The Interval-Censored Biplot

The principal components biplot is a useful visualization tool for the exploration of a samples by variables data matrix. In several data analysis situations, the data values are interval censored so that only the interval of a data value is available, but not the value itself. For such data, we propose the interval-censored biplot (IC-Biplot), a new exploratory and graphical method that is an extension of the principal component analysis biplot. It provides not only a two-dimensional graphic representation of respondents and their attributes, but also point estimates for the data values that are constrained to be in their interval. Two applications of the IC-Biplot are discussed. The first application considers data on emergence times of permanent teeth focusing on the pattern of emergence. The IC-Biplot confirms rank orders suggested earlier in the literature. Goodness-of-fit measures show that the present model seems to fit these data very well. The second application discusses a regular sample by attribute matrix from the literature on Characteristics of several types of oils. This article has online supplementary materials.