Re: [R] What does LOESS stand for?

From: Ted Harding <Ted.Harding_at_manchester.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 31 May 2010 17:08:29 +0100 (BST)

On 31-May-10 15:52:56, David Winsemius wrote:
> On May 31, 2010, at 11:44 AM, Peter Neuhaus wrote:
>

>> Thanks a lot...
>>
>> ... makes it a bit difficult to explain, though...

>
> We drink no wine before its time. Somewhat like trying to explain
> splines to non-technical types:
>
> http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/03/r/articles/splineducks/splineDucks.h
> tm
> --
> David.
>> Peter

Spline-ducks are sophisticated technology compared with what some of us used to do in the 1960s. The spline was a long narrow strip of springy metal. On the drawing-board, lay down the paper and plot the points. Then tap in fairly sturdy "draper's" pins at the points. Then lay the spline (on its edge) between the pins. Then (carefully) draw by hand a curve along the line of the spline.

Even today, this could constitute a very easily grasped explanation of splines for non-technical types!

Ted.

>> Quoting Joris Meys <jorismeys_at_gmail.com>:
>>
>>> This is the paper on which the loess algorithm is based in general:
>>> http://www.econ.pdx.edu/faculty/KPL/readings/cleveland88.pdf
>>>
>>> The explanation about the origin of the term LOESS is given on page  
>>> 597.
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>> Joris
>>>
>>> On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 11:33 AM, Peter Neuhaus  
>>> <pneuhaus_at_pneuhaus.de>wrote:
>>>
>>>> Dear R-community,
>>>>
>>>> maybe someone can help me with this:
>>>>
>>>> I've been using the loess() smoother for quite a while now, and for
>>>> the matter of documentation I'd like to resolve the acronym LOESS.
>>>> Unfortunately there's no explanation in the help file, and I didn't
>>>> get anything convincing from google either.
>>>>
>>>> I know that the predecessor LOWESS stands for "Locally Weighted
>>>> Scatterplot Smoothing". But what does LOESS stand for, specifically?
>>>> "Locally Weighted Exponential Scatterplot Smoothing"? As far as
>>>> I understand LOESS is still a local polynomial regression, so that
>>>> would probably make no sense.
>>>>
>>>> Any help appreciated!
>>>>
>>>> Thanks in advance,
>>>>
>>>> Peter
>>

>
>
> David Winsemius, MD
> West Hartford, CT
>
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---

E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding_at_manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861

Date: 31-May-10                                       Time: 17:08:25
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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. Received on Mon 31 May 2010 - 16:10:57 GMT