3, 6, 8, 9, 10])

print np.dot(a, b)
125

## 4 Another example

Consider $$y = \sum\limits_{i=1}^n w_i x_i^2$$. This operation is like a weighted sum of squares. The old-fashioned way to do this is with a loop.

w = [0.1, 0.25, 0.12, 0.45, 0.98];
x = [9, 7, 11, 12, 8];
y = 0
for wi, xi in zip(w,x):
y += wi * xi**2
print y
162.39

Compare this to the more modern numpy approach.

import numpy as np
w = np.array([0.1, 0.25, 0.12, 0.45, 0.98])
x = np.array([9, 7, 11, 12, 8])
y = np.sum(w * x**2)
print y
162.39

We can also express this in matrix algebra form. The operation is equivalent to $$y = \vec{x} \cdot D_w \cdot \vec{x}^T$$ where $$D_w$$ is a diagonal matrix with the weights on the diagonal.

import numpy as np
w = np.array([0.1, 0.25, 0.12, 0.45, 0.98])
x = np.array([9, 7, 11, 12, 8])
y = np.dot(x, np.dot(np.diag(w), x))
print y
162.39

This last form avoids explicit loops and sums, and relies on fast linear algebra routines.

## 5 Last example

Consider the sum of the product of three vectors. Let $$y = \sum\limits_{i=1}^n w_i x_i y_i$$. This is like a weighted sum of products.

import numpy as np

w = np.array([0.1, 0.25, 0.12, 0.45, 0.98])
x = np.array([9, 7, 11, 12, 8])
y = np.array([2, 5, 3, 8, 0])

print np.sum(w * x * y)
print np.dot(w, np.dot(np.diag(x), y))
57.71
57.71

## 6 Summary

We showed examples of the following equalities between traditional sum notations and linear algebra

$$\bf{a}\bf{b}=\sum\limits_{i=1}^n a_ib_i$$

$$\bf{x}\bf{D_w}\bf{x^T}=\sum\limits_{i=1}^n w_ix_i^2$$

$$\bf{x}\bf{D_w}\bf{y^T}=\sum\limits_{i=1}^n w_i x_i y_i$$

These relationships enable one to write the sums as a single line of python code, which utilizes fast linear algebra subroutines, avoids the construction of slow loops, and reduces the opportunity for errors in the code. Admittedly, it introduces the opportunity for new types of errors, like using the wrong relationship, or linear algebra errors due to matrix size mismatches.