The Mollified (Discrete) Uniform Distribution and its Applications

Abstract

The mollified uniform distribution is rediscovered, which constitutes a ``soft'' version of the continuous uniform distribution. Important stochastic properties are presented and used to demonstrate potential fields of applications. For example, it constitutes a model covering platykurtic, mesokurtic and leptokurtic shapes. Its cumulative distribution function may also serve as the soft-clipping response function for defining generalized linear models with approximately linear dependence. Furthermore, it might be considered for teaching, as an appealing example for the convolution of random variables. Finally, a discrete type of mollified uniform distribution is briefly discussed as well.