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The interpoint distance distribution as a descriptor of point patterns, with an application to spatial disease clustering
Author(s) -
Bonetti Marco,
Pagano Marcello
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
statistics in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.996
H-Index - 183
eISSN - 1097-0258
pISSN - 0277-6715
DOI - 10.1002/sim.1947
Subject(s) - cluster analysis , computer science , statistics , mathematics , artificial intelligence
The topic of this paper is the distribution of the distance between two points distributed independently in space. We illustrate the use of this interpoint distance distribution to describe the characteristics of a set of points within some fixed region. The properties of its sample version, and thus the inference about this function, are discussed both in the discrete and in the continuous setting. We illustrate its use in the detection of spatial clustering by application to a well‐known leukaemia data set, and report on the results of a simulation experiment designed to study the power characteristics of the methods within that study region and in an artificial homogenous setting. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.