ROC Curves for Continuous Data

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Preface

The receiver operating characteristic (or ROC) curve is one of those

statistical techniques that is now ubiquitous in a wide variety of sub-

stantive fields. Its earliest manifestation was during World War II for

the analysis of radar signals, and it consequently entered the scien-

tific literature in the 1950s in connection with signal detection theory

and psychophysics (where assessment of human and animal detection

of weak signals was of considerable interest). The seminal text for this

early work was that by Green and Swets (1966). Later, in the 1970s and

1980s, it became evident that the technique was of considerable rele-

vance ...