Mixture of Gaussian distributions for the random effects

Hi,

My problem with the data is called “Quasi-complete separation in random effects” as discussed in this paper.

Below is the histogram of the estimated means of the random effects when I assume a normal distribution even I used the covariates.

Histogram_RI_2a

From this figure and the suggestions from the paper that I have mentioned above, using a mixture of normal distributions is a possibility.

There is another possibility that uses transitional probability but the problem for my data is that it contains missing binary data, that I cannot put it on the right-hand side of any sampling statements.

Tran.