Segmented classification analysis with a class of rectangle-screened elliptical populations

Abstract

In many practical situations, a statistical practitioner often faces a problem of classifying an object from one of the segmented (or screened) populations where the segmentation was conducted by a set of screening variables. This paper addresses this problem, proposing and studying yet another optimal rule for classification with segmented populations. A class of q-dimensional rectangle-screened elliptically contoured (RSEC) distributions is considered for flexibly modeling the segmented populations. Based on the properties of the RSEC distributions, a parametric procedure for the segmented classification analysis (SCA) is proposed. This includes motivation for the SCA as well as some theoretical propositions regarding its optimal rule and properties. These properties allow us to establish other important results which include an efficient estimation of the rule by the Monte Carlo expectation–conditional maximization algorithm and an optimal variable selection procedure. Two numerical examples making use of utilizing a simulation study and a real dataset application and advocating the SCA procedure are also provided.