Bump-hunting for the proficiency tester--searching for multimodality |
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Authors: | Lowthian Philip J Thompson Michael |
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Institution: | School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK. |
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Abstract: | Kernel density estimation is a method for producing a smooth density approximation to a dataset and avoiding some of the problems associated with histograms. If it is used with a degree of smoothing determined by a fitness for purpose criterion, it can be applied to proficiency test data in order to test for multimodality in the z-scores. The bootstrap is an essential additional technique to determine how rugged the initially estimated kernel density is: the random resampling of the data in the bootstrap simulates a complete blind repeat of the proficiency test. In addition, useful estimates of the standard error of a mode can be thus obtained. It is suggested that a mode and its standard error can be used as an assigned value and its standard uncertainty. |
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