¹Universidade Federal do Amazonas, Instituto de Ciências Exatas, Departamento de Estatística, Manaus, Brasil. Associate professor. Email: jrpereira@ufam.edu.br
²Universidade Federal do Amazonas, Instituto de Ciências Exatas, Departamento de Estatística, Manaus, Brasil. Assistant professor. Email: leyneabuim@gmail.com
³Universidade Federal do Amazonas, Instituto de Ciências Exatas, Departamento de Estatística, Manaus, Brasil. Assistant professor. Email: zemirufam@gmail.com

We investigate, via simulation study, the performance of the EM algorithm for maximum likelihood estimation in finite mixtures of skew-normal distributions with component specific parameters. The study takes into account the initialization method, the number of iterations needed to attain a fixed stopping rule and the ability of some classical model choice criteria to estimate the correct number of mixture components. The results show that the algorithm produces quite reasonable estimates when using the method of moments to obtain the starting points and that, combining them with the AIC, BIC, ICL or EDC criteria, represents a good alternative to estimate the number of components of the mixture. Exceptions occur in the estimation of the skewness parameters, notably when the sample size is relatively small, and in some classical problematic cases, as when the mixture components are poorly separated.

Key words: EM algorithm, Mixture of distributions, Skewed distributions.

El presente artículo muestra un estudio de simulación que evalúa el desempeño del algoritmo EM utilizado para determinar estimaciones por máxima verosimilitud de los parámetros de la mezcla finita de distribuciones normales asimétricas. Diferentes métodos de inicialización, así como el número de interacciones necesarias para establecer una regla de parada especificada y algunos criterios de selección del modelo para permitir estimar el número apropiado de componentes de la mezcla han sido considerados. Los resultados indican que el algoritmo genera estimaciones razonables cuando los valores iniciales son obtenidos mediante el método de momentos, que junto con los criterios AIC, BIC, ICL o EDC constituyen una eficaz alternativa en la estimación del número de componentes de la mezcla. Resultados insatisfactorios se verificaron al estimar los parámetros de simetría, principalmente seleccionando un tamaño pequeño para la muestra, y en los casos conocidamente problemáticos en los cuales los componentes de la mezcla están suficientemente separados.

Palabras clave: algoritmo EM, distribuciones asimétricas, mezcla de distribuciones.

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