Density estimation by the penalized combinatorial method

  • Authors:
  • Gérard Biau;Luc Devroye

  • Affiliations:
  • Laboratoire de Statistique Théorique et Appliquée, Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris VI, Boîte 158, 175 rue du Chevaleret, 75013 Paris, France;School of Computer Science, McGill University Montreal, Canada H3A 2A6

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Multivariate Analysis
  • Year:
  • 2005

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Let f be an unknown multivariate density belonging to a prespecified parametric class of densities, Fk, where k is unknown, but Fk⊂Fk+1 for all k and each Fk has finite Vapnik-Chervonenkis dimension. Given an i.i.d. sample of size n drawn from f, we show that it is possible to select automatically, and without extra restrictions on f, an estimate fn,k with the property that E{∫|fn,k-f|}=O(1/√n). Our method is inspired by the combinatorial tools developed in Devroye and Lugosi (Combinatorial Methods in Density Estimation, Springer, New York, 2001) and it includes a wide range of density models, such as mixture models or exponential families.