Lowess polynomial degree

[Xin Tian <xint@stat.rutgers.edu>]

Dear Splus users,

  I am using Splus (2000). I have a question about the Splus smoothing
procedure " lowess".  I would like to know the degree of polynomials used
for the local fit for lowess.

The help menu says " Lowess uses robust locally linear fits " and it
based on Cleveland (1979). Does this mean for each point, it use
weighted simple linear regression (polynomial with degree=1 ? ). Lowess
does not allow to specify degree. I tried lowess (with iteration=0)
and loess (set degree =1), the results are close, diff < 0.05, but not the
same.  

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Shirley