[R] Discretize continous variables....

[Daniel Malter]

This time I agree with Rolf Turner. This sounds like homework. Whether or
not, type

?ifelse

in the R-prompt.

Frank is right, it leads to a loss in information. However, I think it
remains interpretable. Further, it is common practice in certain fields, and
it maybe a reasonable way to check whether mostly outliers in the X drive
your results (although other approaches are available for that as well). The
main underlying question however should be, do you have reason to expect
that the response is different by the groups you create rather than in the
numbers of the continuous variable. 

Regarding question 2: I thought you mean that you want to reduce the number
of levels (say 4) to a smaller number of levels (say 2) for one of your
independent variables (i.e. one of the Xs), not Y. This makes sense only, if
there is any good conceptual reason to group these categories - not just to
get significance.

Best,
Daniel





Frank E Harrell Jr wrote:
> 
> milicic.marko wrote:
>> Hi R helpers,
>> 
>> 
>> I'm preparing dataset to fir logistic regression model with lrm(). I
>> have various cointinous and discrete variables and I would like to:
>> 
>> 1. Optimaly discretize continous variables (Optimaly means, maximizing
>> information value - IV for example)
> 
> This will result in effects in the model that cannot be interpreted and 
> will ruin the statistical inference from the lrm.  It will also hurt 
> predictive discrimination.  You seem to be allergic to continuous
> variables.
> 
>> 2. Regroup discrete variables to achieve perhaps smaller number of
>> level and better information value...
> 
> If you use the Y variable to do this the same problems will result. 
> Shrinkage is a better approach, or using marginal frequencies to combine 
> levels.  See the "pre-specification of complexity" strategy in my book 
> Regression Modeling Strategies.
> 
> Frank
> 
>> 
>> 
>> Please suggest if there is some package providing this or same
>> functionality for discretization...
>> 
>> 
>> if there is no package plese suggest how to achieve this.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Many thanks helpers.
>> 
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> PLEASE do read the posting guide
>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Frank E Harrell Jr   Professor and Chair           School of Medicine
>                       Department of Biostatistics   Vanderbilt University
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
> 
> 

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