[Rd] idea for GSoC: an R package for fitting Bayesian Hierarchical Models

[Ben Bolker]

Antonio, Fabio Di Narzo <antonio.fabio <at> gmail.com> writes:

  
>

  I agree that quantitative differences in speed can make
a qualitative difference in the way one works.

  Well, I'm somewhat interested, but don't feel that I'm
necessarily appropriate as a mentor. I don't think it would
be terrible if you contacted particular people (Gelman, Plummer,
O'Hara?) to see if they were interested ... they could always
say no ...

> >
> >   Something I would love to see done (not that I have the time
> >  and energy to supervise someone to do it right now) would be
> >  an R (or Python/etc.: R wouldn't necessarily be the best tool)
> >  to translate lmer/nlme syntax (Wilkinson-Rogers with extensions
> >  for specifying random factors, correlation structures, etc.)
> >  into a BUGS file.  It strikes me that it would be a really nice
> >  way to bridge the gap between what mixed-model code can do
> >  and what requires BUGS/MCMC.  Such models could also serve as
> >  (1) a way to cross-check the results of mixed model code;
> >  (2) a way to get started in relaxing the assumptions of mixed
> >  models (e.g. allowing for non-normal random effects distributions).
> 
> That sounds interesting. However, I currenlty don't have enough
> know-how to work at something like it now.

   Do you think so?  I don't think it would be too hard,
if you were interested ...

  Ben