Convert uniform draws to normal distributions with known mean and std in R

Question

I apply the sensitivity package in R. In particular, I want to use sobolroalhs as it uses a sampling procedure for inputs that allow for evaluations of models with a large number of parameters. The function samples uniformly [0,1] for all inputs. It is stated that desired distributions need to be obtained as follows

####################
# Test case: dealing with non-uniform distributions
x <- sobolroalhs(model = NULL, factors = 3, N = 1000, order =1, nboot=0)
# X1 follows a log-normal distribution:
x$X[,1] <- qlnorm(x$X[,1])
# X2 follows a standard normal distribution:
x$X[,2] <- qnorm(x$X[,2])
# X3 follows a gamma distribution:
x$X[,3] <- qgamma(x$X[,3],shape=0.5)
# toy example
toy <- function(x){rowSums(x)}
y <- toy(x$X)
tell(x, y)
print(x)
plot(x)

I have non-zero mean and standard deviations for some input parameter that I want to sample out of a normal distribution. For others, I want to uniformly sample between a defined range (e.g. [0.03,0.07] instead [0,1]). I tried using built in R functions such as

SA$X[,1]  <- rnorm(1000, mean = 579,  sd = 21)

but I am afraid this procedure messes up the sampling design of the package and resulted in odd results for the sensitivity indices. Hence, I think I need to adhere for the uniform draw of the sobolroalhs function in which and use the sampled value between [0, 1] when drawing out of the desired distribution (I think as density draw?). Does this make sense to anyone and/or does anyone know how I could sample out of the right distributions following the syntax from the package description?

user2554330 user2554330 · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-09T10:54:20

You can specify mean and sd in qnorm. So modify lines like this:

x$X[,2] <- qnorm(x$X[,2])

to something like this:

x$X[,2] <- qnorm(x$X[,2], mean = 579, sd = 21)

Similarly, you could use the min and max parameters of qunif to get values in a given range.

Of course, it's also possible to transform standard normals or uniforms to the ones you want using things like X <- 579 + 21*Z or Y <- 0.03 + 0.04*U, where Z is a standard normal and U is standard uniform, but for some distributions those transformations aren't so simple and using the q* functions can be easier.

Convert uniform draws to normal distributions with known mean and std in R

1 Answers