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The sum of two concave functions is itself concave and so is the pointwise minimum of two concave functions, i.e. the set of concave functions on a given domain form a semifield. Near a strict local maximum in the interior of the domain of a function, the function must be concave; as a partial converse, if the derivative of a strictly concave ...
The second derivative of a function f can be used to determine the concavity of the graph of f. [2] A function whose second derivative is positive is said to be concave up (also referred to as convex), meaning that the tangent line near the point where it touches the function will lie below the graph of the function.
Specifically, a twice-differentiable function f is concave up if ″ > and concave down if ″ <. Note that if f ( x ) = x 4 {\displaystyle f(x)=x^{4}} , then x = 0 {\displaystyle x=0} has zero second derivative, yet is not an inflection point, so the second derivative alone does not give enough information to determine whether a given point is ...
Every concave function that is nonnegative on its domain is log-concave. However, the reverse does not necessarily hold. An example is the Gaussian function f(x) = exp(−x 2 /2) which is log-concave since log f(x) = −x 2 /2 is a concave function of x. But f is not concave since the second derivative is positive for | x | > 1:
In simple terms, a convex function graph is shaped like a cup (or a straight line like a linear function), while a concave function's graph is shaped like a cap . A twice- differentiable function of a single variable is convex if and only if its second derivative is nonnegative on its entire domain . [ 1 ]
Every concave function is quasiconcave, but the opposite is not true. Every monotone transformation of a quasiconcave function is also quasiconcave. For example, if f : R n → R {\displaystyle f:\mathbb {R} ^{n}\to \mathbb {R} } is quasiconcave and g : R → R {\displaystyle g:\mathbb {R} \to \mathbb {R} } is a monotonically-increasing ...
If the signs differ, then the sequence is concave. In this example, the polygon is negatively oriented, but the determinant for the points F-G-H is positive, and so the sequence F-G-H is concave. The following table illustrates rules for determining whether a sequence of points is convex, concave, or flat:
In the following figure, the minimization problem on the left side of the equation is illustrated. One seeks to vary x such that the vertical distance between the convex and concave curves at x is as small as possible. The position of the vertical line in the figure is the (approximate) optimum.