Section: Application Domains

Curve classification

The field of classification for complex data such as curves, functions, spectra and time series, is an important problem in current research. Standard data analysis questions are being looked into anew, in order to define novel strategies that take the functional nature of such data into account. Functional data analysis addresses a variety of applied problems, including longitudinal studies, analysis of fMRI data, and spectral calibration.

We are focused in particular on unsupervised classification. In addition to standard questions such as the choice of the number of clusters, the norm for measuring the distance between two observations, and vectors for representing clusters, we must also address a major computational problem: the functional nature of the data, which requires new approaches.