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Discriminant analysis using the unweighted sum of binary variables: a comparison of model selection methods
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Discriminant analysis using the unweighted sum of binary variables: a comparison of model selection methods

Douglas R Langbehn and Robert F Woolson
Statistics in medicine, Vol.16(23), pp.2679-2700
12/15/1997
DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1097-0258(19971215)16:23<2679::AID-SIM695>3.0.CO;2-1
PMID: 9421869

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Abstract

Many clinical decision‐making rules are equivalent to linear discriminant functions that involve the unweighted sum of binary variables (SBV). We briefly consider the geometry of this restriction and then propose a number of methods for forward stepwise selection of SBV models. Using a simulation study, we compare the performance of these methods under a wide range of plausible conditions and show that no single method is uniformly superior for selecting models of a fixed size. Factors of general importance in relative method performance are the ratio of sample size to the number of candidate variables and the class‐conditional moment structure of the data. We conclude by offering some practical strategies for SBV model construction. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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