philentropy
PackageComparison is a fundamental method of scientific research leading to
more general insights about the processes that generate similarity or
dissimilarity. In statistical terms comparisons between probability
functions are performed to infer connections, correlations, or
relationships between samples. The philentropy
package
implements optimized distance and similarity measures for comparing
probability functions. These comparisons between probability functions
have their foundations in a broad range of scientific disciplines from
mathematics to ecology. The aim of this package is to provide a base
framework for clustering, classification, statistical inference,
goodness-of-fit, non-parametric statistics, information theory, and
machine learning tasks that are based on comparing univariate or
multivariate probability functions.
Applying the method of comparison in statistics often means computing distances between probability functions. In this context Sung-Hyuk Cha (2007) provides a clear definition of distance :
From the scientific and mathematical point of view, distance is defined as a quantitative degree of how far apart two objects are.
Hence, quantifying the distance of two objects requires the
assumption about a particular space in which these objects live. For the
euclidean distance, for example, this would mean comparison of objects
(coordinates) in euclidean space (e.g. coordinate system) while other
distance measures may require different spaces to allow sensitive and
appropriate quantification of distances between objects
(e.g. probability space). This aspect of quantifying the
degree of how far two objects are apart in a defined space
(adjusted definition) motivates the existence of diverse distance
measures. As a result, the domain expert should appreciate the
responsibility to decide in which space their model or experimental data
is best represented and which distance metric then maximizes the
usefulness of object comparison within this defined space.
Cha’s comprehensive review of distance/similarity measures motivated me to implement all these measures to better understand their comparative nature. As Cha states:
The choice of distance/similarity measures depends on the measurement type or representation of objects.
As a result, the philentropy
package implements
functions that are part of the following topics:
Personally, I hope that some of these functions are helpful to the scientific community.
Here, the Distance
Measure Vignette introduces how to work with the main function
distance()
that implements the 46 distance measures
presented in Cha’s review.
Furthermore, for each distance/similarity measure a short description on usage and performance is presented.
The following probability distance/similarity measures will be described in detail:
Note: d refers to distance measures, whereas s denotes similarity measures.
Modern methods for distribution comparisons have a strong information
theoretic background. This fact motivated me to name this package
philentropy
and as a result, several well established
information theory measures are (and further will be) implemented in
this package.