Screening Method

Synonyms

Factor screening method; Screening design

Definition

The screening method is the identification of a few parameters that have the largest influence on the model outputs. This method aims to provide adequate information about the sensitivity of the model to its input, while decreasing the computation cost. It is particularly useful when dealing with models containing tens or hundreds of input factors with a few very influential ones and a majority of noninfluential ones.

Main Text

Sensitivity analysis is performed to evaluate the influence of input factors on model response. The number of factors could be huge but only a small number of them have significant influences on the model output. A screening method is the desirable approach in such a situation with respect to its low computation cost. However, the gain of reduced computation cost is achieved by sacrificing some sensitivity information, because this type of method often only ranks the input factors in the order of...