[R] lmer and glmmPQL

Spencer Graves spencer.graves at pdf.com
Sun Dec 11 01:33:00 CET 2005


Hello, Stephen:

	  I can't match Doug's understanding of these issues, but I will offer 
a couple of comments.  Regarding your question 1, the difference is in 
the denominator of degrees of freedom:  6620 for lmer and 10 for lme.

  pf(2.10459, 4, c(6610, 10), lower.tail=FALSE)
[1] 0.07752865 0.15499674

	  This may not tell you more than you already know.  However, from 
earlier remarks on the listserve, I know that getting accurate p values 
for these kinds of models is still a substantive research issue.  If you 
want an accurate p value, there may be no substitute for Monte Carlo.  I 
just got 34 hits for 'RSiteSearch("simulate.lme")' and 10 for 
'RSiteSearch("simulate lmer")'.  If you are not already familiar with 
Pinheiro and Bates (2000) Mixed-Effects Models in S and S-Plus 
(Springer), I suspect you will find at least partial answers to many of 
your mixed-effects questions there.  Certainly, I found it quite 
illuminating.

	  Best Wishes,
	  spencer graves

Cox, Stephen wrote:

> Thanks for the reply Doug!
> 
> A follow up question and comment ...
> 
> 1) If I understand correctly, looking at a simple situation in which
> SITES are nested in ZONES, the following should be similar.  However,
> despite the same F values, the p-value from lmer is 1/2 the other
> methods.  Why is this true?
> 
> 
>>anova(lmer(RICH ~ ZONE + (1|SITE:ZONE), data))
> 
> Analysis of Variance Table
>      Df Sum Sq Mean Sq  Denom F value  Pr(>F)  
> ZONE  4   97.8    24.5 6610.0  2.1046 0.07753 .
> 
> 
>># make the nesting explicit
>>data$SinZ = with(data, ZONE:SITE)[drop=TRUE]
>>anova(lme(RICH ~ ZONE, data, random = ~1 | SinZ))
> 
>             numDF denDF   F-value p-value
> (Intercept)     1  6600 100.38331  <.0001
> ZONE            4    10   2.10459   0.155
> 
> 
>>summary(aov(RICH ~ ZONE + Error(SITE:ZONE), data))
> 
> 
> Error: SITE:ZONE
>           Df Sum Sq Mean Sq F value Pr(>F)
> ZONE       4  29669    7417  2.1046  0.155
> Residuals 10  35243    3524   
> 
> 
> 2) I think the anova problems with lmer may also apply to poisson.
> Compare the following (which includes a covariate).  Based on the
> parameter estimates, the covariate should be significant.  However, its
> anova p-value is .998:
> 
> 
>>lmer(RICH ~ ZONE + lANPP + (1|SITE:ZONE), family = poisson, data)
> 
> Generalized linear mixed model fit using PQL 
> Formula: RICH ~ ZONE + lANPP + (1 | SITE:ZONE) 
>    Data: data 
>  Family: poisson(log link)
>       AIC      BIC    logLik deviance
>  9700.252 9754.628 -4842.126 9684.252
> Random effects:
>      Groups        Name    Variance    Std.Dev. 
>   SITE:ZONE (Intercept)    0.069493     0.26361 
> # of obs: 6615, groups: SITE:ZONE, 15
> 
> Estimated scale (compare to 1)  1.183970 
> 
> Fixed effects:
>               Estimate Std. Error z value Pr(>|z|)    
> (Intercept)  1.5169605  0.1533564  9.8917  < 2e-16 ***
> ZONE2        0.4034169  0.2156956  1.8703  0.06144 .  
> ZONE3       -0.1772011  0.2158736 -0.8209  0.41173    
> ZONE4       -0.2368290  0.2158431 -1.0972  0.27254    
> ZONE5       -0.1011186  0.2158114 -0.4686  0.63939    
> lANPP        0.2201926  0.0081857 26.8995  < 2e-16 ***
> ---
> Signif. codes:  0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1 
> 
> 
>>anova(lmer(RICH ~ ZONE + lANPP + (1|SITE:ZONE), family = poisson,
> 
> data))
> Analysis of Variance Table
>       Df    Sum Sq   Mean Sq Denom   F value Pr(>F)
> ZONE   4 2.809e-05 7.022e-06  6609 4.298e-06 1.0000
> lANPP  1 5.229e-06 5.229e-06  6609 3.200e-06 0.9986
> 
> Thanks again for any insight you may be able to provide!!
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
> 
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Douglas Bates [mailto:dmbates at gmail.com] 
>>Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 8:28 AM
>>To: Cox, Stephen
>>Cc: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
>>Subject: Re: [R] lmer and glmmPQL
>>
>>On 12/5/05, Cox, Stephen <stephen.cox at ttu.edu> wrote:
>>
>>>I have been looking into both of these approaches to conducting a 
>>>GLMM, and want to make sure I understand model 
>>
>>specification in each.  
>>
>>>In particular - after looking at Bates' Rnews article and searching 
>>>through the help archives, I am unclear on the 
>>
>>specification of nested 
>>
>>>factors in lmer.  Do the following statements specify the same mode 
>>>within each approach?
>>>
>>>m1 = glmmPQL(RICH ~ ZONE, family = poisson, data, random = ~ YEAR | 
>>>SITE / QUADRAT)
>>>m2 = lmer(RICH ~ ZONE +(YEAR|SITE)+ (YEAR|QUADRAT), family 
>>
>>= poisson,
>>
>>>data)
>>
>>If you want to ensure that QUADRAT is nested within SITE then 
>>use the interaction operator explicitly
>>
>>m2 <- lmer(RICH ~ ZONE +(YEAR|SITE)+ (YEAR|SITE:QUADRAT), 
>>family = poisson, data)
>>
>>For the grouping factors nested versus non-nested depends on 
>>the coding.  If QUADRAT has a distinct level for each 
>>SITE:QUADRAT combination then the nesting will automatically 
>>be detected.  However, if the nesting is implicit (that is, 
>>if levels of QUADRAT are repeated at different SITES) then it 
>>is necessary to use the interaction operator.  There is no 
>>harm in using the interaction operator when the nesting is explicit.
>>
>>>As a follow up - what would be the most appropriate model formula 
>>>(using glmmPQL syntax) to specify both a nested facor and repeated 
>>>observations?  Specifically, I am dealing with experimental 
>>
>>data with 
>>
>>>three factors.  ZONE is a fixed effect.  Three sites (SITE) 
>>
>>are nested 
>>
>>>within each ZONE.  Multiple quadrats within each SITE are measured 
>>>across multiple years.  I want to represent the nesting of 
>>
>>SITE within 
>>
>>>ZONE and allow for repeated observations within each 
>>
>>QUADRAT over time 
>>
>>>(the YEAR | QUADRAT random effect).  -- I am assuming that 
>>
>>glmmPQL is 
>>
>>>the best option at this point because of recent discussion on Rhelp 
>>>about issues associated with the Matrix package used in lmer (i.e., 
>>>the anova results do not seem to match parameter tests).
>>>
>>
>>I believe the anova problems only occur with a binomial response. 
>>They are caused by my failure to use the prior.weights appropriately. 
>>For a Poisson model this should not be a problem.
>>
>>
>>>Any information would be very much appreciated!
>>>
>>>Regards
>>>
>>>Stephen
>>>
>>>______________________________________________
>>>R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
>>>https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>>>PLEASE do read the posting guide! 
>>>http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>>>
>>
>>
> 
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-- 
Spencer Graves, PhD
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