tt: Treelet Transform with Stata

Abstract

The treelet transform is a recent data reduction technique from the field of machine learning. Sharing many similarities with principal component analysis, the treelet transform can reduce a multidimensional dataset to the projections on a small number of directions or components that account for much of the variation in the original data. However, in contrast to principal component analysis, the treelet transform produces sparse components. This can greatly simplify interpretation. I describe the tt Stata add-on for performing the treelet transform. The addon includes a Mata implementation of the treelet transform algorithm alongside other functionality to aid in the practical application of the treelet transform. I demonstrate an example of a basic exploratory data analysis using the tt add-on.