Beyond Zipf's Law: The Lavalette Rank Function and Its Properties


Por: Fontanelli, Oscar, Miramontes, Pedro, Yang, Yaning, Cocho, Germinal, Li, Wentian

Publicada: 22 sep 2016
Resumen:
Although Zipf's law is widespread in natural and social data, one often encounters situations where one or both ends of the ranked data deviate from the power-law function. Previously we proposed the Beta rank function to improve the fitting of data which does not follow a perfect Zipf's law. Here we show that when the two parameters in the Beta rank function have the same value, the Lavalette rank function, the probability density function can be derived analytically. We also show both computationally and analytically that Lavalette distribution is approximately equal, though not identical, to the lognormal distribution. We illustrate the utility of Lavalette rank function in several datasets. We also address three analysis issues on the statistical testing of Lavalette fitting function, comparison between Zipf's law and lognormal distribution through Lavalette function, and comparison between lognormal distribution and Lavalette distribution.

Filiaciones:
Fontanelli, Oscar:
 Univ Nacl Autonoma Mexico, Fac Ciencias, Dept Matemat, Mexico City, DF, Mexico

Miramontes, Pedro:
 Univ Nacl Autonoma Mexico, Fac Ciencias, Dept Matemat, Mexico City, DF, Mexico

 Univ Leipzig, Bioinformat Grp, Leipzig, Germany

 Univ Leipzig, Interdisciplinary Ctr Bioinformat, Leipzig, Germany

Yang, Yaning:
 Univ Sci & Technol China, Dept Stat & Finance, Hefei, Anhui, Peoples R China

Cocho, Germinal:
 Univ Nacl Autonoma Mexico, Inst Fis, Mexico City, DF, Mexico

Li, Wentian:
 Northwell Hlth, Feinstein Inst Med Res, Robert S Boas Ctr Genom & Human Genet, Manhasset, NY USA
ISSN: 19326203
Editorial
PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE, 1160 BATTERY STREET, STE 100, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111 USA, Estados Unidos America
Tipo de documento: Article
Volumen: 11 Número: 9
Páginas:
WOS Id: 000383893200090
ID de PubMed: 27658296

MÉTRICAS