The question here refers to a HUGE dataset. However, all of the answers I see are dealing with dataframes. I present an answer for a scipy sparse matrix which runs in parallel. Rather than returning a giant correlation matrix, this returns a feature mask of fields to keep after checking all fields for both positive and negative Pearson correlations.
I also try to minimize calculations using the following strategy:
- Process each column
- Start at the current column + 1 and calculate correlations moving to the right.
- For any abs(correlation) >= threshold, mark the current column for removal and calculate no further correlations.
- Perform these steps for each column in the dataset except the last.
This might be sped up further by keeping a global list of columns marked for removal and skipping further correlation calculations for such columns, since columns will execute out of order. However, I do not know enough about race conditions in python to implement this tonight.
Returning a column mask will obviously allow the code to handle much larger datasets than returning the entire correlation matrix.
Check each column using this function:
def get_corr_row(idx_num, sp_mat, thresh):
# slice the column at idx_num
cols = sp_mat.shape[1]
x = sp_mat[:,idx_num].toarray().ravel()
start = idx_num + 1
# Now slice each column to the right of idx_num
for i in range(start, cols):
y = sp_mat[:,i].toarray().ravel()
# Check the pearson correlation
corr, pVal = pearsonr(x,y)
# Pearson ranges from -1 to 1.
# We check both positive and negative correlations >= thresh using abs(corr)
if abs(corr) >= thresh:
# stop checking after finding the 1st correlation > thresh
return False
# Mark column at idx_num for removal in the mask
return True
Run the column level correlation checks in parallel:
from joblib import Parallel, delayed
import multiprocessing
def Get_Corr_Mask(sp_mat, thresh, n_jobs=-1):
# we must make sure the matrix is in csc format
# before we start doing all these column slices!
sp_mat = sp_mat.tocsc()
cols = sp_mat.shape[1]
if n_jobs == -1:
# Process the work on all available CPU cores
num_cores = multiprocessing.cpu_count()
else:
# Process the work on the specified number of CPU cores
num_cores = n_jobs
# Return a mask of all columns to keep by calling get_corr_row()
# once for each column in the matrix
return Parallel(n_jobs=num_cores, verbose=5)(delayed(get_corr_row)(i, sp_mat, thresh)for i in range(cols))
General Usage:
#Get the mask using your sparse matrix and threshold.
corr_mask = Get_Corr_Mask(X_t_fpr, 0.95)
# Remove features that are >= 95% correlated
X_t_fpr_corr = X_t_fpr[:,corr_mask]
