Adaptive regression model for synthesizing anthropometric population data

Journal article, 2017

This paper presents the development of an adaptive linear regression model for synthesizing of missing anthropometric population data based on a flexible set of known predictive data. The method is based on a conditional regression model and includes use of principal component analysis, to reduce effects of multicollinearity between selected predictive measurements, and incorporation of a stochastic component, using the partial correlation coefficients between predicted measurements. In addition, skewness of the distributions of the dependent variables is considered when incorporating the stochastic components. Results from the study show that the proposed regression models for synthesizing population data give valid results with small errors of the compared percentile values. However, higher accuracy was not achieved when the number of measurements used as independent variables was increased compared to using only stature and weight as independent variables. This indicates problems with multicollinearity that principal component regression were not able to overcome. Descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation values together with correlation coefficients is sufficient to perform the conditional regression procedure. However, to incorporate a stochastic component when using principal component regression requires raw data on an individual level. Relevance to industry When developing products, workplaces or systems, it is of great importance to consider the anthropometric diversity of the intended users. The proposed regression model offers a procedure that gives valid results, maintains the correlation between the measurements that are predicted and is adaptable regarding which, and number of, predictive measurements that are selected.