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Model validation for Presence / Absence (binomial) GLMs

6 messages · Hugh Sturrock, Mark Payne, Chris Howden +2 more

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Dear R-sig-me,

How can I validate the fit of a bionomial (presence/absence) GLM?

Normally in linear modelling there is a nice array of tools
(tukey-anscombe, QQ plots, residuals vs explanatory variables,
correlation plots) that can be used to convince yourself that the fit
is ok. But when you start dealing with a bionomial (presence absence)
GLM, the whole thing kind of breaks down and starts getting ugly. For
a poisson GLM, you can go for pearson residuals - but what would be
the equivalent for a bionomial GLM? Does anyone have suggestions how
to approach this problem? Are there any "best-practices" that I am
unaware of in this regard?

Best wishes,

Mark
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Chris Howden <chris at ...> writes:
Yes, but this is unidentifiable for Bernoulli responses (as also
explained there).

  It's not as systematic, but where possible I like to compare 
parametric fits to a less-parametric fit, either a (marginal)
GAM fit or binning the data and computing (marginal) mean proportions (and
possibly binomial CIs) within bins (the latter is essentially
the basis of the Hosmer-Lemeshow test).  The effects of other
variables might lead to either a false positive or a false
negative when comparing non-parametric marginal to parametric
conditional predictions, but it's a start.

  Ben Bolker
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Ben Bolker <bbolker at ...> writes:
--- snip ---



Also see the binomTools package on CRAN for some diagnostic tests 
for binomial models. 

Ken