[R-sig-ME] lme() vs aov()

[Federico Calboli]

Hi All,

I was playing with a small dataset of 12 observations, a very basic  
nested model, with 3 drugs, 2 sources for each drug and two response  
counts for each source (the response is some medical parameter, of no  
real interest here). The data is:

drug source response
d1 a 102
d1 a 104
d1 q 103
d1 q 104
d2 d 108
d2 d 110
d2 b 109
d2 b 108
d3 l 104
d3 l 106
d3 s 105
d3 s 107

For kicks, and because the data is balanced I thought that I could  
use it to compare the results of aov() with those of lme() -- I know  
the library lme4  and lmer() should be preferred, but the stuff I am  
ultimately testig was done with lme.

In any case I fit 2 models and got 2 different answers:

 > mod.lme = lme(response ~ drug, random = ~1|source, dat)
 > mod.aov = aov(response ~ drug + Error(source), dat)

 > summary(mod.aov)

Error: source
           Df Sum Sq Mean Sq F value   Pr(>F)
drug       2 61.167  30.583  61.167 0.003703 **
Residuals  3  1.500   0.500
---
Signif. codes:  0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1

Error: Within
           Df Sum Sq Mean Sq F value Pr(>F)
Residuals  6    9.0     1.5


 > anova(mod.lme) # I use anova here to directly compare the F-test
             numDF denDF   F-value p-value
(Intercept)     1     6 115207.14  <.0001
drug            2     3     26.21  0.0126

(incidentally the 3 denDF here make me think the F-test is exactly  
what I'd expect)

Because the results look different, I thought the possibilities are:

1) I fit 2 different models without realising it
2) one model is more conservative than the other
3) I'm completely missing some point (despite searching the archives  
of R-help and R-ME)

Just to be pesky, if I check the calculations against the book I got  
the data from (Zar 4th ed, pgg 304-305) they agree with the aov()  
results.

Any illumination is gratefully asked for. I apologise in advance for  
any annoyance past/present/future my question will cause.

Federico



--
Federico C. F. Calboli
Department of Epidemiology and Public Health
Imperial College, St. Mary's Campus
Norfolk Place, London W2 1PG

Tel +44 (0)20 75941602   Fax +44 (0)20 75943193

f.calboli [.a.t] imperial.ac.uk
f.calboli [.a.t] gmail.com