[R-sig-ME] marginality principle for mixed effects models

Ben Bolker bolker at ufl.edu
Mon Apr 6 20:57:10 CEST 2009


  I think you could also say

data(Oats,package="nlme")

  without loading the whole nlme package.


Douglas Bates wrote:
> A minor technical point.  It is not a good idea to have the lme4 and
> nlme packages attached at the same time.  They both define generic
> functions fixef, ranef, etc. and these definitions conflict.
> 
> There is a package called MEMSS that provides the data sets from nlme
> without conflicts.
> 
> On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 9:17 PM, Steven McKinney <smckinney at bccrc.ca> wrote:
>>
>> Dear list,
>>
>> I'm working on mapping all my old-school fixed effects linear
>> modeling teachings into the fabulous new(er) mixed effects world.
>>
>> I've been looking at the "Oats" data used in the nlme library.
>> Here's a set of commands that build successively richer models,
>> and tests to evaluate differences due to variety.
>>
>> library("nlme")
>> library("lme4")
>> plot(Oats, inner = TRUE)
>> print(om1 <- lmer(yield ~ nitro + (1 | Block), data = Oats))
>> print(om2 <- lmer(yield ~ nitro + Variety + (1 | Block), data = Oats))
>> print(om3 <- lmer(yield ~ nitro + (1 | Block/Variety), data = Oats))
>> print(om4 <- lmer(yield ~ nitro + Variety + (1 | Block/Variety), data = Oats))
>>
>> anova(om4, om3) ## Does this violate the principle of marginality? (Testing main effect in presence of interaction?)
>> anova(om4, om2) ## Would this be the first test of variety?
>> anova(om4, om1) ## Would this not be the omnibus test for variety?
>> anova(om2, om1)
>>
>> If I wanted to assess the effect of variety, it seems to me
>> the first test I'd want to look at is model om4 versus model om2.
>> This it seems to me would be in the spirit of testing an interaction
>> term with both main effects in the model in the old fixed effects
>> world.
>>
>> An omnibus test of the importance of variety would seem to me
>> to be model om4 versus om1.
>>
>> Testing om4 versus om3 seems to me to violate the marginality
>> principle (testing a main effect in the presence of an interaction
>> involving that main effect).  Or is there something different in
>> the mixed effects world - does this marginality principle hold
>> for this scenario?  The plots and all the other tests seem to
>> strongly suggest that there are important differences due to variety,
>> but this test suggests otherwise.  This test does not seem
>> appropriate.
>>
>> Any comments?  Is this paradigm mapping reasonable?
>>
>>
>>
>>> library("nlme")
>>> library("lme4")
>>> plot(Oats, inner = TRUE) # Lattice plot of data
>>> print(om1 <- lmer(yield ~ nitro + (1 | Block), data = Oats))
>> Linear mixed-effects model fit by REML
>> Formula: yield ~ nitro + (1 | Block)
>>   Data: Oats
>>   AIC   BIC logLik MLdeviance REMLdeviance
>>  610.7 617.5 -302.4      616.4        604.7
>> Random effects:
>>  Groups   Name        Variance Std.Dev.
>>  Block    (Intercept) 243.34   15.599
>>  Residual             254.99   15.968
>> number of obs: 72, groups: Block, 6
>>
>> Fixed effects:
>>            Estimate Std. Error t value
>> (Intercept)   81.872      7.104  11.524
>> nitro         73.667      8.416   8.753
>>
>> Correlation of Fixed Effects:
>>      (Intr)
>> nitro -0.355
>>
>>
>>> print(om2 <- lmer(yield ~ nitro + Variety + (1 | Block), data = Oats))
>> Linear mixed-effects model fit by REML
>> Formula: yield ~ nitro + Variety + (1 | Block)
>>   Data: Oats
>>   AIC BIC logLik MLdeviance REMLdeviance
>>  601.6 613 -295.8      608.8        591.6
>> Random effects:
>>  Groups   Name        Variance Std.Dev.
>>  Block    (Intercept) 245.03   15.653
>>  Residual             234.73   15.321
>> number of obs: 72, groups: Block, 6
>>
>> Fixed effects:
>>            Estimate Std. Error t value
>> (Intercept)   81.872      7.069  11.582
>> nitro         73.667      8.075   9.123
>> Variety1       2.646      2.211   1.196
>> Variety2      -3.174      1.277  -2.486
>>
>> Correlation of Fixed Effects:
>>         (Intr) nitro  Varty1
>> nitro    -0.343
>> Variety1  0.000  0.000
>> Variety2  0.000  0.000  0.000
>>
>>
>>> print(om3 <- lmer(yield ~ nitro + (1 | Block/Variety), data = Oats))
>> Linear mixed-effects model fit by REML
>> Formula: yield ~ nitro + (1 | Block/Variety)
>>   Data: Oats
>>  AIC   BIC logLik MLdeviance REMLdeviance
>>  601 610.1 -296.5      604.3          593
>> Random effects:
>>  Groups        Name        Variance Std.Dev.
>>  Variety:Block (Intercept) 121.33   11.015
>>  Block         (Intercept) 210.28   14.501
>>  Residual                  165.51   12.865
>> number of obs: 72, groups: Variety:Block, 18; Block, 6
>>
>> Fixed effects:
>>            Estimate Std. Error t value
>> (Intercept)   81.872      6.944   11.79
>> nitro         73.667      6.781   10.86
>>
>> Correlation of Fixed Effects:
>>      (Intr)
>> nitro -0.293
>>
>>
>>> print(om4 <- lmer(yield ~ nitro + Variety + (1 | Block/Variety), data = Oats))
>> Linear mixed-effects model fit by REML
>> Formula: yield ~ nitro + Variety + (1 | Block/Variety)
>>   Data: Oats
>>   AIC   BIC logLik MLdeviance REMLdeviance
>>  594.5 608.1 -291.2      601.3        582.5
>> Random effects:
>>  Groups        Name        Variance Std.Dev.
>>  Variety:Block (Intercept) 108.94   10.437
>>  Block         (Intercept) 214.57   14.648
>>  Residual                  165.55   12.867
>> number of obs: 72, groups: Variety:Block, 18; Block, 6
>>
>> Fixed effects:
>>            Estimate Std. Error t value
>> (Intercept)   81.872      6.946  11.786
>> nitro         73.667      6.781  10.863
>> Variety1       2.646      3.539   0.748
>> Variety2      -3.174      2.043  -1.553
>>
>> Correlation of Fixed Effects:
>>         (Intr) nitro  Varty1
>> nitro    -0.293
>> Variety1  0.000  0.000
>> Variety2  0.000  0.000  0.000
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> anova(om4, om3) ## Does this violate the principle of marginality? (Testing main effect in presence of interaction?)
>> Data: Oats
>> Models:
>> om3: yield ~ nitro + (1 | Block/Variety)
>> om4: yield ~ nitro + Variety + (1 | Block/Variety)
>>    Df     AIC     BIC  logLik  Chisq Chi Df Pr(>Chisq)
>> om3  4  612.30  621.41 -302.15
>> om4  6  613.28  626.94 -300.64 3.0197      2     0.2209
>>
>>
>>> anova(om4, om2) ## Would this be the first test for effect of variety?
>> Data: Oats
>> Models:
>> om2: yield ~ nitro + Variety + (1 | Block)
>> om4: yield ~ nitro + Variety + (1 | Block/Variety)
>>    Df     AIC     BIC  logLik  Chisq Chi Df Pr(>Chisq)
>> om2  5  618.85  630.23 -304.42
>> om4  6  613.28  626.94 -300.64 7.5629      1   0.005958 **
>> ---
>> Signif. codes:  0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1
>>
>>
>>> anova(om4, om1) ## Would this not be the omnibus test for variety?
>> Data: Oats
>> Models:
>> om1: yield ~ nitro + (1 | Block)
>> om4: yield ~ nitro + Variety + (1 | Block/Variety)
>>    Df     AIC     BIC  logLik  Chisq Chi Df Pr(>Chisq)
>> om1  3  622.40  629.23 -308.20
>> om4  6  613.28  626.94 -300.64 15.114      3   0.001722 **
>> ---
>> Signif. codes:  0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1
>>
>>
>>> anova(om2, om1)
>> Data: Oats
>> Models:
>> om1: yield ~ nitro + (1 | Block)
>> om2: yield ~ nitro + Variety + (1 | Block)
>>    Df     AIC     BIC  logLik  Chisq Chi Df Pr(>Chisq)
>> om1  3  622.40  629.23 -308.20
>> om2  5  618.85  630.23 -304.42 7.5512      2    0.02292 *
>> ---
>> Signif. codes:  0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1
>>
>>
>> Steven McKinney, Ph.D.
>>
>> Statistician
>> Molecular Oncology and Breast Cancer Program
>> British Columbia Cancer Research Centre
>>
>> email: smckinney +at+ bccrc +dot+ ca
>>
>> tel: 604-675-8000 x7561
>>
>> BCCRC
>> Molecular Oncology
>> 675 West 10th Ave, Floor 4
>> Vancouver B.C.
>> V5Z 1L3
>> Canada
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> R-sig-mixed-models at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mixed-models
>>
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mixed-models


-- 
Ben Bolker
Associate professor, Biology Dep't, Univ. of Florida
bolker at ufl.edu / www.zoology.ufl.edu/bolker
GPG key: www.zoology.ufl.edu/bolker/benbolker-publickey.asc




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