[R-sig-ME] generalized linear mixed models: large differences when using glmmPQL or lmer with laplace approximation

Martijn Vandegehuchte martijn.vandegehuchte at ugent.be
Wed Oct 8 11:59:13 CEST 2008


Thank you for this explanation. My dataset consists of 120 observations, 
with 6 levels of the random effect (20 observations per level). I think in 
my case the df, like you say, are not the point, because the number is 
rather large.

Considering the quasipoisson family, I do not really know how it works or 
what it does (like I said, I am not a statistician at all). I only learned 
that it is a way to deal with overdispersion, and yes, my data are highly 
overdispersed. If I make the same models with lmer with a poisson family, 
all the effects become highly significant, so the correction seems 
necessary.

Another remark: by now I found out that when I use poisson or quasipoisson, 
the results with glmmPQL are exactly the same, and still quite close to the 
quasipoisson results of lmer (as opposed to the poisson results of lmer). I 
have been searching for information about the quasi families, but I can't 
seem to find any. I'm a bit puzzled by this at the moment. Why is there a 
huge difference between quasipoisson and poisson with lmer and not with 
glmmPQL? It seems that glmmPQL already accounts for the overdispersion, also 
because when I compare the results with the output of SAS proc glimmix, the 
results of glmmPQL are exactly the same only if I put the overdispersion 
correction "random _residual_" in SAS.

Also, the overdispersion in my data is to a large extent due to the amount 
of zeroes. I have been searching for ways to build ZIP models, but in SAS 
with proc nlmixed, it is quite complex, and with glmm.admb() in R, I also 
get strange results and warning messages, and I have problems with obtaining 
the output I need. Now a colleague from my lab just pointed out that a glmm 
with a correction for overdispersion gave very similar results compared with 
ZIP models in a study of his. And besides that, the overdispersion in my 
case is not only due to the zeroes, there are also some large values in my 
dependent variables, so I'm not even sure if a ZIP model is the right way to 
deal with it. But maybe it is a way to avoid the quasifamilies, if they 
should be avoided at all. It's just a thought.

I would appreciate your ideas on these matters,

Thank you for your time and effort,

Martijn.


-- 
Martijn Vandegehuchte
Ghent University
Department Biology
Terrestrial Ecology Unit
K.L.Ledeganckstraat 35
B-9000 Ghent
telephone: +32 (0)9/264 50 84
e-mail: martijn.vandegehuchte at ugent.be

website TEREC: www.ecology.ugent.be/terec

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Douglas Bates" <bates at stat.wisc.edu>
To: "Martijn Vandegehuchte" <martijn.vandegehuchte at ugent.be>
Cc: <r-sig-mixed-models at r-project.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2008 10:59 PM
Subject: Re: [R-sig-ME] generalized linear mixed models: large differences 
when using glmmPQL or lmer with laplace approximation


> Due to some travel and the need to attend to other projects, I haven't
> been keeping up as closely with this list as I normally do.  Regarding
> the comparison between the PQL and Laplace methods for fitting
> generalized linear mixed models, I believe that the estimates produced
> by the Laplace method are more reliable than those from the PQL
> method.  The objective function optimized by the Laplace method is a
> direct approxmation, and generally a very good approximation, to the
> log-likelihood for the model being fit.  The PQL method is indirect
> (the "QL" part of the name stands for "quasi-likelihood") and, because
> it involves alternating conditional optimization, can alternate
> back-and-forth between two potential solutions, neither of which is
> optimal.  (To be fair, such alternating occurs more frequently in the
> analogous method for nonlinear mixed-models, in which I was one of the
> co-conspirators, than in the PQL method for GLMMs.)
>
> It may be that the problem you are encountering has more to do with
> the use of the quasipoisson family than with the Laplace
> approximation.  I am not sure that the derivation of the standard
> errors in lmer when using the quasipoisson family is correct, in part
> because I don't really understand the quasipoisson and quasibinomial
> families.  As far as I know, they don't correspond to probability
> distributions so the theory is a bit iffy.
>
> Do you need to use the quasipoisson family or could you use the
> poisson family?  Generally the motivation for the quasipoisson familiy
> is to accomodate overdispersion.  Often in a generalized linear mixed
> model the problem is underdispersion rather than overdispersion.
>
> In one of Ben's replies in this thread he discusses the degrees of
> freedom attributed to certain t-statistics.  Regular readers of this
> list are aware that degrees of freedom is one of my least favorite
> topics.  If one has a reasonably large number of observations and a
> reasonably large number of groups then the issue is unimportant.
> (Uncertainty in degrees of freedom is important only when the value of
> the degrees of freedom is small.  In fact, when I first started
> studying statistics we used the standard normal in place of the
> t-distribution whenever the degrees of freedom exceeded 30).
> Considering that the quasi-Poisson doesn't correspond to a probability
> distribution in the first place, (readers should feel free to correct
> me if I am wrong about this) I find the issue of the number of degrees
> of freedom that should be attributed to a distribution of a quantity
> calculated from a non-existent distribution to be somewhat off the
> point.
>
> I think the problem is more likely that the standard errors are not
> being calculated correctly.  Is that what you concluded from your
> simulations, Ben?
>
> On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 8:21 AM, Martijn Vandegehuchte
> <martijn.vandegehuchte at ugent.be> wrote:
>> Dear list,
>
>> First of all, I am a mere ecologist, trying to get the truth out of his 
>> data, and not a statistician, so forgive me my lack of statistical 
>> background and possible conceptual misunderstandings.
>
>> I am currently comparing generalized linear mixed models in glmmPQL and 
>> lmer, with a quasipoisson family, and have found out that parameter 
>> estimates are quite different for both methods. I read some of the 
>> discussions on the R-forum and it seems that the Laplace approximation 
>> used in the current version of lmer is generally preferred to the PQL 
>> method. I am an ex-SAS user, and in proc glimmix in SAS the default is 
>> PQL, and the estimates and p-values are almost exact the same as with 
>> glmmPQL in R. But lmer gives quite different results, and now I am 
>> wondering what would be the best option for me.
>
>> First of all, parameter estimates of a same model can be somewhat 
>> different in lmer or glmmPQL. Second of all, in lmer, I only get t-values 
>> but no associated p-values (apparently they are omitted because of the 
>> uncertainty about the df). But if I compare the t-values generated by 
>> glmmPQL with those of a same model in lmer, the differences are 
>> substantial. My dataset consists of 120 observations, so basically you 
>> could guess the order of magnitude of the p-values in lmer based on the 
>> t-value and a "large" df.
>
>> First example:
>> In lmer:
>>
>>> model<-lmer(schirufu~diameter+leafvit+densroot+cover+nemcm+(1|site),family=quasipoisson)
>>> summary (model)
>> Generalized linear mixed model fit by the Laplace approximation
>> Formula: schirufu ~ diameter + leafvit + densroot + cover + nemcm + (1 | 
>> site)
>>  AIC  BIC logLik deviance
>>  2045 2068  -1015     2029
>> Random effects:
>>  Groups   Name        Variance Std.Dev.
>>  site     (Intercept) 12.700   3.5638
>>  Residual             15.182   3.8964
>> Number of obs: 120, groups: site, 6
>>
>> Fixed effects:
>>            Estimate Std. Error t value
>> (Intercept)  1.31017    1.47249   0.890
>> diameter    -0.24799    0.29180  -0.850
>> leafvit      1.29007    0.21041   6.131
>> densroot     0.31024    0.04939   6.281
>> cover       -0.24544    0.22179  -1.107
>> nemcm        0.24817    0.12028   2.063
>>
>> Correlation of Fixed Effects:
>>         (Intr) diamtr leafvt densrt cover
>> diameter  0.031
>> leafvit  -0.083  0.321
>> densroot  0.011 -0.017 -0.202
>> cover     0.021 -0.448  0.016  0.214
>> nemcm    -0.014  0.114  0.114  0.310 -0.017
>>>
>>
>> Although no p-values are given, it suggests that fixed effects leafvit, 
>> densroot and nemcm would be significant.
>> In glmmPQL:
>>
>>> model<-glmmPQL(schirufu~diameter+leafvit+densroot+cover+nemcm,random=~1|site,family=quasipoisson)
>> iteration 1
>> iteration 2
>> iteration 3
>> iteration 4
>> iteration 5
>>> summary(model)
>> Linear mixed-effects model fit by maximum likelihood
>>  Data: NULL
>>  AIC BIC logLik
>>   NA  NA     NA
>>
>> Random effects:
>>  Formula: ~1 | site
>>        (Intercept) Residual
>> StdDev:   0.7864989  4.63591
>>
>> Variance function:
>>  Structure: fixed weights
>>  Formula: ~invwt
>> Fixed effects: schirufu ~ diameter + leafvit + densroot + cover + nemcm
>>                 Value Std.Error  DF   t-value p-value
>> (Intercept)  1.4486735 0.4174843 109  3.470007  0.0007
>> diameter    -0.2600504 0.3477017 109 -0.747913  0.4561
>> leafvit      1.2236406 0.2489291 109  4.915619  0.0000
>> densroot     0.3236446 0.0596342 109  5.427164  0.0000
>> cover       -0.2523163 0.2698555 109 -0.935005  0.3519
>> nemcm        0.2336305 0.1451751 109  1.609301  0.1104
>>  Correlation:
>>         (Intr) diamtr leafvt densrt cover
>> diameter  0.130
>> leafvit  -0.335  0.313
>> densroot  0.027 -0.022 -0.203
>> cover     0.090 -0.463  0.015  0.214
>> nemcm    -0.056  0.097  0.107  0.301 -0.014
>>
>> Standardized Within-Group Residuals:
>>       Min         Q1        Med         Q3        Max
>> -2.4956188 -0.4154369 -0.1333850  0.1724601  4.7355928
>>
>> Number of Observations: 120
>> Number of Groups: 6
>>>
>>
>> Note the difference in parameter estimates. Also, the fixed effect nemcm 
>> now is not significant any more.
>>
>> Second example,now with an offset:
>> In lmer:
>>
>>> model<-lmer(nemcm~diameter+leafvit+densroot+rootvit+cover+schirufu+(1|site), 
>>> offset= loglength, family=quasipoisson)
>>> summary (model)
>> Generalized linear mixed model fit by the Laplace approximation
>> Formula: nemcm ~ diameter + leafvit + densroot + rootvit + cover + 
>> schirufu +      (1 | site)
>>  AIC  BIC logLik deviance
>>  1593 1618 -787.4     1575
>> Random effects:
>>  Groups   Name        Variance Std.Dev.
>>  site     (Intercept)  21.522   4.6392
>>  Residual             173.888  13.1867
>> Number of obs: 120, groups: site, 6
>>
>> Fixed effects:
>>            Estimate Std. Error t value
>> (Intercept)  0.06733    1.92761  0.0349
>> diameter     0.14665    0.60693  0.2416
>> leafvit     -0.19902    0.48802 -0.4078
>> densroot    -0.49178    0.64221 -0.7658
>> rootvit      0.37699    0.46810  0.8054
>> cover       -0.23545    0.57896 -0.4067
>> schirufu     0.23226    0.46866  0.4956
>>
>> Correlation of Fixed Effects:
>>         (Intr) diamtr leafvt densrt rootvt cover
>> diameter -0.016
>> leafvit   0.015  0.396
>> densroot  0.055 -0.233 -0.291
>> rootvit  -0.038 -0.251 -0.629  0.277
>> cover     0.024 -0.796 -0.133  0.253  0.117
>> schirufu -0.032  0.137 -0.029 -0.505 -0.078 -0.121
>>>
>>
>> This suggests no significant effects at all.
>> In glmmPQL:
>>
>>> model<-glmmPQL(nemcm~diameter+leafvit+densroot+rootvit+cover+schirufu+offset(loglength),random=~1|site, 
>>> family=quasipoisson)
>> iteration 1
>> iteration 2
>> iteration 3
>>> summary (model)
>> Linear mixed-effects model fit by maximum likelihood
>>  Data: NULL
>>  AIC BIC logLik
>>   NA  NA     NA
>>
>> Random effects:
>>  Formula: ~1 | site
>>        (Intercept) Residual
>> StdDev:   0.2684477 4.507758
>>
>> Variance function:
>>  Structure: fixed weights
>>  Formula: ~invwt
>> Fixed effects: nemcm ~ diameter + leafvit + densroot + rootvit + cover + 
>> schirufu +      offset(loglength)
>>                 Value Std.Error  DF    t-value p-value
>> (Intercept)  0.1131898 0.1656949 108  0.6831220  0.4960
>> diameter     0.1225231 0.1976568 108  0.6198779  0.5366
>> leafvit     -0.2191361 0.1697784 108 -1.2907181  0.1996
>> densroot    -0.4733839 0.2221562 108 -2.1308604  0.0354
>> rootvit      0.3858120 0.1615706 108  2.3878846  0.0187
>> cover       -0.2075038 0.1922054 108 -1.0795940  0.2827
>> schirufu     0.2028444 0.1633954 108  1.2414323  0.2171
>>  Correlation:
>>         (Intr) diamtr leafvt densrt rootvt cover
>> diameter -0.050
>> leafvit   0.077  0.360
>> densroot  0.217 -0.168 -0.262
>> rootvit  -0.163 -0.202 -0.632  0.257
>> cover     0.084 -0.772 -0.098  0.200  0.073
>> schirufu -0.103  0.099 -0.050 -0.483 -0.068 -0.075
>>
>> Standardized Within-Group Residuals:
>>       Min         Q1        Med         Q3        Max
>> -1.1146287 -0.5208003 -0.1927005  0.2462878  7.9755368
>>
>> Number of Observations: 120
>> Number of Groups: 6
>>>
>>
>> Again some differences in parameter estimates, but now the two fixed 
>> effects densroot and rootvit turn out to be significant.
>> So my questions are:
>> - what would you recommend me to use? lmer or glmmPQL (laplace 
>> approximation or penalized quasi-likelihood)?
>> - if lmer is the better option, is there a way to get a reliable p-value 
>> for the fixed effects?
>> I have experienced that deleting a term and comparing models using 
>> anova() always overestimates the significance of that term, probably 
>> because the quasipoisson correction for overdispersion is not taken into 
>> account.
>>
>> Thank you very much beforehand,
>>
>> Martijn.
>>
>> --
>> Martijn Vandegehuchte
>> Ghent University
>> Department Biology
>> Terrestrial Ecology Unit
>> K.L.Ledeganckstraat 35
>> B-9000 Ghent
>> telephone: +32 (0)9/264 50 84
>> e-mail: martijn.vandegehuchte at ugent.be
>>
>> website TEREC: www.ecology.ugent.be/terec
>>
>>        [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> R-sig-mixed-models at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mixed-models
>>
>




More information about the R-sig-mixed-models mailing list