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A comparative study of approximations for perturbation analysis of principal components

Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Principal component analysis is a well known method for dimension reduction based on the covariance matrix associated to a multivariate data table. Therefore, a large amount of work has been devoted to analyzing the sensitivity of the eigenstructure of this matrix to influential observations. In order to evaluate the effect of deleting one or a small subset of observations, several approximations for the perturbed eigenelements have been proposed. This paper provides a theoretical and numerical comparison of the main approximations. A special emphasis is given to those based on Rayleigh quotients since they are under-utilized given their excellent performance. A general approach, using refined inequalities, is proposed in order to get a precise evaluation of their accuracy without having to recompute the exact perturbed eigenvalues and eigenvectors. This approach is of specific interest from a computational standpoint. Theoretical developments are illustrated with a numerical study which emphasizes the accuracy of approximations based on Rayleigh quotients.
Source: Methodology
Language: English
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4408849091
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Cites: 21
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Related to: 10