Hi,


I wanted to check the difference in results (using lme4) , if I treated a
particular variable (beadchip) as a random effect vs if I treated it as a
fixed effect.


For the first case, my formula is:


lmer.result <- lmer(expression ~ cancerClass + (1|beadchip))


For the second case, I want to do:


lmer.result2 <- lmer(expression ~ cancerClass + beadchip)



However, I get an error in the second case:


> Error in lmerFactorList(formula, fr, 0L, 0L):

  No random effects terms specified in formula



Is there any way that I can get lmer() to accept a formula without a random
effect?


many thanks

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