Structure Algorithms for Partially Ordered Isotonic Regression

Abstract

Abstract An algorithm for isotonic regression is called a structure algorithm if it searches for a “solution partition”—that is, a class of sets on each of which the isotonic regression is a constant. We discuss structure algorithms for partially ordered isotonic regression. In this article we provide a new class of structure algorithms called the isotonic block class (IBC) type algorithms. One of these is called the isotonic block class with recursion method (IBCR) algorithm, which works for partially ordered isotonic regression. It is a generalization of the pooled adjacent violators algorithm and is simpler than the min-max algorithm. We also give a polynomial time algorithm—the isotonic block class with stratification (IBCS) algorithm for matrix-ordered isotonic regression. We demonstrate the efficiency of our IBCR algorithm by using simulation to estimate the relative frequencies of the numbers of level sets of isotonic regressions on certain two-dimensional grids with the matrix order.