OPLS discriminant analysis:: combining the strengths of PLS-DA and SIMCA classification

The characteristics of the OPLS method have been investigated for the purpose of discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA). We demonstrate how class-orthogonal variation can be exploited to augment classification performance in cases where the individual classes exhibit divergence in within-class variation, in analogy with soft independent modelling of class analogy (SIMCA) classification. The prediction results will be largely equivalent to traditional supervised classification using PLS-DA if no such variation is present in the classes. A discriminatory strategy is thus outlined, combining the strengths of PLS-DA and SIMCA classification within the framework of the OPLS-DA method. Furthermore, resampling methods have been employed to generate distributions of predicted classification results and subsequently assess classification belief. This enables utilisation of the class-orthogonal variation in a proper statistical context. The proposed decision rule is compared to common decision rules and is shown to produce comparable or less class-biased classification results. Copyright (c) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.