Contributions to linear discriminant analysis with applications to growth curves

Sammanfattning: This thesis concerns contributions to linear discriminant analysis with applications to growth curves.Firstly, we present the linear discriminant function coefficients in a stochastic representation using random variables from the standard univariate distributions. We apply the characterized distribution in the classification function to approximate the classification error rate. The results are then extended to large dimension asymptotics under assumption that the dimension p of the parameter space increases together with the sample size n to infinity such that the ratio  converges to a positive constant c  (0, 1).Secondly, the thesis treats repeated measures data which correspond to multiple measurements that are taken on the same subject at different time points. We develop a linear classification function to classify an individual into one out of two populations on the basis of the repeated measures data that when the means follow a growth curve structure. The growth curve structure we first consider assumes that all treatments (groups) follows the same growth profile. However, this is not necessarily true in general and the problem is extended to linear classification where the means follow an extended growth curve structure, i.e., the treatments under the experimental design follow different growth profiles.At last, a function of the inverse Wishart matrix and a normal distribution finds its application in portfolio theory where the vector of optimal portfolio weights is proportional to the product of the inverse sample covariance matrix and a sample mean vector. Analytical expressions for higher order moments and non-central moments of the portfolio weights are derived when the returns are assumed to be independently multivariate normally distributed. Moreover, the expressions for the mean, variance, skewness and kurtosis of specific estimated weights are obtained. The results are complemented using a Monte Carlo simulation study, where data from the multivariate normal and t-distributions are discussed.