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Re: [S] sequence of random seeds

To: patrik ohagen <ohagen@sprcore.bidmc.harvard.edu>
Subject: Re: [S] sequence of random seeds
From: Prof Brian D Ripley <ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 16:55:54 +0100 (BST)
Cc: S-news@utstat.toronto.edu, bugs@statsci.com
In-reply-to: <Pine.3.85.9805242256.A28253-0100000@sprcore>
Sender: owner-s-news@wubios.wustl.edu
On Sun, 24 May 1998, patrik ohagen wrote:

> 
> dear list,
> 
> I am trying to run a simulation using S-PLUS v4.0 on a windows/95 
> machine. I am comparing different estimators of a covariance matrix. When 
> I use cov.mve within my "for loop" all estimates, p-values,...turn out to 
> be the same in all iterations of the "for loop".
> 
> Does cov.mve reset the .Random.seed object in some sophisticated way ?

There seems to be a bug in 4.0 release 3:

set.seed(123)
library(MASS)
for(i in 1:3) {
  print(.Random.seed)
  print(cov.mve(hills)$obj)
}

3.3 on Windows, 3.4 on Solaris:

 [1] 21 14 49 16 41  1 32 22 36 23 28  3
Minimum volume ellipsoid with 660 samples of sizes 
        between 4 and 15 of which 17 were singular 
[1] 0.1055796
 [1] 29 11 13 56 61  2 31 24 52 44 57  3
Minimum volume ellipsoid with 660 samples of sizes 
        between 4 and 15 of which 21 were singular 
[1] 0.1508284
 [1] 45 55 50 53 39  3 50 63 27 39 43  1
Minimum volume ellipsoid with 660 samples of sizes 
        between 4 and 15 of which 18 were singular 
[1] 0.1608706

4.0 rel 3 on Windows:

 [1] 21 14 49 16 41  1 32 22 36 23 28  3
Minimum volume ellipsoid with 660 samples of sizes 
        between 4 and 15 of which 21 were singular 
[1] 18362.8
 [1] 57 27 41 42 44  3 59 45 59 47  9  1
Minimum volume ellipsoid with 660 samples of sizes 
        between 4 and 15 of which 21 were singular 
[1] 18362.8
 [1] 57 27 41 42 44  3 59 45 59 47  9  1
Minimum volume ellipsoid with 660 samples of sizes 
        between 4 and 15 of which 21 were singular 
[1] 18362.8

It seems that cov.mve always sets the random seed to a particular value
on 4.0 rel 3.  This seems both undocumented and undesirable. (Presumably
the definition of objective has been changed too.)

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

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