xsl-list
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [xsl] Is this the best way to compute a sigmoid function?

2020-05-02 13:09:25

On 2 May 2020, at 18:55, Costello, Roger L. costello(_at_)mitre(_dot_)org 
<xsl-list-service(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com> wrote:


I want to compute the result of evaluating this sigmoid function:

    1
----------------
(1 + e**-x)

That is, compute 1 divided by (1 + e raised to the -x power)

In recent versions of XPath, you can simply do 

(1 div (1 + math:exp(-$x)))

(However, it already appears to be mighty accurate -- look at all those 
digits to the right of the decimal point)

I hope you don't seriously believe that precision implies accuracy - that 
someone who claims the population of the world is 7,345,651,523 is more likely 
to be right than someone who says it is 7 billion.

Notice that for the variable $e-to-the-minus-x-power I specified it this way: 
as="xs:decimal". Should I have specified it this way: as="xs:float" instead? 

For calculations like this it's best to use xs:double. You don't need any more 
precision than this, and exponential/trigonometric functions are likely to be 
implemented as double-precision floating point by whatever underlying library 
is used.

Michael Kay
Saxonica
--~----------------------------------------------------------------
XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
EasyUnsubscribe: http://lists.mulberrytech.com/unsub/xsl-list/1167547
or by email: xsl-list-unsub(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com
--~--
<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>