Parameters estimation of a bivariate mixture normal-lognormal model - r

Question

I have to create a model which is a mixture of a normal and log-normal distribution. To create it, I need to estimate the 2 covariance matrixes and the mixing parameter (total =7 parameters) by maximizing the log-likelihood function. This maximization has to be performed by the nlm routine.
As I use relative data, the means are known and equal to 1.
I’ve already tried to do it in 1 dimension (with 1 set of relative data) and it works well. However, when I introduce the 2nd set of relative data I get illogical results for the correlation and a lot of warnings messages (at all 25).
To estimate these parameters I defined first the log-likelihood function with the 2 commands dmvnorm and dlnorm.plus. Then I assign starting values of the parameters and finally I use the nlm routine to estimate the parameters (see script below).
`P <- read.ascii.grid("d:/Documents/JOINT_FREQUENCY/grid_E727_P-3000.asc", return.header=
FALSE );
V <- read.ascii.grid("d:/Documents/JOINT_FREQUENCY/grid_E727_V-3000.asc", return.header=
FALSE );
p <- c(P); # tranform matrix into a vector
v <- c(V);
p<- p[!is.na(p)] # removing NA values
v<- v[!is.na(v)]
p_rel <- p/mean(p) #Transforming the data to relative values
v_rel <- v/mean(v)
PV <- cbind(p_rel, v_rel) # create a matrix of vectors
L <- function(par,p_rel,v_rel) {
return (-sum(log( (1- par[7])*dmvnorm(PV, mean=c(1,1), sigma= matrix(c(par[1]^2, par[1]*par[2]
*par[3],par[1]*par[2]*par[3], par[2]^2 ),nrow=2, ncol=2))+
par[7]*dlnorm.rplus(PV, meanlog=c(1,1), varlog= matrix(c(par[4]^2,par[4]*par[5]*par[6],par[4]
*par[5]*par[6],par[5]^2), nrow=2,ncol=2)) )))
}
par.start<- c(0.74, 0.66 ,0.40, 1.4, 1.2, 0.4, 0.5) # log-likelihood estimators
result<-nlm(L,par.start,v_rel=v_rel,p_rel=p_rel, hessian=TRUE, iterlim=200, check.analyticals= TRUE)
Messages d'avis :
1: In log(eigen(sigma, symmetric = TRUE, only.values = TRUE)$values) :
production de NaN
2: In sqrt(2 * pi * det(varlog)) : production de NaN
3: In nlm(L, par.start, p_rel = p_rel, v_rel = v_rel, hessian = TRUE) :
NA/Inf replaced by maximum positive value
4: In log(eigen(sigma, symmetric = TRUE, only.values = TRUE)$values) :
production de NaN
…. Until 25.
par.hat <- result$estimate
cat("sigN_p =", par[1],"\n","sigN_v =", par[2],"\n","rhoN =", par[3],"\n","sigLN_p =", par [4],"\n","sigLN_v =", par[5],"\n","rhoLN =", par[6],"\n","mixing parameter =", par[7],"\n")
sigN_p = 0.5403361
sigN_v = 0.6667375
rhoN = 0.6260181
sigLN_p = 1.705626
sigLN_v = 1.592832
rhoLN = 0.9735974
mixing parameter = 0.8113369`
Does someone know what is wrong in my model or how should I do to find these parameters in 2 dimensions?
Thank you very much for taking time to look at my questions.
Regards,
Gladys Hertzog

Answer 1

When I do these kind of optimization problems, I find that it's important to make sure that all the variables that I'm optimizing over are constrained to plausible values. For example, standard deviation variables have to be positive, and from knowledge of the situation that I'm modelling I'll probably be able to put an upper bound all my standard deviation variables as well. So if s is one of my standard deviation variables, and if m is the maximum value that I want it to take, instead of working with s I'll solve for the variable z which is related to s via
s = m/(1+e-z)
In that formula, z is unconstrained, but s must lie between 0 and m. This is vital because optimization routines where the variables are not constrained to take plausible values will often try completely implausible values while they're trying to bound the solution. Implausible values often cause problems with e.g. precision, that then results in NaN's etc. The general formula that I use for constraining a single variable x to lie between a and b is
x = a + (b - a)/(1+e-z)
However, regarding your particular problem where you're looking for covariance matrices, a more sophisticated approach is necessary than simply bounding all the individual variables. Covariance matrices must be positive semi-definite, so if you're simply optimizing the individual values in the matrix, the optimization will probably fail (producing NaN's) if a matrix which isn't positive definite is fed into the likelihood function. To get round this problem, one approach is to solve for the Cholesky decomposition of the covariance matrix instead of the covariance matrix itself. My guess is that this is probably what's causing your optimization to fail.