Using residuals as dependent variables

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The simple answer is no it isn't:
<http://gking.harvard.edu/files/mist.pdf>

That's a great paper -- thanks for pointing to it, Bob!

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2. ? ? ? Ideally ( and I am unsure how or if it is possible) work out for
each country which variables/s cause the poor fit of that country to the
oceanographic model.

Try using partial residuals
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_residual_plot).

My thoughts followed another path and I hadn't thought about that. I
can just add that partial residual plots (called sometimes component
and residual plots) are implemented in the crPlot() function in the
car package that accompanies the quite readable book on regression "An
R Companion to Applied Regression, Second Edition" by Fox & Weisberg
(Sage, 2011).

Cheers,
Ivailo

UBUNTU: a person is a person through other persons.