Thread Subject: How to assess whether a dataset is generated by a symmetric distribution?

I have a dataset and wanna to assess if it is generated by
a symmetric distribution. Except for the usual measure of
the skewness coefficent, is there functions that can give
other measurements of symmetry or do some test for
symmetry? Thanks!

On Jul 2, 6:39=A0am, "wang wang" <pli...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have a dataset and wanna to assess if it is generated by
> a symmetric distribution. Except for the usual measure of
> the skewness coefficent, is there functions that can give
> other measurements of symmetry or do some test for
> symmetry? Thanks!

You can try a KS test on the two symmetric distributions

p1(x) =3D p(x| x>=3D0) + p(-x| x <0)
p2(x) =3D p(-x| x>=3D0) + p(x| x <0)

Hope this helps,

Greg

"wang wang" <pligly@gmail.com> wrote in message
<g4fls6$5eo$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> I have a dataset and wanna to assess if it is generated by
> a symmetric distribution. Except for the usual measure of
> the skewness coefficent, is there functions that can give
> other measurements of symmetry or do some test for
> symmetry? Thanks!

My TRIPLESTEST, a non-parametric for ditributional symmetry
can be found here (beware of line wraps):

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/loadFile.do?objectId=19547&objectType=FILE

hth
Jos