e sample size. If ``None`` (the default), it uses the heuristic value .. math:: \left \lfloor \sqrt{n} + 0.5 \right \rfloor where :math:`n` is the sample size. This heuristic was originally proposed in [2]_ and has become common in the literature. base : float, optional The logarithmic base to use, defaults to ``e`` (natural logarithm). axis : int, optional The axis along which the differential entropy is calculated. Default is 0. method : {'vasicek', 'van es', 'ebrahimi', 'correa', 'auto'}, optional The method used to estimate the differential entropy from the sample. Default is ``'auto'``. See Notes for more information. Returns ------- entropy : float The calculated differential entropy. Notes ----- This function will converge to the true differential entropy in the limit .. math:: n \to \infty, \quad m \to \infty, \quad \frac{m}{n} \to 0 The optimal choice of ``window_length`` for a given sample size depends on the (unknown) distribution. Typically, the smoother the density of the distribution, the larger the optimal value of ``window_length`` [1]_. The following options are available for the `method` parameter. * ``'vasicek'`` uses the estimator presented in [1]_. This is one of the first and most influential estimators of differential entropy. * ``'van es'`` uses the bias-corrected estimator presented in [3]_, which is not only consistent but, under some conditions, asymptotically normal. * ``'ebrahimi'`` uses an estimator presented in [4]_, which was shown in simulation to have smaller bias and mean squared error than the Vasicek estimator. * ``'correa'`` uses the estimator presented in [5]_ based on local linear regression. In a simulation study, it had consistently smaller mean square error than the Vasiceck estimator, but it is more expensive to compute. * ``'auto'`` selects the method automatically (default). Currently, this selects ``'van es'`` for very small samples (<10), ``'ebrahimi'`` for moderate sample sizes (11-1000), and ``'vasicek'`` for larger samples, but this behavior is subject to change in future versions. All estimators are implemented as described in [6]_. References ---------- .. [1] Vasicek, O. (1976). A test for normality based on sample entropy. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B (Methodological), 38(1), 54-59. .. [2] Crzcgorzewski, P., & Wirczorkowski, R. (1999). Entropy-based goodness-of-fit test for exponentiality. Communications in Statistics-Theory and Methods, 28(5), 1183-1202. .. [3] Van Es, B. (1992). Estimating functionals related to a density by a class of statistics based on spacings. Scandinavian Journal of Statistics, 61-72. .. [4] Ebrahimi, N., Pflughoeft, K., & Soofi, E. S. (1994). Two measures of sample entropy. Statistics & Probability Letters, 20(3), 225-234. .. [5] Correa, J. C. (1995). A new estimator of entropy. Communications in Statistics-Theory and Methods, 24(10), 2439-2449. .. [6] Noughabi, H. A. (2015). Entropy Estimation Using Numerical Methods. Annals of Data Science, 2(2), 231-241. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40745-015-0045-9 Examples -------- >>> import numpy as np >>> from scipy.stats import differential_entropy, norm Entropy of a standard normal distribution: >>> rng = np.random.default_rng() >>> values = rng.standard_normal(100) >>> differential_entropy(values) 1.3407817436640392 Compare with the true entropy: >>> float(norm.entropy()) 1.4189385332046727 For several sample sizes between 5 and 1000, compare the accuracy of the ``'vasicek'``, ``'van es'``, and ``'ebrahimi'`` methods. Specifically, compare the root mean squared error (over 1000 trials) between the estimate and the true differential entropy of the distribution. >>> from scipy import stats >>> import matplotlib.pyplot as plt >>> >>> >>> def rmse(res, expected): ... '''Root mean squared error''' ... return np.sqrt(np.mean((res - expected)**2)) >>> >>> >>> a, b = np.log10(5), np.log10(1000) >>> ns = np.round(np.logspace(a, b, 10)).astype(int) >>> reps = 1000 # number of repetitions for each sample size >>> expected = stats.expon.entropy() >>> >>> method_errors = {'vasicek': [], 'van es': [], 'ebrahimi': []} >>> for method in method_errors: ... for n in ns: ... rvs = stats.expon.rvs(size=(reps, n), random_state=rng) ... res = stats.differential_entropy(rvs, method=method, axis=-1) ... error = rmse(res, expected) ... method_errors[method].append(error) >>> >>> for method, errors in method_errors.items(): ... plt.loglog(ns, errors, label=method) >>> >>> plt.legend() >>> plt.xlabel('sample size') >>> plt.ylabel('RMSE (1000 trials)') >>> plt.title('Entropy Estimator Error (Exponential Distribution)') Úintegralr'