Advanced search
Start date
Betweenand
(Reference retrieved automatically from Web of Science through information on FAPESP grant and its corresponding number as mentioned in the publication by the authors.)

Finite mixture modeling of censored data using the multivariate Student-t distribution

Full text
Author(s):
Lachos, Victor H. ; Lopez Moreno, Edgar J. ; Chen, Kun ; Barbosa Cabral, Celso Romulo
Total Authors: 4
Document type: Journal article
Source: JOURNAL OF MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS; v. 159, p. 151-167, JUL 2017.
Web of Science Citations: 4
Abstract

Finite mixture models have been widely used for the modeling and analysis of data from a heterogeneous population. Moreover, data of this kind can be subject to some upper and/or lower detection limits because of the restriction of experimental apparatus. Another complication arises when measures of each population depart significantly from normality, for instance, in the presence of heavy tails or atypical observations. For such data structures, we propose a robust model for censored data based on finite mixtures of multivariate Student-t distributions. This approach allows us to model data with great flexibility, accommodating multimodality, heavy tails and also skewness depending on the structure of the mixture components. We develop an analytically simple, yet efficient, EM-type algorithm for conducting maximum likelihood estimation of the parameters. The algorithm has closed-form expressions at the E-step that rely on formulas for the mean and variance of the multivariate truncated Student-t distributions. Further, a general information-based method for approximating the asymptotic covariance matrix of the estimators is also presented. Results obtained from the analysis of both simulated and real datasets are reported to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology. The proposed algorithm and methods are implemented in the new R package CensMixReg. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. (AU)

FAPESP's process: 14/02938-9 - Estimation and diagnostics for censored mixed effects models using scale mixtures of skew-normal distributions
Grantee:Víctor Hugo Lachos Dávila
Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
FAPESP's process: 15/20922-5 - Flexible regression modeling for censored data
Grantee:Víctor Hugo Lachos Dávila
Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Visiting Researcher Grant - Brazil