The Bumpy Road to the Mode Forest |
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Authors: | Michael C Minnotte David J Marchette Edward J Wegman |
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Institution: | 1. Department of Mathematics and Statistics , Utah State University , Logan , UT , 84322-3900 , USA;2. Naval Surface Warfare Center , Code BIO, Dahlgren , VA , 22448 , USA;3. Center for Computational Statistics , George Mason University , Fairfax , VA , 22030-6444 , USA |
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Abstract: | Abstract The mode tree of Minnotte and Scott provides a valuable method of investigating features such as modes and bumps in a unknown density. By examining kernel density estimates for a range of bandwidths, we can learn a lot about the structure of a data set. Unfortunately, the basic mode tree can be strongly affected by small changes in the data, and gives no way to differentiate between important modes and those caused, for example, by outliers. The mode forest overcomes these difficulties by looking simultaneously at a large collection of mode trees, all based on some variation of the original data, by means such as resampling or jittering. The resulting graphic tool is both visually appealing and informative. |
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Keywords: | Bump hunting Graphical methods Kernel density estimation Multimodality Visualization |
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