simplex_projection.py

def simplex_projection(v, b=1):
    """Projection vectors to the simplex domain

Implemented according to the paper: Efficient projections onto the
l1-ball for learning in high dimensions, John Duchi, et al. ICML 2008.
Implementation Time: 2011 June 17 by Bin@libin AT pmail.ntu.edu.sg
Optimization Problem: min_{w}\| w - v \|_{2}^{2}
s.t. sum_{i=1}^{m}=z, w_{i}\geq 0

Input: A vector v \in R^{m}, and a scalar z > 0 (default=1)
Output: Projection vector w

:Example:
>>> proj = simplex_projection([.4 ,.3, -.4, .5])
>>> print proj
array([ 0.33333333, 0.23333333, 0. , 0.43333333])
>>> print proj.sum()
1.0

Original matlab implementation: John Duchi (jduchi@cs.berkeley.edu)
Python-port: Copyright 2012 by Thomas Wiecki (thomas.wiecki@gmail.com).
"""

    v = np.asarray(v)
    p = len(v)

    # Sort v into u in descending order
    v = (v > 0) * v
    u = np.sort(v)[::-1]
    sv = np.cumsum(u)

    rho = np.where(u > (sv - b) / np.arange(1, p+1))[0][-1]
    theta = np.max([0, (sv[rho] - b) / (rho+1)])
    w = (v - theta)
    w[w<0] = 0
    return w