IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/advdac/v13y2019i4d10.1007_s11634-019-00361-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Finite mixture-of-gamma distributions: estimation, inference, and model-based clustering

Author

Listed:
  • Derek S. Young

    (University of Kentucky)

  • Xi Chen

    (University of Kentucky
    University of Kentucky)

  • Dilrukshi C. Hewage

    (University of Kentucky)

  • Ricardo Nilo-Poyanco

    (Universidad Mayor)

Abstract

Finite mixtures of (multivariate) Gaussian distributions have broad utility, including their usage for model-based clustering. There is increasing recognition of mixtures of asymmetric distributions as powerful alternatives to traditional mixtures of Gaussian and mixtures of t distributions. The present work contributes to that assertion by addressing some facets of estimation and inference for mixtures-of-gamma distributions, including in the context of model-based clustering. Maximum likelihood estimation of mixtures of gammas is performed using an expectation–conditional–maximization (ECM) algorithm. The Wilson–Hilferty normal approximation is employed as part of an effective starting value strategy for the ECM algorithm, as well as provides insight into an effective model-based clustering strategy. Inference regarding the appropriateness of a common-shape mixture-of-gammas distribution is motivated by theory from research on infant habituation. We provide extensive simulation results that demonstrate the strong performance of our routines as well as analyze two real data examples: an infant habituation dataset and a whole genome duplication dataset.

Suggested Citation

  • Derek S. Young & Xi Chen & Dilrukshi C. Hewage & Ricardo Nilo-Poyanco, 2019. "Finite mixture-of-gamma distributions: estimation, inference, and model-based clustering," Advances in Data Analysis and Classification, Springer;German Classification Society - Gesellschaft für Klassifikation (GfKl);Japanese Classification Society (JCS);Classification and Data Analysis Group of the Italian Statistical Society (CLADAG);International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS), vol. 13(4), pages 1053-1082, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:advdac:v:13:y:2019:i:4:d:10.1007_s11634-019-00361-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s11634-019-00361-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11634-019-00361-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11634-019-00361-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Salvatore Ingrassia, 2004. "A likelihood-based constrained algorithm for multivariate normal mixture models," Statistical Methods & Applications, Springer;Società Italiana di Statistica, vol. 13(2), pages 151-166, September.
    2. Benaglia, Tatiana & Chauveau, Didier & Hunter, David R. & Young, Derek S., 2009. "mixtools: An R Package for Analyzing Mixture Models," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 32(i06).
    3. Peter Xue‐Kun Song, 2000. "Multivariate Dispersion Models Generated From Gaussian Copula," Scandinavian Journal of Statistics, Danish Society for Theoretical Statistics;Finnish Statistical Society;Norwegian Statistical Association;Swedish Statistical Association, vol. 27(2), pages 305-320, June.
    4. Sharon Lee & Geoffrey McLachlan, 2013. "Rejoinder to the discussion of “Model-based clustering and classification with non-normal mixture distributions”," Statistical Methods & Applications, Springer;Società Italiana di Statistica, vol. 22(4), pages 473-479, November.
    5. Grün, Bettina & Leisch, Friedrich, 2008. "FlexMix Version 2: Finite Mixtures with Concomitant Variables and Varying and Constant Parameters," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 28(i04).
    6. Al-Saleh, Jamal A. & Agarwal, Satish K., 2007. "Finite mixture of gamma distributions: A conjugate prior," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 51(9), pages 4369-4378, May.
    7. Sharon Lee & Geoffrey McLachlan, 2013. "Model-based clustering and classification with non-normal mixture distributions," Statistical Methods & Applications, Springer;Società Italiana di Statistica, vol. 22(4), pages 427-454, November.
    8. Hoben Thomas & Thomas P. Hettmansperger, 2001. "Modelling change in cognitive understanding with finite mixtures," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 50(4), pages 435-448.
    9. Lawrence Hubert & Phipps Arabie, 1985. "Comparing partitions," Journal of Classification, Springer;The Classification Society, vol. 2(1), pages 193-218, December.
    10. Biernacki, Christophe & Celeux, Gilles & Govaert, Gerard, 2003. "Choosing starting values for the EM algorithm for getting the highest likelihood in multivariate Gaussian mixture models," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 41(3-4), pages 561-575, January.
    11. Hanfeng Chen & Jiahua Chen & John D. Kalbfleisch, 2001. "A modified likelihood ratio test for homogeneity in finite mixture models," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 63(1), pages 19-29.
    12. Karlis, Dimitris & Xekalaki, Evdokia, 2003. "Choosing initial values for the EM algorithm for finite mixtures," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 41(3-4), pages 577-590, January.
    13. Derek S. Young & David R. Hunter, 2015. "Random effects regression mixtures for analyzing infant habituation," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(7), pages 1421-1441, July.
    14. Chen, Jiahua & Khalili, Abbas, 2009. "Order Selection in Finite Mixture Models With a Nonsmooth Penalty," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 104(485), pages 187-196.
    15. A. Mathal & P. Moschopoulos, 1992. "A form of multivariate gamma distribution," Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Springer;The Institute of Statistical Mathematics, vol. 44(1), pages 97-106, March.
    16. Kim, Daeyoung & Seo, Byungtae, 2014. "Assessment of the number of components in Gaussian mixture models in the presence of multiple local maximizers," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 100-120.
    17. Kalimuthu Krishnamoorthy & Meesook Lee & Wang Xiao, 2015. "Likelihood ratio tests for comparing several gamma distributions," Environmetrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(8), pages 571-583, December.
    18. Chris Fraley & Adrian E. Raftery, 2007. "Bayesian Regularization for Normal Mixture Estimation and Model-Based Clustering," Journal of Classification, Springer;The Classification Society, vol. 24(2), pages 155-181, September.
    19. Karlis, Dimitris & Xekalaki, Evdokia, 1998. "Minimum Hellinger distance estimation for Poisson mixtures," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 81-103, November.
    20. G. J. McLachlan, 1987. "On Bootstrapping the Likelihood Ratio Test Statistic for the Number of Components in a Normal Mixture," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 36(3), pages 318-324, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Delong, Łukasz & Lindholm, Mathias & Wüthrich, Mario V., 2021. "Gamma Mixture Density Networks and their application to modelling insurance claim amounts," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(PB), pages 240-261.
    2. Mingxing He & Jiahua Chen, 2022. "Consistency of the MLE under a two-parameter Gamma mixture model with a structural shape parameter," Metrika: International Journal for Theoretical and Applied Statistics, Springer, vol. 85(8), pages 951-975, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Roberto Rocci & Stefano Antonio Gattone & Roberto Di Mari, 2018. "A data driven equivariant approach to constrained Gaussian mixture modeling," Advances in Data Analysis and Classification, Springer;German Classification Society - Gesellschaft für Klassifikation (GfKl);Japanese Classification Society (JCS);Classification and Data Analysis Group of the Italian Statistical Society (CLADAG);International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS), vol. 12(2), pages 235-260, June.
    2. Zhu, Xuwen & Melnykov, Volodymyr, 2018. "Manly transformation in finite mixture modeling," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 190-208.
    3. Roberto Mari & Roberto Rocci & Stefano Antonio Gattone, 2020. "Scale-constrained approaches for maximum likelihood estimation and model selection of clusterwise linear regression models," Statistical Methods & Applications, Springer;Società Italiana di Statistica, vol. 29(1), pages 49-78, March.
    4. Melnykov, Volodymyr & Melnykov, Igor, 2012. "Initializing the EM algorithm in Gaussian mixture models with an unknown number of components," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 1381-1395.
    5. Melnykov, Volodymyr & Zhu, Xuwen, 2018. "On model-based clustering of skewed matrix data," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 181-194.
    6. Angelo Mazza & Antonio Punzo, 2020. "Mixtures of multivariate contaminated normal regression models," Statistical Papers, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 787-822, April.
    7. Chun Yu & Weixin Yao & Guangren Yang, 2020. "A Selective Overview and Comparison of Robust Mixture Regression Estimators," International Statistical Review, International Statistical Institute, vol. 88(1), pages 176-202, April.
    8. Keefe Murphy & Thomas Brendan Murphy, 2020. "Gaussian parsimonious clustering models with covariates and a noise component," Advances in Data Analysis and Classification, Springer;German Classification Society - Gesellschaft für Klassifikation (GfKl);Japanese Classification Society (JCS);Classification and Data Analysis Group of the Italian Statistical Society (CLADAG);International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS), vol. 14(2), pages 293-325, June.
    9. Wraith, Darren & Forbes, Florence, 2015. "Location and scale mixtures of Gaussians with flexible tail behaviour: Properties, inference and application to multivariate clustering," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 61-73.
    10. Hung Tong & Cristina Tortora, 2022. "Model-based clustering and outlier detection with missing data," Advances in Data Analysis and Classification, Springer;German Classification Society - Gesellschaft für Klassifikation (GfKl);Japanese Classification Society (JCS);Classification and Data Analysis Group of the Italian Statistical Society (CLADAG);International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS), vol. 16(1), pages 5-30, March.
    11. Salvatore Ingrassia & Antonio Punzo & Giorgio Vittadini & Simona Minotti, 2015. "Erratum to: The Generalized Linear Mixed Cluster-Weighted Model," Journal of Classification, Springer;The Classification Society, vol. 32(2), pages 327-355, July.
    12. Meng Li & Sijia Xiang & Weixin Yao, 2016. "Robust estimation of the number of components for mixtures of linear regression models," Computational Statistics, Springer, vol. 31(4), pages 1539-1555, December.
    13. Murray, Paula M. & Browne, Ryan P. & McNicholas, Paul D., 2017. "Hidden truncation hyperbolic distributions, finite mixtures thereof, and their application for clustering," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 141-156.
    14. Papastamoulis, Panagiotis & Martin-Magniette, Marie-Laure & Maugis-Rabusseau, Cathy, 2016. "On the estimation of mixtures of Poisson regression models with large number of components," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 97-106.
    15. Salvatore Ingrassia & Antonio Punzo, 2020. "Cluster Validation for Mixtures of Regressions via the Total Sum of Squares Decomposition," Journal of Classification, Springer;The Classification Society, vol. 37(2), pages 526-547, July.
    16. Galimberti, Giuliano & Soffritti, Gabriele, 2014. "A multivariate linear regression analysis using finite mixtures of t distributions," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 138-150.
    17. Sylvia Frühwirth-Schnatter & Gertraud Malsiner-Walli, 2019. "From here to infinity: sparse finite versus Dirichlet process mixtures in model-based clustering," Advances in Data Analysis and Classification, Springer;German Classification Society - Gesellschaft für Klassifikation (GfKl);Japanese Classification Society (JCS);Classification and Data Analysis Group of the Italian Statistical Society (CLADAG);International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS), vol. 13(1), pages 33-64, March.
    18. Andrews, Jeffrey L., 2018. "Addressing overfitting and underfitting in Gaussian model-based clustering," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 160-171.
    19. Volodymyr Melnykov & Xuwen Zhu, 2019. "An extension of the K-means algorithm to clustering skewed data," Computational Statistics, Springer, vol. 34(1), pages 373-394, March.
    20. Morris, Katherine & Punzo, Antonio & McNicholas, Paul D. & Browne, Ryan P., 2019. "Asymmetric clusters and outliers: Mixtures of multivariate contaminated shifted asymmetric Laplace distributions," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 145-166.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:advdac:v:13:y:2019:i:4:d:10.1007_s11634-019-00361-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.