Suppose that samples are given in a 2-dimensional feature space as shown in Table 1.
The samples are denoted by xi=(xi1,xi2)T, (i=1,…,n), where T represents the transpose of a vector or a matrix. Answer the following questions.
(1) Suppose that a classification of the samples in Table 1 (a) is given by
Class(xi)={C1C2(i=1,3,5)(i=2,4,6)
where C1 and C2 represent two classes.
Find the linear classifier function that classifies a new sample xj into the class whose center is closer to the sample in Euclidean distance than the other class’s center.
(2) Suppose that another classification of the samples in Table 1 (a) is given by
Class(xi)={C3C4(i=3,5,6)(i=1,2,4)
where C3 and C4 represent two classes.
Explain how we can compare the discriminability of the classifications given in (1) and (2) by using the within-class variance concerning the distribution of the samples within a class and the between-class variance concerning the distribution of the classes.
(3) For each class given in (1), give the formula for calculating Mahalanobis distance for xi.
(4) Explain which class given in (1) is suitable for the sample in Table 1 (b).
The assumption on the sample distribution required for the discussion must be clearly stated.
Let the point (x,y) be where the Euclidean distance from c1 and c2 are equal. Then we define a linear classifier with the decision boundary as follows:
Since a larger ratio of between-class variance (sum of squared class center-overall center distances) to within-class variance (sum of squared data-class center distances) is considered a better classification, we compare the ratio r1 and r2 of Q1 and Q2.
Let ci denote the center of class Ci. Then we have
Assume that each sample follows a multivariate normal distribution.
Based on the form of the probability density function of the multivariate normal distribution (assuming the samples of each class form a multivariate normal distribution respectively), it is better to classify the sample into the class with the smaller Mahalanobis distance calculated using the method in Q3.
Following the formula given in Q3, the Mahalanobis distances L1 and L2 for x7 are