title: Neutral Zone Classifiers Using a Decision-Theoretic Approach With Application to DNA Array Analyses.
abstract: Two-class neutral zone classifiers were recently proposed for use in microbial community profiling applications. These classifiers allow a region of neutrality for cases where probe hybridization outcomes are too ambiguous to have adequate confidence in assigning a "binding" or "no binding" result. In this paper, we generalize the idea of neutral zone classifiers to an arbitrary number of classes and apply it to improve the process of microbial community profiling by considering a third class for the outcome of probe hybridization experiments, "partial binding." We introduce a family of class distributions that uses a mixture of Gaussian distributions as a model for a Box-Cox power transformation of the raw intensity measurements. Stratified cross-validation analyses are used to assess the efficacy of the proposed three-class neutral zone classifier. This article has supplementary material online.
authors.affiliation: Amgen, Inc., One Amgen Center Drive, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320-1799, USA.
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Daniel R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Jeske
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ruegger
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Borneman