# trouble with infinite values from exp() and log()

I'm writing a function for Gaussian mixture models with spherical covariance structures--ie $\Sigma_k = \sigma_k^2 I$. This particular function is similar to the mclust package with identifier VII.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixture_model

Anyways, the problem I'm having is running into infinite values for the weight matrix. Definition: Let W be an n x m matrix where $n = 1, \ldots, N$ (number of obs) and $m = 1, \ldots, M$ (number of mixtues). Each element of $W$ (ie $w_{ij}$) can essentially be defined as a specific form of:

$w_{im} = \frac{\frac{a}{b} * exp(c)}{\sum_{i=1}^m \frac{a_i}{b_i} * exp(c_i)}$

Computing this numerically is giving me infinite values. So I'm trying to use the log-identity $log(x+y) = log(x) + log(1 + y/x)$. But the issue is that it's not as simple as log(x+y) but rather $log(\sum_{i=1}^m [a_i / b_i * exp(c_i)])$.

Here's some code: define: (1) n_im = a / b * exp(c) ; (2) d_.m = \sum_i=1^m [a_i / b_i * exp(c_i)] ; and (3) c_mat[i,j] as the value of the exponent for the [i,j]th term.

n_mat[, i] <- log(a[i]) - log(b[i]) - c[,i] # numerator of w_im
internal_vec1[i] <- (a[i] * b[1])/ (a[1] * b[i]) # an internal for the step below
c_mat2 <- cbind(rep(1, n), c_mat[,1] - c_mat[,-1]) # since e^a / e^b = e^(a-b)
for (i in 1:n) {
d_vec[i] <- n_mat[i,1] + log(sum(internal_vec1 * exp(c_mat2[i,)))
} ## still getting infinite values


I'm trying to define the problem as briefly as possible. the entire function is obviously much larger than this. But, since the problem I'm running into is specifically dealing with infinite (and 1/infinity) values, I'm hoping this snippet is sufficient. Anyone with a coding trick here?

Here is the solution!! (I've spent way too damn long on this). Implemented in R

**The first function log_plus() solves the simple problem where you want log(\sum_{i=1)^n x_i)

**The second function log_plus2() solves the more complicated problem described above where you want log(\sum_{i=1}^n [a_i / b_i * exp(c_i)])

log_plus <- function(xvec) {
m <- length(xvec)
x <- log(xvec[1])
for (j in 2:m) {
sum_j <- sum(xvec[1:j-1])
x <- x + log(1 + xvec[j]/sum_j)
}
return(x)
}

log_plus2 <- function(a, b, c) {
# assumes intended input of form sum(a/b * e^c)
if ((length(a) != length(b)) || (length(a) != length(c))) {
stop("Input equal length vectors")
}
if (!(all(c > 0) || all(c < 0))) {
stop("All values of c must be either > 0 or  < 0.")
}
m <- length(a)
# initilialize log sum
x <- log(a[1]) - log(b[1]) + c[1]
# aggregate / loop log sum
for (j in 2:m) {
# build denominator
b2 <- b[1:j-1]
for (i in 1:j-1) {
d1 <- 0
c2 <- c[1:i]
if (all(c2 > 0)) {
c_min <- min(c2[1:j-1])
c2 <- c2 - c_min
} else if (all(c2 < 0)) {
c_min <- max(c2[1:j-1])
c2 <- c2 - c_min
}
d1 <- d1 + a[i] * prod(b2[-i]) * exp(c2[i])
}
den <- b[j] * (d1)
num <- a[j] * prod(b[1:j-1]) * exp(c[j] - c_min)
x <- x + log(1 + num / den)
}
return(x)
}