The qrnn package for R implements the quantile regression neural network (QRNN) (Taylor, 2000; Cannon, 2011; Cannon, 2018), which is a flexible nonlinear form of quantile regression. The goal of quantile regression is to estimate conditional quantiles of a response variable that depend on covariates in some form of regression equation. The QRNN adopts the multi-layer perceptron neural network architecture. The implementation follows from previous work on the estimation of censored regression quantiles, thus allowing predictions for mixed discrete-continuous variables like precipitation (Friederichs and Hense, 2007). A differentiable approximation to the quantile regression cost function is adopted so that a simplified form of the finite smoothing algorithm (Chen, 2007) can be used to estimate model parameters. This approximation can also be used to force the model to solve a standard least squares regression problem or an expectile regression problem (Cannon, 2018). Weight penalty regularization can be added to help avoid overfitting, and ensemble models with bootstrap aggregation are also provided.
An optional monotone constraint can be invoked, which guarantees
monotonic non-decreasing behaviour of model outputs with respect to
specified covariates (Zhang, 1999). The input-hidden layer weight matrix
can also be constrained so that model relationships are strictly
additive (see gam.style; Cannon, 2018). Borrowing strength
by using a composite model for multiple regression quantiles (Zou et
al., 2008; Xu et al., 2017) is also possible (see
composite.stack). Weights can be applied to individual
cases (Jiang et al., 2012).
Applying the monotone constraint in combination with the composite
model allows one to simultaneously estimate multiple non-crossing
quantiles (Cannon, 2018); the resulting monotone composite QRNN (MCQRNN)
is provided by the mcqrnn.fit and
mcqrnn.predict wrapper functions. Examples for
qrnn.fit and qrnn2.fit show how the same
functionality can be achieved using the low level
composite.stack and fitting functions.
QRNN models with a single layer of hidden nodes can be fitted using
the qrnn.fit function. Predictions from a fitted model are
made using the qrnn.predict function. Note: a single hidden
layer is usually sufficient for most modelling tasks. With added
monotonicity constraints, a second hidden layer may sometimes be
beneficial (Lang, 2005; Minin et al., 2010). QRNN models with two hidden
layers are available using the qrnn2.fit and
qrnn2.predict functions. For non-crossing quantiles, the
mcqrnn.fit and mcqrnn.predict wrappers also
allow models with one or two hidden layers to be fitted and predictions
to be made from the fitted models.
In general, mcqrnn.fit offers a convenient, single
function for fitting multiple quantiles simultaneously. Note, however,
that default settings in mcqrnn.fit and other model fitting functions
are not optimized for general speed, memory efficiency, or accuracy and
should be adjusted for a particular regression problem as needed. In
particular, the approximation to the quantile regression cost function
eps.seq, the number of trials n.trials, and
number of iterations iter.max can all influence fitting
speed (and accuracy), as can changing the optimization algorithm via
method. Non-crossing quantiles are implemented by stacking
multiple copies of the x and y data, one copy
per value of tau. Depending on the dataset size, this can
lead to large matrices being passed to the optimization routine. In the
Adam adam stochastic gradient descent method, the
minibatch size can be adjusted to help offset this cost.
Model complexity is determined via the number of hidden nodes,
n.hidden and n.hidden2, as well as the
optional weight penalty penalty; values of these
hyperparameters are crucial to obtaining a well performing model.
For mcqrnn.fit, it is also possible to estimate the full
quantile regression process by specifying a single integer value for
tau. In this case, tau is the number of random
samples used in the stochastic estimation, which is performed via the
adam optimizer. For more information, see Tagasovska and
Lopez-Paz (2019). It may be necessary to restart the optimization
multiple times from the previous weights and biases, in which case
init.range can be set to the weights values
from the previously completed optimization run.
If models for multiple quantiles have been fitted, for example by
mcqrnn.fit or multiple calls to either
qrnn.fit or qrnn2.fit, the (experimental)
dquantile function and its companion functions are
available to create proper probability density, distribution, and
quantile functions (Quiñonero-Candela et al., 2006; Cannon, 2011).
Alternative distribution, quantile, and random variate functions based
on the Nadaraya-Watson estimator (Passow and Donner, 2020) are also
available in [p,q,r]quantile.nw. These can be useful for
assessing probabilistic calibration and evaluating model
performance.
Finally, the function gam.style can be used to visualize
and investigate fitted covariate/response relationships from
qrnn.fit (Plate et al., 2000).
Cannon, A.J., 2011. Quantile regression neural networks: implementation in R and application to precipitation downscaling. Computers & Geosciences, 37: 1277-1284. doi:10.1016/j.cageo.2010.07.005
Cannon, A.J., 2018. Non-crossing nonlinear regression quantiles by monotone composite quantile regression neural network, with application to rainfall extremes. Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment, 32(11): 3207-3225. doi:10.1007/s00477-018-1573-6
Chen, C., 2007. A finite smoothing algorithm for quantile regression. Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, 16: 136-164.
Friederichs, P. and A. Hense, 2007. Statistical downscaling of extreme precipitation events using censored quantile regression. Monthly Weather Review, 135: 2365-2378.
Jiang, X., J. Jiang, and X. Song, 2012. Oracle model selection for nonlinear models based on weighted composite quantile regression. Statistica Sinica, 22(4): 1479-1506.
Lang, B., 2005. Monotonic multi-layer perceptron networks as universal approximators. International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, Artificial Neural Networks: Formal Models and Their Applications-ICANN 2005, pp. 31-37.
Minin, A., M. Velikova, B. Lang, and H. Daniels, 2010. Comparison of universal approximators incorporating partial monotonicity by structure. Neural Networks, 23(4): 471-475.
Passow, C., R.V. Donner, 2020. Regression-based distribution mapping for bias correction of climate model outputs using linear quantile regression. Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment, 34: 87-102.
Plate, T., J. Bert, J. Grace, and P. Band, 2000. Visualizing the function computed by a feedforward neural network. Neural Computation, 12(6): 1337-1354.
Quiñonero-Candela, J., C. Rasmussen, F. Sinz, O. Bousquet, B. Scholkopf, 2006. Evaluating Predictive Uncertainty Challenge. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, 3944: 1-27.
Tagasovska, N., D. Lopez-Paz, 2019. Single-model uncertainties for deep learning. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 32, NeurIPS 2019. doi:10.48550/arXiv.1811.00908
Taylor, J.W., 2000. A quantile regression neural network approach to estimating the conditional density of multiperiod returns. Journal of Forecasting, 19(4): 299-311.
Xu, Q., K. Deng, C. Jiang, F. Sun, and X. Huang, 2017. Composite quantile regression neural network with applications. Expert Systems with Applications, 76, 129-139.
Zhang, H. and Zhang, Z., 1999. Feedforward networks with monotone constraints. In: International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, vol. 3, p. 1820-1823. doi:10.1109/IJCNN.1999.832655
Zou, H. and M. Yuan, 2008. Composite quantile regression and the oracle model selection theory. The Annals of Statistics, 1108-1126.