Adaptive Bayesian Estimation of Mixed Discrete-Continuous Distributions under Smoothness and Sparsity

We consider nonparametric estimation of a mixed discrete-continuous distribution under anisotropic smoothness conditions and possibly increasing number of support points for the discrete part of the distribution. For these settings, we derive lower bounds on the estimation rates in the total variati...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Bibliographische Detailangaben
Link(s) zu Dokument(en):IHS Publikation
Hauptverfasser: Norets, Andriy, Pelenis, Justinas
Format: IHS Series NonPeerReviewed
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: 2018
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:We consider nonparametric estimation of a mixed discrete-continuous distribution under anisotropic smoothness conditions and possibly increasing number of support points for the discrete part of the distribution. For these settings, we derive lower bounds on the estimation rates in the total variation distance. Next, we consider a nonparametric mixture of normals model that uses continuous latent variables for the discrete part of the observations. We show that the posterior in this model contracts at rates that are equal to the derived lower bounds up to a log factor. Thus, Bayesian mixture of normals models can be used for optimal adaptive estimation of mixed discrete-continuous distributions.