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glmmPQL questions

1 message · Dan Bebber

#
Jo,

It looks like farm is your level of replication, so you don't need to
specify farm as a random factor. A linear model 'lm' with binomial errors
(a.k.a. logistic regression) is enough. You only need to specify different
error strata if, say, you had sampled each farm several times. Is that what
you mean by 'sampling cluster'?
BUT, there is very likely some spatial dependence among farms, so you will
also need to model this.
If you want to constrain the analysis, check out 'subset'.
Missing values: you have to remove farms with missing values from the
analysis. Look up 'na.omit'.
I think perhaps you need to consult a statistician at the Edinburgh stats
department to get info on the appropriate analyses, as the R-help list is
usually restricted to R-specific questions.
There is a massive amount of literature on agricultural epidemiology (esp.
following foot & mouth), so read up to see what has been done before.

Cheers,
Dan Bebber

Department of Plant Sciences
University of Oxford
South Parks Road
Oxford OX1 3RB