With the dramatic increase in data available from a new generation of astronomical telescopes and instruments, many analyses must address the question of the complexity as well as size of the data set. This chapter deals with how we can learn which measurements, properties, or combinations thereof carry the most information within a data set. It describes techniques that are related to concepts discussed when describing Gaussian distributions, density estimation, and the concepts of information content. The chapter begins with an exploration of the problems posed by high-dimensional data. It then describes the data sets used in this chapter, and introduces perhaps the most important and widely used dimensionality reduction technique, principal component analysis (PCA). The remainder of the chapter discusses several alternative techniques which address some of the weaknesses of PCA.
Adjusting systematic bias in high dimensional principal component scores
