While I don't know anything about Box's M test, I googled around and found a Matlab M-file that computes it. Below is my straight-forward translation of the code, without knowing Matlab or the formula (and done in a few minutes). I hope this demonstrates one of Prof. Ripley's point: If you really want to shoot yourself in the foot, you can probably program R to do that for you.
[BTW: I left the original comments largely intact. The output I get from R for the example is the same as what is shown in the comments.] [BTW #2: I'd imagine the original Matlab code probably could be improved a bit...] Andy ======================================================================= BoxMTest <- function(X, cl, alpha=0.05) { ## Multivariate Statistical Testing for the Homogeneity of Covariance ## Matrices by the Box's M. ## ## Syntax: function [MBox] = BoxMTest(X,alpha) ## ## Inputs: ## X - data matrix (Size of matrix must be n-by-(1+p); sample=column 1, ## variables=column 2:p). ## alpha - significance level (default = 0.05). ## Output: ## MBox - the Box's M statistic. ## Chi-sqr. or F - the approximation statistic test. ## df's - degrees' of freedom of the approximation statistic test. ## P - observed significance level. ## ## If the groups sample-size is at least 20 (sufficiently large), ## Box's M test takes a Chi-square approximation; otherwise it takes ## an F approximation. ## ## Example: For a two groups (g = 2) with three independent variables ## (p = 3), we are interested in testing the homogeneity of covariances ## matrices with a significance level = 0.05. The two groups have the ## same sample-size n1 = n2 = 5. ## Group ## --------------------------------------- ## 1 2 ## --------------------------------------- ## x1 x2 x3 x1 x2 x3 ## --------------------------------------- ## 23 45 15 277 230 63 ## 40 85 18 153 80 29 ## 215 307 60 306 440 105 ## 110 110 50 252 350 175 ## 65 105 24 143 205 42 ## --------------------------------------- ## ## Total data matrix must be: ## X=[1 23 45 15;1 40 85 18;1 215 307 60;1 110 110 50;1 65 105 24; ## 2 277 230 63;2 153 80 29;2 306 440 105;2 252 350 175;2 143 205 42]; ## ## Calling on Matlab the function: ## MBoxtest(X,0.05) ## ## Answer is: ## ## ------------------------------------------------------------ ## MBox F df1 df2 P ## ------------------------------------------------------------ ## 27.1622 2.6293 6 463 0.0162 ## ------------------------------------------------------------ ## Covariance matrices are significantly different. ## ## Created by A. Trujillo-Ortiz and R. Hernandez-Walls ## Facultad de Ciencias Marinas ## Universidad Autonoma de Baja California ## Apdo. Postal 453 ## Ensenada, Baja California ## Mexico. ## [EMAIL PROTECTED] ## And the special collaboration of the post-graduate students of the 2002:2 ## Multivariate Statistics Course: Karel Castro-Morales, ## Alejandro Espinoza-Tenorio, Andrea Guia-Ramirez, Raquel Muniz-Salazar, ## Jose Luis Sanchez-Osorio and Roberto Carmona-Pina. ## November 2002. ## ## To cite this file, this would be an appropriate format: ## Trujillo-Ortiz, A., R. Hernandez-Walls, K. Castro-Morales, ## A. Espinoza-Tenorio, A. Guia-Ramirez and R. Carmona-Pina. (2002). ## MBoxtest: Multivariate Statistical Testing for the Homogeneity of ## Covariance Matrices by the Box's M. A MATLAB file. [WWW document]. ## URL http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/loadFile.do?objectId=273 3&objectType=FILE ## ## References: ## ## Stevens, J. (1992), Applied Multivariate Statistics for Social Sciences. ## 2nd. ed., New-Jersey:Lawrance Erlbaum Associates Publishers. pp. 260-269. if (alpha <= 0 || alpha >= 1) stop('significance level must be between 0 and 1') g = nlevels(cl) ## Number of groups. n = table(cl) ## Vector of groups-size. N = nrow(X) p = ncol(X) bandera = 2 if (any(n >= 20)) bandera = 1 ## Partition of the group covariance matrices. covList <- tapply(X, rep(cl, ncol(X)), function(x, nc) cov(matrix(x, nc=nc)), ncol(X)) deno = sum(n) - g suma = array(0, dim=dim(covList[[1]])) for (k in 1:g) suma = suma + (n[k] - 1) * covList[[k]] Sp = suma / deno ## Pooled covariance matrix. Falta=0 for (k in 1:g) Falta = Falta + ((n[k] - 1) * log(det(covList[[k]]))) MB = (sum(n) - g) * log(det(Sp)) - Falta ## Box's M statistic. suma1 = sum(1 / (n[1:g] - 1)) suma2 = sum(1 / ((n[1:g] - 1)^2)) C = (((2 * p^2) + (3 * p) - 1) / (6 * (p + 1) * (g - 1))) * (suma1 - (1 / deno)) ## Computing of correction factor. if (bandera == 1) { X2 = MB * (1 - C) ## Chi-square approximation. v = as.integer((p * (p + 1) * (g - 1)) / 2) ## Degrees of freedom. ## Significance value associated to the observed Chi-square statistic. P = pchisq(X2, v, lower=TRUE) cat('------------------------------------------------\n'); cat(' MBox Chi-sqr. df P\n') cat('------------------------------------------------\n') cat(sprintf("%10.4f%11.4f%12.i%13.4f\n", MB, X2, v, P)) cat('------------------------------------------------\n') if (P >= alpha) { cat('Covariance matrices are not significantly different.\n') } else { cat('Covariance matrices are significantly different.\n') } return(list(MBox=MB, ChiSq=X2, df=v, pValue=P)) } else { ## To obtain the F approximation we first define Co, which combined to ## the before C value are used to estimate the denominator degrees of ## freedom (v2); resulting two possible cases. Co = (((p-1) * (p+2)) / (6 * (g-1))) * (suma2 - (1 / (deno^2))) if (Co - (C^2) >= 0) { v1 = as.integer((p * (p + 1) * (g - 1)) / 2) ## Numerator DF. v21 = as.integer(trunc((v1 + 2) / (Co - (C^2)))) ## Denominator DF. F1 = MB * ((1 - C - (v1 / v21)) / v1) ## F approximation. ## Significance value associated to the observed F statistic. P1 = pf(F1, v1, v21, lower=FALSE) cat('\n------------------------------------------------------------\n') cat(' MBox F df1 df2 P\n') cat('------------------------------------------------------------\n') cat(sprintf("%10.4f%11.4f%11.i%14.i%13.4f\n", MB, F1, v1, v21, P1)) cat('------------------------------------------------------------\n') if (P1 >= alpha) { cat('Covariance matrices are not significantly different.\n') } else { cat('Covariance matrices are significantly different.\n') } return(list(MBox=MB, F=F1, df1=v1, df2=v21, pValue=P1)) } else { v1 = as.integer((p * (p + 1) * (g - 1)) / 2) ## Numerator df. v22 = as.integer(trunc((v1 + 2) / ((C^2) - Co))) ## Denominator df. b = v22 / (1 - C - (2 / v22)) F2 = (v22 * MB) / (v1 * (b - MB)) ## F approximation. ## Significance value associated to the observed F statistic. P2 = pf(F2, v1, v22, lower=FALSE) cat('\n------------------------------------------------------------\n') cat(' MBox F df1 df2 P\n') cat('------------------------------------------------------------\n') cat(sprintf('%10.4f%11.4f%11.i%14.i%13.4f\n', MB, F2, v1, v22, P2)) cat('------------------------------------------------------------\n') if (P2 >= alpha) { cat('Covariance matrices are not significantly different.\n') } else { cat('Covariance matrices are significantly different.\n') } return(list(MBox=MB, F=F2, df1=v1, df2=v22, pValue=P2)) } } } > From: Janke ten Holt > > Hello, > > I am switching from SPSS-Windows to R-Linux. My university is very > SPSS-oriented so maybe that's the cause of my problems. I am > a beginner > in R and my assignments are SPSS-oriented, so I hope I don't annoy > anyone with my questions... > > Right now I've got 2 problems: > -I have to evaluate discriminant functions I have calculated with > lda(MASS). I can't find a measure that evaluates their significance > (Wilk's lambda in my textbook (Stevens,(2002),"Applied multivariate > statistics for the social sciences")and in SPSS). Is there a Wilk's > lambda for discriminant functions in R? or can I use an alternative > measure? or am I thinking in the wrong direction? I have searched the > help-archive to find similar questions to mine but no answer to them. > > -My second problem: to check the assumption of multivariate > homoscedasticity I have to test if the variance-covariance > matrices for > my variables are homogene. My textbook suggests Box's M test. I can't > find this statistic in R. Again I have found similar questions in the > help-archives, but no answers. Is there a way to calculate > Box's M in R? > Or is there an alternative way to check for multivariate > homoscedasticity? > > Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated! > > Cheers, > Janke ten Holt ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Notice: This e-mail message, together with any attachments,...{{dropped}} ______________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html