Local logisitic regression an application to army penetration data

Abstract

There have been a number of procedures used to analyze non-monotonic binary data to predict the probability of response. Some classical procedures are the Up and Down strategy, the Robbins–Monro procedure, and other sequential optimization designs. Recently, nonparametric procedures such as kernel regression and local linear regression (llogr) have been applied to this type of data. It is a well known fact that kernel regression has problems fitting the data near the boundaries and a drawback with local linear regression is that it may be “too linear” when fitting data from a curvilinear function. The procedure introduced in this paper is called local logistic regression, which fits a logistic regression function at each of the data points. An example is given using United States Army projectile data that supports the use of local logistic regression when analyzing non-monotonic binary data for certain response curves. Properties of local logistic regression will be presented along with simulation results that indicate some of the strengths of the procedure.