Section: New Software and Platforms

MIXMOD software

Participants : Gilles Celeux [Correspondant] , Erwan Le Pennec, Benjamin Auder.

Mixture model, cluster analysis, discriminant analysis

mixmod is being developed in collaboration with Christophe Biernacki, Florent Langrognet (Université de Franche-Comté) and Gérard Govaert (Université de Technologie de Compiègne). mixmod (mix ture mod elling) software fits mixture models to a given data set with either a clustering or a discriminant analysis purpose. mixmod uses a large variety of algorithms to estimate mixture parameters, e.g., EM, Classification EM, and Stochastic EM. They can be combined to create different strategies that lead to a sensible maximum of the likelihood (or completed likelihood) function. Moreover, different information criteria for choosing a parsimonious model, e.g. the number of mixture component, some of them favoring either a cluster analysis or a discriminant analysis view point, are included. Many Gaussian models for continuous variables and multinomial models for discrete variable are available. Written in C++, mixmod is interfaced with Matlab . The software, the statistical documentation and also the user guide are available on the Internet at the following address: http://www.mixmod.org .

Since 2010, mixmod has a proper graphical user interface. A version of mixmod in R is now available http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/Rmixmod/index.html .

Erwan Le Pennec with the help of Serge Cohen has proposed a spatial extension in which the mixture weights can vary spatially.

Benjamin Auder contributes to the informatics improvement of mixmod . He implemented an interface to test any mathematical library (Armadillo, Eigen, ...) to replace NEWMAT. He contributed to the continuous integration setup using Jenkins tool and prepared an automated testing framework for unit and non-regression tests.

This year, it has been decide to create mixmodstore which proposes companion programs of mixmod . As a matter of fact, the program MixmodCombi of Jean-Patrick Baudry (Université Paris 6) and Gilles Celeux which allows a hierarchical clustering derived from a mixture has been associated to Rmixmod.