Discriminant Analysis And Clustering

Classification and Clustering documents the proceedings of the Advanced Seminar on Classification and Clustering held in Madison, Wisconsin on May 3-5, 1976. This compilation discusses the relationship between multidimensional scaling and clustering, distribution problems in clustering, and botryology of botryology. The graph theoretic techniques for cluster analysis algorithms, data dependent clustering techniques, and linguistic approach to pattern recognition are also elaborated. This text likewise covers the discriminant analysis when scale contamination is present in the initial sample and statistical basis of computerized diagnosis using the electrocardiogram. Other topics include the simple histogram method for nonparametric classification and optimal smoothing of density estimates. This book is intended for mathematicians, biological scientists, social scientists, computer scientists, statisticians, and engineers interested in classification and clustering.

At a moderately advanced level, this book seeks to cover the areas of clustering and related methods of data analysis where major advances are being made. Topics include: hierarchical clustering, variable selection and weighting, additive trees and other network models, relevance of neural network models to clustering, the role of computational complexity in cluster analysis, latent class approaches to cluster analysis, theory and method with applications of a hierarchical classes model in psychology and psychopathology, combinatorial data analysis, clusterwise aggregation of relations, review of the Japanese-language results on clustering, review of the Russian-language results on clustering and multidimensional scaling, practical advances, and significance tests.

Multivariate analysis is a popular area in statistics and data science. This book provides a good balance between conceptual understanding, key theoretical presentation, and detailed implementation with software R for commonly used multivariate analysis models and methods in practice.

The volume presents new developments in data analysis and classification and gives an overview of the state of the art in these scientific fields and relevant applications. Areas that receive considerable attention in the book are clustering, discrimination, data analysis, and statistics, as well as applications in economics, biology, and medicine it provides recent technical and methodological developments and a large number of application papers demonstrating the usefulness of the newly developed techniques.

The analysis of cyclical macroeconomic phenomena is an important field of econometric research. In the recent past, research interests have de-emphasized quantitative forecasting exercises and have addressed the qualitative diagnosis of the relative stance of the economy regarding »upswing«, »recession«, or »boom« periods, i. e. the classification of the state of the economy into a limited number of discrete states. In this context the principal challenge is to reduce the multifaceted and sometimes abundant quantitative information about the business cycle to such qualitative statements in an efficient way. For more than six years this task was the focus of the project »Multivariate determination and analysis of business cycles« within the SFB 475 »Reduction of complexity in multivariate data structures«, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The necessity for complexity reduction is, of course, not unique to business cycle analysis but is studied in many fields and in a number of ways. This broad interest in the reduction of problem dimensionality and in the appropriate combination of data and of theory caused the RWI Essen and the Statistical Department of the University of Dortmund in January 2002 to hold a workshop at the RWI Essen where the findings of this and similar projects were presented and discussed. The present publication collects revised versions of the papers presented at this workshop. Although the workshop took place some five years ago, these papers mark an importent juncture in the development of business cycle research.