The problem of classifying multiple categorical responses is fundamental in modern machine learning and statistics, with diverse applications in fields such as bioinformatics and imaging. This manuscript investigates linear discriminant analysis (LDA) with high-dimensional predictors and multiple multi-class responses. Specifically, we first examine two different classification scenarios under the bivariate LDA model: joint classification of the two responses and conditional classification of one response while observing the other. To achieve optimal classification rules for both scenarios, we introduce two novel tensor formulations of the discriminant coefficients and corresponding regularization strategies. For joint classification, we propose an overlapping group lasso penalty and a blockwise coordinate descent algorithm to efficiently compute the joint discriminant coefficient tensors. For conditional classification, we utilize an alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) algorithm to compute the discriminant coefficient tensors under new constraints. We then extend our method and algorithms to general multivariate responses. Finally, we validate the effectiveness of our approach through simulation studies and applications to benchmark datasets.

The expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm and its variants are widely used in statistics. In high-dimensional mixture linear regression, the model is assumed to be a finite mixture of linear regression and the number of predictors is much larger than the sample size. The standard EM algorithm, which attempts to find the maximum likelihood estimator, becomes infeasible for such model. We devise a group lasso penalized EM algorithm and study its statistical properties. Existing theoretical results of regularized EM algorithms often rely on dividing the sample into many independent batches and employing a fresh batch of sample in each iteration of the algorithm. Our algorithm and theoretical analysis do not require sample-splitting, and can be extended to multivariate response cases. The proposed methods also have encouraging performances in numerical studies.

Sufficient dimension reduction (SDR) is a very useful concept for exploratory analysis and data visualization in regression, especially when the number of covariates is large. Many SDR methods have been proposed for regression with a continuous response, where the central subspace (CS) is the target of estimation. Various conditions, such as the linearity condition and the constant covariance condition, are imposed so that these methods can estimate at least a portion of the CS. In this paper we study SDR for regression and discriminant analysis with categorical response. Motivated by the exploratory analysis and data visualization aspects of SDR, we propose a new geometric framework to reformulate the SDR problem in terms of manifold optimization and introduce a new concept called Maximum Separation Subspace (MASES). The MASES naturally preserves the “sufficiency” in SDR without imposing additional conditions on the predictor distribution, and directly inspires a semi-parametric estimator. Numerical studies show MASES exhibits superior performance as compared with competing SDR methods in specific settings.