Thanks David and Brian. But what if x is exact while y has some uncertainty Δy, in the relation y = k * x + b?
Now I need to fit some data like x = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 y±Δy = 1.1±0.1, 2.0±0.2, 3.1±0.2, 4.1±0.1, 5.0±0.2 Is there any mechanism to pass x, y and Δy to lm() so that I can find k, b as well as their uncertainties Δk, Δb? Li Sun 2012/6/24 Prof Brian Ripley <rip...@stats.ox.ac.uk>: > On 24/06/2012 18:39, David Winsemius wrote: >> >> >> On Jun 24, 2012, at 1:21 PM, Li SUN wrote: >> >>> Sorry for the confusion. >>> >>> Let me state the question again. I missed something in my original >>> statement. >>> >>> When using the linear model lm() to fit data of the form y = k * x + >>> b, where k, b are the coefficients to be found, and x is the variable >>> and has an error bar (uncertainty) Δx of the same length associated >>> with it. Is it possible to pass Δx to the linear model lm(), and from >>> the output to find the uncertainty Δk for k, Δb for b as well? >> >> >> In one sense this could be done if you were interpreting the "Δx" as the >> vector of individual residuals of a model, but I'm guessing that might >> not be what you meant. You would be able to recover the original data, >> assuming you knew the X values, and would proceed by calculating the Y >> values as the sum of predictions and the residuals, thus recovering the >> original data. But I'm guessing you want to supply a small number of >> parameters from an analysis you are reading about and you are hoping to >> be getting from lm() further information to answer some question. That's >> not the direction of teh flow of information. The flow is data INTO >> lm(), estimation of parameters OUT. >> >> Show us a sample dataset constructed with R code or show us the console >> output of dput() applied to your dataset, and you may get better answers >> to what is still an unclear question. >> > > This is not linear regression if 'x' is not known exactly. There are > various formulations of the problem, but that is off-topic here. However, > consulting > > @Book{Fuller.87, > author = "Fuller, Wayne A.", > title = "Measurement Error Models", > publisher = "John Wiley and Sons", > address = "New York", > year = "1987", > ISBN = "0-471-86187-1", > } > > would be a good start. > > -- > Brian D. Ripley, rip...@stats.ox.ac.uk > Professor of Applied Statistics, http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/ > University of Oxford, Tel: +44 1865 272861 (self) > 1 South Parks Road, +44 1865 272866 (PA) > Oxford OX1 3TG, UK Fax: +44 1865 272595 > > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@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. ______________________________________________ R-help@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.