Nonparametric probability density estimation: Improvements to the histogram for laboratory data

• Published in: Computers and biomedical research Vol. 25; no. 1; pp. 17 - 28
• Main Authors: Willard, Keith E., Connelly, Donald P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: San Diego, CA Elsevier Inc 01.02.1992; Academic Press
• Subjects: Alanine Transaminase - blood; Aspartate Aminotransferases - blood; Biological and medical sciences; Chemistry, Clinical - statistics & numerical data; Computerized, statistical medical data processing and models in biomedicine; Humans; L-Lactate Dehydrogenase - blood; Likelihood Functions; Mathematics; Medical sciences; Medical statistics; Monte Carlo Method; Probability; Parameter estimation; Histogram; Biochemical analysis; Statistical distribution; Enzyme; Clinical biology; Non parametric method; Frequency; Maximum likelihood; Statistics; Kernel method
• ISSN: 0010-4809; 1090-2368
• DOI: 10.1016/0010-4809(92)90032-6

The histogram has long been used in the clinical laboratory for the depiction and manipulation of frequency data. We present recent results of refinements to the usual histogram procedures along with modern alternative methods of estimating frequency distributions, including the kernel and discrete maximum penalized likelihood estimation (DMPLE) approaches. We compared these nonparametric methods on 15 different types of simulated distributions, and on several sets (>1000 subjects/set) of real data, including alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, and lactate dehydrogenase levels. Each frequency curve estimation technique was evaluated by measuring the integrated mean square error between each technique's prediction and the true underlying distribution, using Monte Carlo techniques on sample sets with size 49 and 119. The kernel methos was the clear method of choice, both in performance (best in 22 36 cases) and in practical usage.