A deconvolution path for mixtures

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Abstract: We propose a class of estimators for deconvolution in mixture models based on a simple two-step "bin-and-smooth" procedure applied to histogram counts. The method is both statistically and computationally efficient: by exploiting recent advances in convex optimization, we are able to provide a full deconvolution path that shows the estimate for the mixing distribution across a range of plausible degrees of smoothness, at far less cost than a full Bayesian analysis. This enables practitioners to conduct a sensitivity analysis with minimal effort. This is especially important for applied data analysis, given the ill-posed nature of the deconvolution problem. Our results establish the favorable theoretical properties of our estimator and show that it offers state-of-the-art performance when compared to benchmark methods across a range of scenarios.


In this paper the authors propose a nonparametric method for deconvolution that is both statistically and computationally efficient. The method is motivated in terms of an underlying Bayesian model incorporating a prior into the model \[ y_i|\mu_i\sim\phi(y_i|\mu_i),\quad \mu_i\sim f_0,\;\;\mu_i\;\;\text{i.i.d.} \] Instead using a full Bayes analysis the authors use a two-step ``bin and smooth procedure, which in the ``bin step forms a histogram of the sample, yielding the number of observations \(x_j\) that fall into the \(j\)-th histogram bin. In the ``smooth step these counts are used to compute a maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimate of \(f_0\) under a prior that encourages smoothness. It is shown that the proposed nonparametric empirical-Bayes procedure yields excellent performance for deconvolution, at reduced computational cost compared to full nonparametric Bayesian methods. The main theorem establishes conditions under which the method yields a consistent estimate of the mixing distribution \(f_0\). Simulation evidence that the method offers practical improvements over existing state-of-the-art methods is also provided.



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