[RsR] port of LIBRA toolbox to R

Martin Maechler m@ech|er @end|ng |rom @t@t@m@th@ethz@ch
Sun Feb 4 20:42:33 CET 2007


Hi Tobias and everyone else 
   ((BTW: "anybody home?" , you've all been so quiet recently ..))

>>>>> "TobiasV" == Tobias Verbeke <tobias.verbeke using gmail.com>
>>>>>     on Thu, 01 Feb 2007 21:43:58 +0100 writes:

    TobiasV> Hi Martin, Martin Maechler wrote:

    >>>>>>> "Peter" == Peter Filzmoser
    >>>>>>> <P.Filzmoser using tuwien.ac.at> on Mon, 22 Jan 2007
    >>>>>>> 08:15:11 +0100 writes:
    >>
    Peter> Dear Tobias, This is very good news. Your work will
    Peter> be an important contribution to the project.
    >>  Indeed; thank you Tobias (and Mia and Sabine)!
    >> 
    >> In the mean-time, I've studied a bit the "function list"
    >> of LIBRA, and found that quite a few functions there seem
    >> to be there just because matlab is not R ("base + stats +
    >> MASS"); Several other ones have now been part of
    >> 'robustbase' for a while.  Most of the remaining
    >> functions where a port would seem very valuable are I
    >> think related to robust PCA and versions thereof.

    TobiasV> You're (of course) right that most of the basic
    TobiasV> LIBRA functionality is already present in the named
    TobiasV> R packages. As far as robust PCA is concerned, Mia
    TobiasV> and Sabine also agree that this is the lion's part
    TobiasV> of the job. They argued in the first place for the
    TobiasV> inclusion of `robpca' [1] as it appears to stand
    TobiasV> competition well amongst MCD-based methods.

    TobiasV> Mia, Sabine and myself already had a discussion
    TobiasV> function by function on what is and is not yet
    TobiasV> available. Here is a summary which also reflects
    TobiasV> priority (no logic in there) on my TODO list:

Thanks a lot, that's very useful!

    TobiasV> (1) For the moment I am working on the medcouple
    TobiasV> and the skewness adjusted version of the boxplot
    TobiasV> which would both be candidates for inclusion in
    TobiasV> robustbase.

    TobiasV> (2) Next, I plan to address `robpca', also
    TobiasV> candidate for robustbase (cf. supra). Mia and
    TobiasV> Sabine are reconsidering for the moment more
    TobiasV> efficient algorithms for the cross-validated PRESS
    TobiasV> value used that are not yet part of the current
    TobiasV> version of MATLAB LIBRA. Together with robpca, some
    TobiasV> diagnostic plots for robust PCA were developed
    TobiasV> which could be added as well.

Yes; though I think the computation and plotting should
typically well separated, in typical S style

Foo() computes an object of class "Foo" which has 
a print() [S3] or show() [S4] and a plot() method,
and possibly a summary() {which produces a "summaryFoo" object that
prints with a print.summary.Foo() methods}.

    TobiasV> (3) Work towards integration (if not yet present)
    TobiasV> in robustbase of multivariate linear models. A
    TobiasV> design allowing the specification of different
    TobiasV> robust covariance matrices to be used might offer
    TobiasV> the flexibility R people are used to. This
    TobiasV> corresponds to the (MCD-only) function `Mcdregres'
    TobiasV> in LIBRA.

good point and very welcome:  Traditional regression with lm()  works
multi-variately "built-in".  From lmrob() this has been one of
the several "TODO" items...

    TobiasV> (4) robustified versions of traditional
    TobiasV> classification methods (robust discriminant
    TobiasV> analysis [`rda'] etc.). Should not be part of
    TobiasV> robustbase and will be packaged separately as more
    TobiasV> recent classification methods outperform these
    TobiasV> traditional methods.

Yes, indeed. I forgot to mention these in my first e-mail.

    TobiasV> (5) robust versions of popular methods in
    TobiasV> chemometrics such as `rsimpls', `rpcr', etc. These
    TobiasV> again are no candidate for inclusion in robustbase
    TobiasV> and are planned to be packaged separately.

    TobiasV> Kind regards, Tobias

I wish you a good start, and am glad to collaborate .. in about
5 weeks since I'm very busy just now before the DSC meeting in
Auckland and subsequent long vacations...

Martin


    TobiasV> [1] Hubert, M., Rousseeuw, P.J., Vanden Branden,
    TobiasV> K. (2005).  ROBPCA: a new approach to robust
    TobiasV> principal component analysis, Technometrics, 47,
    TobiasV> 64-79.

    >> One question that may become interesting a bit later
    >> (when speed & memory performance may be considered) is
    >> how much of the code can be and should be built on the
    >> fast-MCD code from robustbase.  I still have plans to
    >> translate that to C and "export its API" since nowadays R
    >> packages *can* export their C API, i.e. have other R
    >> packages' C or R code directly call the C code of the
    >> first package.
    >> 
    >> Regards, Martin
    >> 
    Peter> Tobias Verbeke wrote:
    >> >> Dear R-SIG-Robust,
    >> >> 
    >> >> I am happy to announce that Mia Hubert and Sabine >>
    >> Verboven decided to let me port all of the LIBRA >>
    >> functionality (cf.  >>
    >> http://wis.kuleuven.be/stat/robust/LIBRA.html ) to R and
    >> >> release the resulting work under GPL.
    >> >> 
    >> >> I will discuss progress on the list not only to keep
    >> you >> posted but also to make the best decisions
    >> together in >> order to seamlessly integrate the
    >> functions with the >> current framework.
    >> >> 
    >> >> Everything should be available by October 2007.
    >> >> 
    >> >> Best wishes, Tobias
    >> >> 
    >> 
    >> 
    Peter> --
    Peter> -------------------------------------------------------
    Peter> From: Prof. Dr. Peter Filzmoser Dept. of Statistics &
    Peter> Probability Theory Vienna University of Technology
    Peter> Wiedner Hauptstrasse 8-10 A-1040 Vienna, Austria
    Peter> Tel. +43 1 58801/10733 Fax. +43 1 58801/10799 E-mail:
    Peter> P.Filzmoser using tuwien.ac.at Internet:
    Peter> http://www.statistik.tuwien.ac.at/public/filz/
    >>
    Peter> _______________________________________________
    Peter> R-SIG-Robust using r-project.org mailing list
    Peter> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-robust
    >>


    TobiasV> --

    TobiasV> Tobias Verbeke - Consultant Business & Decision
    TobiasV> Benelux Rue de la révolution 8 1000 Brussels -
    TobiasV> BELGIUM

    TobiasV> +32 499 36 33 15
    TobiasV> tobias.verbeke using businessdecision.com




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