Application of box-cox transformations to discrimination for the two-class problem

Abstract

The performance of Box-Cox power transformations in classification using Hinkley's (1975) method is studied. Misclassification probabilities before and after transformation are compared. It is found that the use of Box-Cox transformations can sometimes substantially reduce the error probabilities. Estimates of error probabilities are obtained and certain properties are derived. Examples for a number of distributions are given.

Keywords:

• error probabilities
• location-shift
• symmetry