R help - Feb 2006 - using kernel density estimates to infer mode of distribut ion

This might be of interest:
http://math.usu.edu/~minnotte/research/software/modetree.r
(I was not able to get to the link, but google has a cached version.)

Prof. Marron's SiZer maps may also be of interest, but AFAIK the code is in
Matlab only.

Andy


From: Dan Rabosky
> 
> 
> Hello...
> 
> Is it possible to use "density" or another kernel density 
> estimator to 
> identify the mode of a distribution?  When I use 'density', 
> the resulting 
> density plot of my data is much cleaner than the original 
> noisy histogram, 
> and I can clearly see the signal that I am interested in.  
> E.g., suppose my 
> data is actually drawn from two or more normal (or other) 
> distributions.  Looking at the kernel density plots, it seems 
> that the 
> estimator gives a good approximation of the modal values of each 
> distribution, but I can't figure out how to obtain these 
> values short of 
> visually estimating the location of the mode using the plot(density).
> 
> Is there a relatively easy way to do this?
> 
> Thanks in advance for your help!
> Dan Rabosky
> 
> 
> 
> Dan Rabosky
> Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
> Cornell University
> Ithaca, NY14853-2701 USA
> web: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/evb/Graduates_Dan.htm
> 
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