MHDE (minimum Hellinger distance estimator) computer code: User's guide

This document describes the minimum Hellinger distance estimator (MHDE) and serves as a user's guide for a computer code that implements the estimator. The MHDE code provides a tool for choosing the normal distribution that ''best'' fits a random sample of data from an unknown distribution. The best fit is determined by finding the normal distribution that gives the smallest Hellinger distance between a sample based nonparametric density and the class of normal densities. An example application to hydraulic transmissivity data for the BWIP is included in an appendix. 8 refs., 1 fig., 2 tabs