nesting in CoxPH with survival package
Thank you for the suggestions. Just to clarify, my first question was more on what actual coding I should be using to indicate a nested variable when using the coxph() function. I asked this after consulting several times with a local statistician, but unfortunately neither of us are very familiar with R. After further consultation, I have changed the design to a 2*2 design (2 levels of ExpTemp and Stability each) with blocking (Period). I am still getting the "x matrix deemed to be singular" error.
LOEmod3alt=coxph(LOE.fit~ExpTemp+Stability+Period,data=goodexp)
Warning message: In coxph(LOE.fit ~ ExpTemp + Stability + Period, data = goodexp) : X matrix deemed to be singular; variable 5
summary(LOEmod3alt)
Call:
coxph(formula = LOE.fit ~ ExpTemp + Stability + Period, data = goodexp)
n= 184, number of events= 105
coef exp(coef) se(coef) z Pr(>|z|)
ExpTemp -3.17825 0.04166 0.53105 -5.985 2.17e-09 ***
StabilityStatic -0.84129 0.43115 0.20470 -4.110 3.96e-05 ***
PeriodB 1.06794 2.90937 0.22859 4.672 2.98e-06 ***
PeriodC 1.23853 3.45054 0.58457 2.119 0.0341 *
PeriodD NA NA 0.00000 NA NA
---
Signif. codes: 0 ?***? 0.001 ?**? 0.01 ?*? 0.05 ?.? 0.1 ? ? 1
exp(coef) exp(-coef) lower .95 upper .95
ExpTemp 0.04166 24.0047 0.01471 0.118
StabilityStatic 0.43115 2.3194 0.28866 0.644
PeriodB 2.90937 0.3437 1.85877 4.554
PeriodC 3.45054 0.2898 1.09723 10.851
PeriodD NA NA NA NA
Concordance= 0.833 (se = 0.03 )
Rsquare= 0.591 (max possible= 0.995 )
Likelihood ratio test= 164.4 on 4 df, p=0
Wald test = 111.1 on 4 df, p=0
Score (logrank) test = 179.9 on 4 df, p=0
with(redo, table(LOEStatusfull, Period,ExpTemp))
, , ExpTemp = FIVE
Period
LOEStatusfull A B C D
0 42 0 35 0
1 4 0 11 0
, , ExpTemp = FOUR
Period
LOEStatusfull A B C D
0 0 0 0 2
1 0 46 0 44
As best as I can tell, none of my variables are collinear. Are there
any other suggestions of how to deal with this error, or any more
information I can provide to help understand why I would be getting
this?
Thank you for your time and your help,
Katie
On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 4:54 PM, Bert Gunter <gunter.berton at gene.com> wrote:
Katie: You need to get local statistical help. What you are doing makes no sense. See inline below. -- Bert On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 1:03 PM, David Winsemius <dwinsemius at comcast.net> wrote:
On Jan 11, 2013, at 5:35 PM, Katie Anweiler wrote:
Hello all, I am trying to understand how to specify nested factors when using coxph(), and if it is appropriate to nest these factors in my situation. In the simplest form, I am testing two different temperatures, with each temperature being performed twice in different experimental periods (e.g. Temp5 performed in Period A and C, Temp4 performed in Period B and D)
Period is confounded with temperature. That is the source of the singularity. in the message received below. You can estimate the C-A and the D-B differences. As I said, get statistical help. These are not R questions. -- Bert
I am trying to see if survival time is affected by the treatment temperature. To do this I am using temperature and experimental period nested within temperature as factors.
LOEtempmod.5days=coxph(LOE.stable.5days~Temp+Temp/Period,data=goodstable)
Warning message: In coxph(LOE.stable.5days ~ Temp + Temp/Period, : X matrix deemed to be singular; variable 2 5 6 7 1. Is this an appropriate way of nesting?
Have you looked at the coxme package? http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/coxme/index.html
2. Can this error message be ignored?
Sometimes R packages correctly drop variables that are exactly collinear: other times the correct solution is not clear. I would think the answer in this case would be "no", but do not have a lot to go on at this point. -- David Winsemius, MD Alameda, CA, USA
______________________________________________ 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.
-- Bert Gunter Genentech Nonclinical Biostatistics Internal Contact Info: Phone: 467-7374 Website: http://pharmadevelopment.roche.com/index/pdb/pdb-functional-groups/pdb-biostatistics/pdb-ncb-home.htm