The Nonparametric Estimation of Branching Curves
Abstract The spline smoothing approach to nonparametric regression is extended to cover the estimation of curves that branch at certain specified points in time. This extension is motivated and illustrated by data from an experiment on sunflowers. Apart from providing insight into this particular data-analytic problem, the work described demonstrates the power of the roughness penalty approach in coping with curve estimation of a nonstandard kind. Particularly in the context of certain experiments in horticulture and arboriculture, the experimental material may be treated identically to the control up to a certain known time part of the way through the experiment. To display and investigate the effect of treatments applied during growth it is of interest to estimate a branching curve. In the simplest case we want to study two growth curves that are common up to a certain known time and then diverge (or branch) after the application of a treatment to part of the experimental material. The spline-smoothing ...