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Re: Curve-fitting/data analysis question...

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg73351] Re: Curve-fitting/data analysis question...
• From: "Robert Dodier" <robert.dodier at gmail.com>
• Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2007 07:01:23 -0500 (EST)
• References: <eqmcfh$bdv$1@smc.vnet.net>

On Feb 10, 11:18 pm, "sherifffruitfly" <sherifffruit... at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I've got some data that is approximately constant, c, over an
> interval, and then drops off like -(a exp(b x)).
>
> How can I determine when the constant part ends, and the negative
> exponential begins in Mathematica? I can eyeball it on a graph, but I'd much
> prefer to have a principled Mathematica routine settle the question. Once
> that's settled, it should be straightforward to determine the
> exponential's parameters via some curve-fitting routine or other.

See Seber & Wild, "Nonlinear Regression", Wiley, 1989 (iirc).
They have a chapter on problems of this kind.
I'm sure there are more recent refs, but I don't know any.

I suspect that an automated procedure cannot do much better than
you can do it by eye. If, however, you need to solve a collection of
such problems and you need to automate the process, then an
automated method can save you some time (without affecting the
results much).

FWIW
Robert Dodier