xmin_estim: Estimate the minimum patch size of a power-law distribution
Description
When fitting a power-law to a discrete distribution, it might
be worth discarding points below a certain threshold (xmin) to improve
the fit. This function estimates the optimal xmin based on the
Kolmogorov-Smirnoff distance between the fit and the empirical
distribution, as suggested by Clauset et al. (2009).
Usage
xmin_estim(dat, bounds = range(dat))
Arguments
dat
A vector of integer values
bounds
A bounds
Value
The estimated xmin as an integer value
Details
The function returns NA if dat has only three unique values
or if the power-law fit failed.
References
Clauset, A., Shalizi, C. R., & Newman, M. E. (2009).
Power-law distributions in empirical data. SIAM review, 51(4), 661-703.