On the Comparisons of Decorrelation Approaches for Non-Gaussian Neutral Vector Variables

As a typical non-Gaussian vector variable, a neutral vector variable contains nonnegative elements only, and its l₁-norm equals one. In addition, its neutral properties make it significantly different from the commonly studied vector variables (e.g., the Gaussian vector variables). Due to the aforementioned properties, the conventionally applied linear transformation approaches [e.g., principal component analysis (PCA) and independent component analysis (ICA)] are not suitable for neutral vector variables, as PCA cannot transform a neutral vector variable, which is highly negatively correlated, into a set of mutually independent scalar variables and ICA cannot preserve the bounded property after transformation. In recent work, we proposed an efficient nonlinear transformation approach, i.e., the parallel nonlinear transformation (PNT), for decorrelating neutral vector variables. In this article, we extensively compare PNT with PCA and ICA through both theoretical analysis and experimental evaluations. The results of our investigations demonstrate the superiority of PNT for decorrelating the neutral vector variables

Manifold Learning in MR spectroscopy using nonlinear dimensionality reduction and unsupervised clustering

Purpose To investigate whether nonlinear dimensionality reduction improves unsupervised classification of 1H MRS brain tumor data compared with a linear method. Methods In vivo single-voxel 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy (55 patients) and 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy imaging (MRSI) (29 patients) data were acquired from histopathologically diagnosed gliomas. Data reduction using Laplacian eigenmaps (LE) or independent component analysis (ICA) was followed by k-means clustering or agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC) for unsupervised learning to assess tumor grade and for tissue type segmentation of MRSI data. Results An accuracy of 93% in classification of glioma grade II and grade IV, with 100% accuracy in distinguishing tumor and normal spectra, was obtained by LE with unsupervised clustering, but not with the combination of k-means and ICA. With 1H MRSI data, LE provided a more linear distribution of data for cluster analysis and better cluster stability than ICA. LE combined with k-means or AHC provided 91% accuracy for classifying tumor grade and 100% accuracy for identifying normal tissue voxels. Color-coded visualization of normal brain, tumor core, and infiltration regions was achieved with LE combined with AHC. Conclusion Purpose To investigate whether nonlinear dimensionality reduction improves unsupervised classification of 1H MRS brain tumor data compared with a linear method. Methods In vivo single-voxel 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy (55 patients) and 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy imaging (MRSI) (29 patients) data were acquired from histopathologically diagnosed gliomas. Data reduction using Laplacian eigenmaps (LE) or independent component analysis (ICA) was followed by k-means clustering or agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC) for unsupervised learning to assess tumor grade and for tissue type segmentation of MRSI data. Results An accuracy of 93% in classification of glioma grade II and grade IV, with 100% accuracy in distinguishing tumor and normal spectra, was obtained by LE with unsupervised clustering, but not with the combination of k-means and ICA. With 1H MRSI data, LE provided a more linear distribution of data for cluster analysis and better cluster stability than ICA. LE combined with k-means or AHC provided 91% accuracy for classifying tumor grade and 100% accuracy for identifying normal tissue voxels. Color-coded visualization of normal brain, tumor core, and infiltration regions was achieved with LE combined with AHC. Conclusion The LE method is promising for unsupervised clustering to separate brain and tumor tissue with automated color-coding for visualization of 1H MRSI data after cluster analysis

Decorrelation of Neutral Vector Variables: Theory and Applications

In this paper, we propose novel strategies for neutral vector variable decorrelation. Two fundamental invertible transformations, namely serial nonlinear transformation and parallel nonlinear transformation, are proposed to carry out the decorrelation. For a neutral vector variable, which is not multivariate Gaussian distributed, the conventional principal component analysis (PCA) cannot yield mutually independent scalar variables. With the two proposed transformations, a highly negatively correlated neutral vector can be transformed to a set of mutually independent scalar variables with the same degrees of freedom. We also evaluate the decorrelation performances for the vectors generated from a single Dirichlet distribution and a mixture of Dirichlet distributions. The mutual independence is verified with the distance correlation measurement. The advantages of the proposed decorrelation strategies are intensively studied and demonstrated with synthesized data and practical application evaluations