A novel scale-space approach for multinormality testing and the k-sample problem in the high dimension low sample size scenario

PLoS One. 2019 Jan 22;14(1):e0211044. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0211044. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

Two classical multivariate statistical problems, testing of multivariate normality and the k-sample problem, are explored by a novel analysis on several resolutions simultaneously. The presented methods do not invert any estimated covariance matrix. Thereby, the methods work in the High Dimension Low Sample Size situation, i.e. when n ≤ p. The output, a significance map, is produced by doing a one-dimensional test for all possible resolution/position pairs. The significance map shows for which resolution/position pairs the null hypothesis is rejected. For the testing of multinormality, the Anderson-Darling test is utilized to detect potential departures from multinormality at different combinations of resolutions and positions. In the k-sample case, it is tested whether k data sets can be said to originate from the same unspecified discrete or continuous multivariate distribution. This is done by testing the k vectors corresponding to the same resolution/position pair of the k different data sets through the k-sample Anderson-Darling test. Successful demonstrations of the new methodology on artificial and real data sets are presented, and a feature selection scheme is demonstrated.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms*
  • Data Interpretation, Statistical
  • Models, Theoretical*

Grants and funding

J.H. received funding from the National Science Foundation of the United States (https://www.nsf.gov/) under Grant No. 1512945 and 1633074l. F.G. received funding from the eVita program (grant number 176872/V30) of the Norwegian Research Council (https://www.forskningsradet.no). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.