Display linear scores, normalized by the maximum (#625)

PageRank outputs scores as components in a probability distribution.
This means that most scores are very small numbers, e.g. 0.00003. This
doesn't make for a great UI (humans don't like thinking in tiny
decimals).

Our first attempt to come up with a more readable UI was to use log
scores; in #265 we displayed the log score alongside (arbitrarily)
`rawScore * 100` in the UI. The log scores were more usable, so we kept
them, with subsequent modifications. In the original version, all the
log scores were negative. In #466, we arbitrarily added 10 to the
scores, which made most scores look nicer, but introduced a meaningless
switch where scores counter-intuitively become negative after a certain
point. That was bad, so in #535 we started displaying negative log
scores. This is also counter-intuitive: it's weird that lower scores are
better, and it's not clear that a score of (say) 3 is 20x better than a
score of 6.

I think we need to do away with the log scores; people just don't think
about numbers logarithmically. This commit switches to linear scores,
normalized so that the largest score is always 1000. I've tried this out
on a few repos and demo'd it to people, and it seems much clearer.

Test plan: Some unit tests added; also, I launched the cred explorer and
experienced the change on several projects.

src/app/credExplorer/PagerankTable.js

@@ -45,8 +45,8 @@ function edgeVerb(
   return direction === "FORWARD" ? edgeType.forwardName : edgeType.backwardName;
 }
 
-function scoreDisplay(probability: number) {
-  return (-1 * Math.log(probability)).toFixed(2);
+function scoreDisplay(score: number) {
+  return score.toFixed(2);
 }
 
 type SharedProps = {|

src/app/credExplorer/PagerankTable.test.js

@@ -348,10 +348,10 @@ describe("app/credExplorer/PagerankTable", () => {
           .text()
       ).toEqual("—");
     });
-    it("renders a score column with the node's log-score", async () => {
+    it("renders a score column with the node's score", async () => {
       const {element, sharedProps, node} = await setup();
-      const {score: rawScore} = NullUtil.get(sharedProps.pnd.get(node));
-      const expectedScore = (-Math.log(rawScore)).toFixed(2);
+      const {score} = NullUtil.get(sharedProps.pnd.get(node));
+      const expectedScore = score.toFixed(2);
       const connectionColumn = COLUMNS().indexOf("Score");
       expect(connectionColumn).not.toEqual(-1);
       expect(
@@ -495,9 +495,9 @@ describe("app/credExplorer/PagerankTable", () => {
           .text()
       ).toEqual(expectedText);
     });
-    it("renders a score column with the source's log-score", async () => {
+    it("renders a score column with the source's score", async () => {
       const {element, connection} = await setup();
-      const expectedScore = (-Math.log(connection.sourceScore)).toFixed(2);
+      const expectedScore = connection.sourceScore.toFixed(2);
       const connectionColumn = COLUMNS().indexOf("Score");
       expect(connectionColumn).not.toEqual(-1);
       expect(

src/core/attribution/nodeScore.js

@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+// @flow
+
+import type {NodeAddressT} from "../graph";
+import type {NodeDistribution} from "./graphToMarkovChain";
+
+export type NodeScore = Map<NodeAddressT, number>;
+
+export function scoreByMaximumProbability(
+  pi: NodeDistribution,
+  maxScore: number
+): NodeScore {
+  if (maxScore <= 0) {
+    throw new Error("Invalid argument: maxScore must be >= 0");
+  }
+  let maxProbability = 0;
+  for (const p of pi.values()) {
+    maxProbability = Math.max(p, maxProbability);
+  }
+  if (maxProbability <= 0) {
+    throw new Error("Invariant violation: maxProbability must be >= 0");
+  }
+  const multiFactor = maxScore / maxProbability;
+  const scoreMap = new Map();
+  for (const [addr, prob] of pi) {
+    scoreMap.set(addr, prob * multiFactor);
+  }
+  return scoreMap;
+}

src/core/attribution/nodeScore.test.js

@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+// @flow
+
+import {NodeAddress} from "../graph";
+import {scoreByMaximumProbability} from "./nodeScore";
+describe("core/attribution/nodeScore", () => {
+  const foo = NodeAddress.fromParts(["foo"]);
+  const bar = NodeAddress.fromParts(["bar"]);
+  const zod = NodeAddress.fromParts(["zod"]);
+  it("works on a simple case", () => {
+    const distribution = new Map();
+    distribution.set(foo, 0.5);
+    distribution.set(bar, 0.3);
+    distribution.set(zod, 0.2);
+    const result = scoreByMaximumProbability(distribution, 100);
+    expect(result.get(foo)).toEqual(100);
+    expect(result.get(bar)).toEqual(60);
+    expect(result.get(zod)).toEqual(40);
+  });
+  it("normalizes to the maxScore argument", () => {
+    const distribution = new Map();
+    distribution.set(foo, 0.5);
+    distribution.set(bar, 0.3);
+    distribution.set(zod, 0.2);
+    const result = scoreByMaximumProbability(distribution, 1000);
+    expect(result.get(foo)).toEqual(1000);
+    expect(result.get(bar)).toEqual(600);
+    expect(result.get(zod)).toEqual(400);
+  });
+  it("handles a case with only a single node", () => {
+    const distribution = new Map();
+    distribution.set(foo, 1.0);
+    const result = scoreByMaximumProbability(distribution, 1000);
+    expect(result.get(foo)).toEqual(1000);
+  });
+  it("errors if maxScore <= 0", () => {
+    const distribution = new Map();
+    distribution.set(foo, 1.0);
+    const result = () => scoreByMaximumProbability(distribution, 0);
+    expect(result).toThrowError("Invalid argument");
+  });
+  it("throws an error rather than divide by 0", () => {
+    const distribution = new Map();
+    distribution.set(foo, 0.0);
+    const result = () => scoreByMaximumProbability(distribution, 1000);
+    expect(result).toThrowError("Invariant violation");
+  });
+});

src/core/attribution/pagerank.js

@@ -12,6 +12,8 @@ import {
   type PagerankNodeDecomposition,
 } from "./pagerankNodeDecomposition";
 
+import {scoreByMaximumProbability} from "./nodeScore";
+
 import {findStationaryDistribution} from "./markovChain";
 
 export type {NodeDistribution} from "./graphToMarkovChain";
@@ -21,6 +23,8 @@ export type PagerankOptions = {|
   +verbose?: boolean,
   +convergenceThreshold?: number,
   +maxIterations?: number,
+  // Scores will be normalized so that `maxScore` is the highest score
+  +maxScore?: number,
 |};
 
 export type {EdgeWeight} from "./graphToMarkovChain";
@@ -32,6 +36,7 @@ function defaultOptions(): PagerankOptions {
     selfLoopWeight: 1e-3,
     convergenceThreshold: 1e-7,
     maxIterations: 255,
+    maxScore: 1000,
   };
 }
 
@@ -57,5 +62,6 @@ export async function pagerank(
     yieldAfterMs: 30,
   });
   const pi = distributionToNodeDistribution(osmc.nodeOrder, distribution);
-  return decompose(pi, connections);
+  const scores = scoreByMaximumProbability(pi, fullOptions.maxScore);
+  return decompose(scores, connections);
 }

src/core/attribution/pagerankNodeDecomposition.js

@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ import {
   type NodeToConnections,
   adjacencySource,
 } from "./graphToMarkovChain";
-import type {NodeDistribution} from "./pagerank";
+import type {NodeScore} from "./nodeScore";
 import * as MapUtil from "../../util/map";
 import * as NullUtil from "../../util/null";
 
@@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ export type PagerankNodeDecomposition = Map<
 >;
 
 export function decompose(
-  pr: NodeDistribution,
+  pr: NodeScore,
   connections: NodeToConnections
 ): PagerankNodeDecomposition {
   return MapUtil.mapValues(connections, (target, connections) => {