On 18 Jun 2002 07:55:59 -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Anthony Yip) wrote: > hi, > > thanks for the response. unfortunately, the exact steps are still > unclear to me.. sorry for the trouble. but let's say using the > standard best fit technique i get the slope of 0.5 and intercept of 40 > for a set of data points. how i would like to force the intercept to > be 40.04 and have it best fit the data with this constraint.. what are > the steps i should take? if you can make it unncessarily clear to me > that would be great. thanks in advance.
I think you should accept the advice of experts and avoid trying to perform a statistical fit "with this constraint." The experts will tell you that fitting with that sort of constraint is something that *hardly anybody*, out in the average world, has justification to do. And the experts will tell you that folks who don't understand how to do it, backwards and forwards, are *almost always* going to belong to the majority who should not try. Further, if the person doesn't understand it thoroughly, the fact of 'ignorance' gives a big boost to the idea that they ought to keep away -- a) Even if their solution *properly* is improved a bit by forcing the intercept, *usually*, very little is gained. b) If it is *improper* to force the intercept, then the solution is usually *horrible*, and the tests are totally wrong, too. Hope this helps. -- Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
