A Tutorial on Kernel Density Estimation and Recent Advances

Yen-Chi Chen

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arXiv · 1704.03924

A Tutorial on Kernel Density Estimation and Recent Advances

Yen-Chi Chen

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Abstract

This tutorial provides a gentle introduction to kernel density estimation (KDE) and recent advances regarding confidence bands and geometric/topological features. We begin with a discussion of basic properties of KDE: the convergence rate under various metrics, density derivative estimation, and bandwidth selection. Then, we introduce common approaches to the construction of confidence intervals/bands, and we discuss how to handle bias. Next, we talk about recent advances in the inference of geometric and topological features of a density function using KDE. Finally, we illustrate how one can use KDE to estimate a cumulative distribution function and a receiver operating characteristic curve. We provide R implementations related to this tutorial at the end.

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Yen-Chi Chen. 2017-04-12. A Tutorial on Kernel Density Estimation and Recent Advances. https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.03924

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