The intent of this method is to detect, amplify, analyze
and visualize signal and signal heterogeneity in high dimensional datasets
(nVariables >> nObservations), such as whole-genome scans or complex
datasets incorporating large number of clinical (sub-phenotypes) and
non-clinical (genetics, genomics, metabolomics,...) variables of various
types (discrete and continous).
'Taxonomy 3' provides a statistical
framework to large scale or complex problems, and produces simple answers,
visually and biologically meaningful.
The method reduces the complexity and the dimensionality of the data,
reveals independent sets of correlated variables and meaningful sub-groups
of observations. Since a primary objective of 'Taxonomy 3' is to visualize
a complex dataset, it does not produce impenetrable 'black box'
solutions such as other multivariate methods (artificial neural networks
or support vector machine).
The authors believe this method can address
several industry and academic needs such as disease understanding, data
integration (integrated biomarker strategies) and decision making in
drug discovery and clinical development.