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MCMCglmm error-in-variables (total least squares) model?

8 messages · Malcolm Fairbrother, Dimitri Skandalis, Alberto Gallano +1 more

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Dear Alberto (I believe),
To my knowledge, this is not possible in MCMCglmm (though Jarrod Hadfield,
the package author, may weigh in with another response).
A collaborator and I have been working on a paper that shows how to fit
such models in JAGS (and perhaps Stan), though thus far we've only been
able to fit such models correcting for measurement error in the predictors
at the lowest level. Multiple such predictors (including with different
measurement error variances) are no problem.
That paper, however, is probably still some months away from being finished
and presentable. In the meantime, I don't know of any good options for you.
If other subscribers to this list have any ideas, I'll be quite interested
too!
- Malcolm





Date: Tue, 29 Dec 2015 16:09:53 -0500

  
  
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Hi Alberto,

Do you know the measurement error in the predictors in advance or do  
you have multiple observations for each predictor variable and wish to  
estimate the error simultaneously?

Cheers,

Jarrod




Quoting Malcolm Fairbrother <M.Fairbrother at bristol.ac.uk> on Sat, 2  
Jan 2016 14:47:08 -0800:

  
    
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Hi Jarrod,

I don't know the measurement error in the predictors in advance, so I guess
it would need to be estimated simultaneously. I'm not 100% sure what you
mean by 'multiple observations for each predictor variable'. I have data on
132 species and have multiple observations (7 to 80) for each species. I'm
using a species level random effect and a phylogenetic covariance matrix
(using ginverse) to account for phylogenetic autocorrelation, and I'm also
using van de Pol and Wright's (2009) method for partitioning slopes into
between- and within-species (i'm interested in the between species slope).
My understanding is that neither of these things fits a model in which
orthogonal residuals are minimized.

best,
Alberto
On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 5:24 AM, Jarrod Hadfield <j.hadfield at ed.ac.uk> wrote:

            

  
  
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Hi Alberto,

When you say you have multiple observations for each species, do you  
mean that you have multiple observations for the response and the  
predictors? Do you expect the response and/or the predictors to be  
correlated at the observation level (for example are they measured on  
the same individuals)? I presume the answer to both these questions is  
yes if you wish to use the van de Pol method?

Cheers,

Jarrod


Quoting Alberto Gallano <alberto.gc8 at gmail.com> on Sun, 3 Jan 2016  
10:35:02 -0500:

  
    
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Hi Alberto,

Have you looked at the book Modern Phylogenetic Comparative Methods? R code
provided with Chapter 11 (2) deals with correlated measurements, and could
be a good place to start.

http://www.mpcm-evolution.org/practice/online-practical-material-chapter-11

Also, de Villemereuil et al. have developed an approach to related models
in BUGS/JAGS.

http://bmcevolbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2148-12-102

Dimitri
On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 8:16 AM, Jarrod Hadfield <j.hadfield at ed.ac.uk> wrote:

            

  
  
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Hi Jarrod,

yes, that's right, I have multiple measurements for both response and
predictors and these are measured on the same individuals. The model i'm
fitting is very similar to the model called "model_repeat2" from Modern
Phylogenetic Comparative Methods:

http://www.mpcm-evolution.org/practice/online-practical-material-chapter-11/chapter-11-2-multiple-measurements-model-mcmcglmm

same random effects structure, same between/within structure for the fixed
effects, and i'm also using the inverse of the matrix of phylogenetic
correlation.

@Dimitri: I'm aware of the de Villemereuil et al. approach, which, If I
understand correctly, does a version of orthogonal regression (in JAGS).
I'm trying find out if this is possible in MCMCglmm.

best,
Alberto

On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 12:05 PM, Dimitri Skandalis <da.skandalis at gmail.com>
wrote:

  
  
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Hi,

The least parsimonious model (and not the one I would necessarily  
recommend fitting) is:


m1<-MCMCglmm(cbind(X1,X2,X3,Y)~trait,
              random=~us(trait):species+us(trait):species.ide,
              rcov=~us(trait):units,
              ginverse=list(species=tree))

where species and species.ide are columns of species names.

This deals with the measurement error on the species means, and also  
allows you to address the fact that the regressions of the X's on Y  
may be different at different levels. The method advocated by van de  
Pol has the problem that the mean in the mean centering is just the  
observed mean rather than the true unobserved mean. For example,  
imagine that you only had one observation for some of the species.   
You can obtain the regression coefficients at each level, by using the  
relationship beta = VAR(X)^{-1}COV(X,Y). For example, the posterior  
distribution of the regression coefficients at the phylogenetic level  
would be:


reg.coef<-function(x, X=1:3, Y=4){
V<-matrix(x,c(X,Y),c(X,Y))
solve(V[X,X], V[X,Y])
}

apply(m1$VCV[,1:16], 1, reg.coef)

The model doesn't deal with measurement error on the individual  
measurements, but if you had repeat measurements per individual you  
could also fit these (as a diagonal matrix, rather than unstructured).

After taking into account measurement error, some people suggest that  
species.ide should be dropped from the model. I am not completely  
convinced by this argument.

Priors are going to be a pain in this model.

You could replace the us structures by ante3 structures. The model is  
then fitted directly in terms of the regression coefficients.  
Antedependence regression coefficients 3,5,6 are the regressions of  
X3, X2 and X1 on Y. If you are interested in this we have a  
mini-tutorial associated with a recently submitted paper I can send you.

Cheers,

Jarrod






Quoting Alberto Gallano <alberto.gc8 at gmail.com> on Sun, 3 Jan 2016  
15:45:26 -0500:

  
    
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Hi Jarrod,

that's great - I think I understand what that model is doing. If you could
forward the information about the tutorial and paper (if it's published
yet) that would be very helpful. Thanks a lot.

best,
Alberto
On Mon, Jan 4, 2016 at 3:16 AM, Jarrod Hadfield <j.hadfield at ed.ac.uk> wrote: