A class of bootstrap based residuals for compositional data

Regression models for compositional data are common in several areas of knowledge. As in other classes of regression models, it is desirable to perform diagnostic analysis in these models using residuals that are approximately standard normally distributed. However, for regression models for compositional data, there has not been any multivariate residual that meets this requirement. In this work, we introduce a class of asymptotically standard normally distributed residuals for compositional data based on bootstrap. Monte Carlo simulation studies indicate that the distributions of the residuals of this class are well approximated by the standard normal distribution in small samples. An application to simulated data also suggests that one of the residuals of the proposed class is better to identify model misspecification than its competitors. Finally, the usefulness of the best residual of the proposed class is illustrated through an application on sleep stages. The class of residuals proposed here can also be used in other classes of multivariate regression models.