Multivariate statistical models Neural-network analysis

The pool of descriptors that is calculated must be winnowed down to a manageable set before constructing a statistical or neural network model. This operation is called feature selection. The first step of feature selection is to use a battery of objective statistical methods. Descriptors that contain little information, descriptors that have little variation across the data set, or descriptors that are highly correlated with other descriptors are candidates for elimination. Multivariate correlations among descriptor can also be discovered with multiple linear regression analysis, and these relationships can be broken down by elimination of descriptors. 

A more common use of informatics for data analysis is the development of (quantitative) structure-property relationships (QSPR) for the prediction of materials properties and thus ultimately the design of polymers. Quantitative structure-property relationships are multivariate statistical correlations between the property of a polymer and a number of variables, which are either physical properties themselves or descriptors, which hold information about a polymer in a more abstract way. The simplest QSPR models are usually linear regression-type models but complex neural networks and numerous other machine-learning techniques have also been used. 

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