[R] Help with glmmML package

[Göran Broström]

On Tue, 16 Sep 2003, Farouk Nathoo wrote:

> Dear R users,
>
> I have been using the package glmmML to fit a logistic-normal mixed model
> to clustered binary data. Along with parameter estimates I would also like
> to obtain estimates of the random effects. I have noticed that a fitted
> "glmmML" object contains a component called "frail", a vector, which looks
> to be an estimate of the random effects. Can anyone confirm this?

I can.

> And if
> so, how are these estimates obtained from the fitted model?

They are the conditional expectations of the random effects, given "data",
calculated at the parameter values given by the fitted model.

> Are they the empirical Bayes estimates?

I guess one could call them that.

I apologize for the bad documentation of glmmML. Hopefully I will be able
to deliver improvements during this fall. Until then, read the source
code. :-)

 ---
 Göran Broström                    tel: +46 90 786 5223
 Department of Statistics          fax: +46 90 786 6614
 Umeå University                   http://www.stat.umu.se/egna/gb/
 SE-90187 Umeå, Sweden             e-mail: gb at stat.umu.se