# What does the forumla Σ(x-xbar)/((n-1)v^(3/2)) calculate?

#### tuna

##### New Member
What does the following formula calculate?

$\frac{\sum x_i-\overline{x}}{(n-1)v^{3/2}}$

Thanks

#### Dragan

##### Super Moderator
What does the following formula calculate?

$\frac{\sum x_i-\overline{x}}{(n-1)v^{3/2}}$

Thanks
Why don't you just express the formula as:

Xbar / v^(3/2).

That said, you should also indicate what "v" represents.....e.g. Variance???...you tell me.

#### Martingale

##### TS Contributor
What does the following formula calculate?

$\frac{\sum x_i-\overline{x}}{(n-1)v^{3/2}}$

Thanks
Why don't you just express the formula as:

Xbar / v^(3/2).

That said, you should also indicate what "v" represents.....e.g. Variance???...you tell me.
I didn't know about that site...pretty cool

$\frac{\overline{x}}{v^{3/2}}$

I always wanted to use latex on this forum.

#### Dragan

##### Super Moderator
I didn't know about that site...pretty cool

$\frac{\overline{x}}{v^{3/2}}$

I always wanted to use latex on this forum.
Yeah...me too!...I didn't see this...Thanks for mentioning this.

#### tuna

##### New Member
Apologies - was in a rush. I actually meant:
$\frac{\sum (x_i-\overline{x})^3}{(n-1)v^{3/2}}$

Where
$v=\frac{\sum (x_i-\overline{x})^2}{(n-1)}$

Thanks

#### Dragan

##### Super Moderator
Apologies - was in a rush. I actually meant:
$\frac{\sum (x_i-\overline{x})^3}{(n-1)v^{3/2}}$

Where
$v=\frac{\sum (x_i-\overline{x})^2}{(n-1)}$

Thanks

It's an estimation of the skewness of a set of data.

#### tuna

##### New Member
Precisely what type of skewness does it measure? I was especially wondering if there was a Mathematica function to calculate this. Thanks

#### Dragan

##### Super Moderator
Precisely what type of skewness does it measure? I was especially wondering if there was a Mathematica function to calculate this. Thanks

If you're using Mathematica version 7.0 then use:

Code:
In[8]:= data = {2., 4, 3, 7, 8, 10, 12, 6, 17};
x = Skewness[data]

Out[9]= 0.695634

#### tuna

##### New Member
But the Mma Skewness[] function and the formula I gave:

$\frac{\sum (x_i-\overline{x})^3}{(n-1)v^{3/2}}$

give different values. For example, using the 2 following functions to return the list {variance, skewness} with 2 different methods, I get 2 different answers for the skewness:

In:
|fn6[x_] := Module[{xbar, n, v},
| n = Length[x];
| {v = If[n == 1, 0,
| xbar = Apply[Plus, x]/n;
| Apply[Plus, (x - xbar)^2]/(n - 1)
| ],
| If[v == 0, Indeterminate,
| Apply[Plus, (x - xbar)^3]/((n - 1)*v^(3/2))
| ]
| }
| ];
|
|fn7[x_] := {Variance[x], Skewness[x]}
|
|N[fn6[Range[20]^2]]
|N[fn7[Range[20]^2]]

Out:
|{16359., 0.592322}
|{16359., 0.60771}

What's the problem?

Thanks

#### Dragan

##### Super Moderator
What's the problem?

Thanks

Mathematica is doing this (slightly different)

Code:
data = {2., 4, 3, 7, 8, 10, 12, 6, 17};
m = Mean[data];
m2 = Mean[(data - m)^2];
m3 = Mean[(data - m)^3];
s = Sqrt[m2];

skew = m3/s^3

The method that Mathematica is using (and your formula) is based on Method of Moments.

On the other hand, if you consider using SAS, SPSS, or Minitab, the calculation is based on Fisher's k-statistics.

More specifically, suppose we have a set N data points that we standardize to Z-scores (Z).

Then, the skewness is computed as:

[N^2 / ( N (N-1) (N-2) ) ] * Z^3

Most commercial software packages, today, compute skewness (kurtosis) based on Fisher's k-statistics and not based on the method of moments (i.e. what Mathematica does and the formula you suggested).

#### tuna

##### New Member
Thanks. So is my Mma function for skewness (based on the method of moments) the most efficient way to have coded it?

#### Dragan

##### Super Moderator
Thanks. So is my Mma function for skewness (based on the method of moments) the most efficient way to have coded it?

I think you should use values of skewness (kurtosis) that people are used to now days.

Here's my Mma function that computes the third (skewness), fourth (kurtosis), fifth, and sixth standardized cumulants. The values you will obtain for skew and kurtosis are the same as you get using SAS, SPSS, SPLUS, Minitab,...etc.

Code:
EmpiricalCumulantsK[data_List] :=
Module[{stdata, n, s2, s3, s4, s5, s6, gamma3, gamma4, gamma5,
gamma6, cumulants},

stdata = (data - Mean[data])/StandardDeviation[data];
n = Length[data];
s2 = n - 1;
s3 = Total[stdata^3];
s4 = Total[stdata^4];
s5 = Total[stdata^5];
s6 = Total[stdata^6];

Print[ "Standardized third, fourth, fifth, and sixth cumulants \
based on Fisher's k-statistics."];

gamma3 = 1/(n*(n - 1)*(n - 2))*(n^2*s3);

gamma4 =
1/(n*(n - 1)*(n - 2)*(n - 3))*( (n^3 + n^2)*s4 -
3*(n^2 - n)* s2^2 );

gamma5 =
1/(n*(n - 1)*(n - 2)*(n - 3)*(n - 4))* ((n^4 + 5*n^3)*s5 -
10*(n^3 - n^2)* s3*s2 );

gamma6 =
1/(n*(n - 1)*(n - 2)*(n - 3)*(n - 4)*(n -
5))*( ( n^5 + 16*n^4 + 11*n^3 - 4*n^2)*s6 -
15*n*(n - 1)^2*(n + 4)*s4*s2 -
10*(n^4 - 2*n^3 + 5*n^2 - 4*n)* s3^2 +
30*(n^3 - 3*n^2 + 2*n)*s2^3 ) ;

cumulants = {gamma3, gamma4, gamma5, gamma6}  ]