Message-ID: <a2b3004b0904211043j4c8cccd5w40a9f83e8367846a@mail.gmail.com>
Date: 2009-04-21T17:43:16Z
From: Lorenzo Isella
Subject: Changing the binning of collected data
Dear All,
Apologies if this is too simple for this list.
Let us assume that you have an instrument measuring particle distributions.
The output is a set of counts {n_i} corresponding to a set of average
sizes {d_i}.
The set of {d_i} ranges from d_i_min to d_i_max either linearly of
logarithmically.
There is no access to further detailed information about the
distribution of the measured sizes, but at least you know enough to
plot n(d_i) (number of counts as a function of particle size).
If you can fit the {n_i} to a known distribution (e.g. normal or
lognormal), then you can choose a new set of average sizes, {D_i} and
plot the corresponding n_i(D_i).
But what if the initial {n_i}'s observations do not belong to a known
distribution and you still want to calculate n(D_i)?
On the top of my head, I think that whatever I do must conserve the
original total number of observations N=\sum_i{n_i}, but this does not
terribly constrain the problem.
Any suggestion is welcome.
Many thanks
Lorenzo