  We introduce an improvement to a periodicity metric we have introduced in a
previous paper.We improve on the Hoeffding-test periodicity metric, using the
Blum-Kiefer-Rosenblatt (BKR) test. Besides a consistent improvement over the
Hoeffding-test approach, the BKR approach turns out to perform superbly when
applied to very short time series of sawtoothlike shapes. The expected
astronomical implications are much more detections of RR-Lyrae stars and
Cepheids in sparse photometric databases, and of eccentric Keplerian
radial-velocity (RV) curves, such as those of exoplanets in RV surveys.
