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Runs test for a circular distribution and a table of probabilities

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Summary

A method is suggested for testing whether two samples observed on a circle are drawn from the same distribution. The proposed test is a modification of the well-known Wald-Wolfowitz runs test for a distribution on a straight line. The primary advantage of the proposed test is that it minimizes the number of assumptions on the theoretical distribution.

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Additional information

This study was supported in part by the contract NSF-9968, National Science Foundation; in part by the contract Nonr 2249(05), (Nr 301–579), the Office of Naval Research, Dept. of the Navy, with The Catholic University of America.

This paper was written while the author was a research associate in the Statistical Laboratory, Department of Mathematics, The Catholic University of America, during the academic year 1962.

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Asano, C. Runs test for a circular distribution and a table of probabilities. Ann Inst Stat Math 17, 331–346 (1965). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02868177

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02868177

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