RobCoP: A Matlab Package for Robust CoPlot Analysis

Abstract

The graphical representation method, Robust CoPlot, is a robust variant of the classical CoPlot method. CoPlot is an adaptation of multidimensional scaling (MDS), and is a practical tool for visual inspection and rich interpretation of multivariate data. CoPlot enables presentation of a multidimensional dataset in a two dimensions, in a manner that relations between both variables and observations to be analyzed together. It has also been used as a supplemental tool to cluster analysis, data envelopment analysis (DEA) and outlier detection methods in the literature. However, this method is very sensitive to outliers. When a multidimensional dataset contains outliers, this can lead to undesirable consequences such as the inaccurate representation of the variables. The motivation is to produce Robust CoPlot that is not unduly affected by outliers. In this study, we have presented a new MATLAB package RobCoP for generating robust graphical representation of a multidimensional dataset. This study serves a useful purpose for researchers studying the implementation of Robust CoPlot method by providing a description of the software package RobCoP; it also offers some limited information on the Robust CoPlot analysis itself. The package presented here has enough flexibility to allow a user to select an MDS type and vector correlation method to produce either classical or Robust CoPlot results.