Families of Discrete Circular Distributions with Some Novel Applications

We give a unified treatment of constructing families of circular discrete distributions. Some of these families are deduced from established distributions such as von Mises and wrapped Cauchy. Some others are derived directly such as a flexible family based on trigonometric sums and the circular location family. Results interrelating these families are discussed. These distributions have been motivated by two examples of discrete circular data: casino roulette spins and smart health acrophase monitoring, and these data are analyzed using our proposed models. We discuss how using continuous circular models for circular discrete data can be misleading.