[R] Checking if the distribution follow a power law

2010-09-08 Thread NatsumiYotsumoto
Dear all.


I'm using igraph package, and do a research about network analysis.

With power.law.fit from igraph package, it seems that we can fit a power law
distribution to some data.


But, I want to know how to judge whether the network distribution follows a
power law or not.


Does anyone know the way to do this?


Thanks for any help.


Daigo





p.s.

Also,  I tried several ways such as

http://www.mail-archive.com/r-h...@stat.math.ethz.ch/msg62520.html


and I got results like this:


Profiling...

   2.5 %   97.5 %

2.393297 2.412650


What do these suggest?

please tell me about this if someone knows.

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Re: [R] Checking if the distribution follow a power law

2010-09-08 Thread David Winsemius


On Sep 8, 2010, at 10:34 AM, NatsumiYotsumoto wrote:


Dear all.


I'm using igraph package, and do a research about network analysis.

With power.law.fit from igraph package, it seems that we can fit a  
power law

distribution to some data.


But, I want to know how to judge whether the network distribution  
follows a

power law or not.


In order to determine whether something is from distribution A or not- 
A, one needs to have a sensible way of characterizing or considering  
what would be in the range of distributions in the not-A.  
Unfortunately for your question, the range of possible distributions  
is infinite. That means it would always be possible to have a better  
fitting distribution than what ever is distribution A.  If you have  
alternatives to the power-law that you want to put to the test, then  
now is the time to offer them.


My guess is that you do not, so I will offer alternatives:

Alt A:
a) read the citations in the email you cited, especially Newman then ...
b) set up a histogram of your data using hist with logarithmic or  
geometric progression of the breaks argument.
c) as a check on you exponent estimate, calculate alpha and se(alpha)  
as on pg 4-5 of that citation.


Alt B:
require(sos)
???fitting pareto
???fitting power network   # and proceed from there

--
David.


Does anyone know the way to do this?

Thanks for any help.

Daigo

p.s.

Also,  I tried several ways such as

http://www.mail-archive.com/r-h...@stat.math.ethz.ch/msg62520.html

and I got results like this:

Profiling...

  2.5 %   97.5 %

2.393297 2.412650

What do these suggest?

please tell me about this if someone knows.


--

David Winsemius, MD
West Hartford, CT

__
R-help@r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.