Abstract The number of adjustable parameters in a model or hypothesis is often taken as the formal expression its simplicity. I take issue with this `definition´ and argue that comparative simplicity has quasi-empirical measure, reflecting experts’ judgements who track past use model-type across domains. Since models are represented by restricted sets functions suitable space, formally speaking...

1 Curve Fitting and Polymers The availability of data from well-characterized samples such as those offered by Beamson and Briggs [1] owe much to the popularity of XPS as a tool for understanding the chemistry of polymers. A typical C 1s envelope [2] (Figure 1) includes structure that offers chemical information about a sample, but without some initial starting point it is difficult to construc...

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We propose a method for fitting a piecewise parametric curve to a sequence of digitized points such as those acquired from a computer mouse or digitizing pen. The fitting is done on-the-fly rather than after a complete sequence of points has been acquired, thereby providing high quality parameterized curves for immediate display during drawing. The method is fast, accurate, and robust, handles ...