entropy: entropy.plugin – R documentation

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entropy.plugin

Plug-In Entropy Estimator

Description

entropy.plugin computes the Shannon entropy H of a discrete random variable with the specified frequencies (probability mass function).

Usage

entropy.plugin(freqs, unit=c("log", "log2", "log10"))

Arguments

`freqs`	frequencies (probability mass function).
`unit`	the unit in which entropy is measured. The default is "nats" (natural units). For computing entropy in "bits" set `unit="log2"`.

Details

The Shannon entropy of a discrete random variable is defined as H = -∑_k p(k) \log( p(k) ), where p is its probability mass function.

Value

entropy.plugin returns the Shannon entropy.

Author(s)

Korbinian Strimmer (http://www.strimmerlab.org).

Examples

# load entropy library 
library("entropy")

# some frequencies
freqs = c(0.2, 0.1, 0.15, 0.05, 0, 0.3, 0.2)  

# and corresponding entropy
entropy.plugin(freqs)

entropy

Estimation of Entropy, Mutual Information and Related Quantities

v1.3.0

GPL (>= 3)

Authors

Jean Hausser and Korbinian Strimmer

Initial release

2021-04-25