Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Tang, Wenqi, Fačevicová, Kamila, Nordhausen, Klaus, Taskinen, Sara
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.22181
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
_version_ 1866911704356487168
author Tang, Wenqi
Fačevicová, Kamila
Nordhausen, Klaus
Taskinen, Sara
author_facet Tang, Wenqi
Fačevicová, Kamila
Nordhausen, Klaus
Taskinen, Sara
contents The growing use of high-throughput sequencing (HTS) has enabled the large-scale production of compositional count data, driving progress in microbiome research. However, such count data are often high-dimensional, over-dispersed, and heavily zero-inflated, and they conflict with the continuity assumptions underlying log-ratio-based compositional data analysis (CoDA), creating substantial methodological challenges. This review provides an overview of zero-handling strategies in compositional data, covering zero-tolerant transformations, imputation approaches for rounded zeros, and statistical models for essential zeros. We specifically highlight the problems that arise when applying the log-ratio framework to sequencing-derived compositional count data, where violations of continuity can induce numerical instabilities and biased statistical inferences. Motivated by these issues, we systematically examine how existing imputation strategies behave when adapted to discrete, zero-inflated count data, including an evaluation of how the discrete, lattice-valued nature of the data affects imputation performance. Overall, this review consolidates scattered methodological developments, clarifies appropriate use cases, and identifies open challenges that motivate future zero-handling frameworks capable of jointly accommodating compositional constraints, zero inflation, and the lattice nature of count data, while also providing a detailed discussion of the comparison results.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_22181
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A critical comparison of handling zeros in high-dimensional compositional count data
Tang, Wenqi
Fačevicová, Kamila
Nordhausen, Klaus
Taskinen, Sara
Other Statistics
The growing use of high-throughput sequencing (HTS) has enabled the large-scale production of compositional count data, driving progress in microbiome research. However, such count data are often high-dimensional, over-dispersed, and heavily zero-inflated, and they conflict with the continuity assumptions underlying log-ratio-based compositional data analysis (CoDA), creating substantial methodological challenges. This review provides an overview of zero-handling strategies in compositional data, covering zero-tolerant transformations, imputation approaches for rounded zeros, and statistical models for essential zeros. We specifically highlight the problems that arise when applying the log-ratio framework to sequencing-derived compositional count data, where violations of continuity can induce numerical instabilities and biased statistical inferences. Motivated by these issues, we systematically examine how existing imputation strategies behave when adapted to discrete, zero-inflated count data, including an evaluation of how the discrete, lattice-valued nature of the data affects imputation performance. Overall, this review consolidates scattered methodological developments, clarifies appropriate use cases, and identifies open challenges that motivate future zero-handling frameworks capable of jointly accommodating compositional constraints, zero inflation, and the lattice nature of count data, while also providing a detailed discussion of the comparison results.
title A critical comparison of handling zeros in high-dimensional compositional count data
topic Other Statistics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.22181