Maximum smoothed likelihood for multivariate mixtures

M. Levine, D. R. Hunter and D. Chauveau

Biometrika, 2011, vol. 98, issue 2, 403-416

Abstract: We introduce an algorithm for estimating the parameters in a finite mixture of completely unspecified multivariate components in at least three dimensions under the assumption of conditionally independent coordinate dimensions. We prove that this algorithm, based on a majorization-minimization idea, possesses a desirable descent property just as any em algorithm does. We discuss the similarities between our algorithm and a related one, the so-called nonlinearly smoothed em algorithm for the non-mixture setting. We also demonstrate via simulation studies that the new algorithm gives very similar results to another algorithm that has been shown empirically to be effective but that does not satisfy any descent property. We provide code for implementing the new algorithm in a publicly available R package. Copyright 2011, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/biomet/asq079 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:biomet:v:98:y:2011:i:2:p:403-416

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Biometrika is currently edited by Paul Fearnhead

More articles in Biometrika from Biometrika Trust Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().