Dear Eik,
Thanks for your answer. I think indeed I was not to clear of what I want to
achieve. So let me rephrase:
In case that there are aliased predictors in my model, I will see them via the
alias function:
d <- expand.grid(a = 0:1, b=0:1)
d$c <- (d$a + d$b) %% 2
d$y <- rnorm(4)
d <- within(d, {a <- factor(a); b <- factor(b); c <- factor(c)})
l <- lm(y ~ a * b + c, d)
alias(l)
Model :
y ~ a * b + c
Complete :
(Intercept) a1 b1 c1
a1:b1 0 1/2 1/2 -1/2
I see from alias that the _coefficient_ a1:b1 is aliased and can thus not be
estimated. Hence, I want to remove the _term_ a:b from the model. While this is
a straight forward thing if we were talking about continuous predictors, it is
not that easy to do so if we have aliased quantitative predictors (i.e.
factors), because a _term_ like a:b (i.e. an interaction between two 2-level
factors) will yield 1 _coefficient_ a1:b1. But in order to use the update
function I have to translate the output of aliased (which gives aliased
_coefficients_) back to _terms_. Something like update(l, . ~ . - a1:b1) would
not work for apparent reasons and I have to use update(l, . ~ . - a:b), which
means I have to translate a1:b1 somehow to a:b.
Overall, I want to remove any continuous/quantitative predictor if any
associated coefficient cannot be estimated.
Is that clearer now?
KR,
-Thorn
-----Original Message-----
From: Eik Vettorazzi [mailto:e.vettora...@uke.de]
Sent: Dienstag, 29. Oktober 2013 21:47
To: Thaler,Thorn,LAUSANNE,Applied Mathematics; R-Help Mailing List
(r-help@r-project.org)
Subject: Re: [R] Automatically Remove Aliased Terms from a Model
Hi Thorn,
it is not entirely clear (at least for me) what you want to accomplish.
an easy and fail safe way of extracting used terms in a (g)lm-object is
names(model.frame(l))
if you want to extract terms to finally select a model, have a look at
drop1 and/or MASS::dropterm
Hth
Am 28.10.2013 17:19, schrieb Thaler,Thorn,LAUSANNE,Applied Mathematics:
> Dear all,
>
> I am trying to implement a function which removes aliased terms from a model.
> The challenge I am facing is that with "alias" I get the aliased coefficients
> of the model, which I have to translate into the terms from the model
> formula. What I have tried so far:
>
> ------------------8<------------------
> d <- expand.grid(a = 0:1, b=0:1)
> d$c <- (d$a + d$b) %% 2
> d$y <- rnorm(4)
> d <- within(d, {a <- factor(a); b <- factor(b); c <- factor(c)}) l <-
> lm(y ~ a * b + c, d)
>
> removeAliased <- function(mod) {
> ## Retrieve all terms in the model
> X <- attr(mod$terms, "term.label")
> ## Get the aliased coefficients
> rn <- rownames(alias(mod)$Complete)
> ## remove factor levels from coefficient names to retrieve the terms
> regex.base <- unique(unlist(lapply(mod$model[, sapply(mod$model,
> is.factor)], levels)))
> aliased <- gsub(paste(regex.base, "$", sep = "", collapse = "|"), "",
> gsub(paste(regex.base, ":", sep = "", collapse = "|"), ":", rn))
> uF <- formula(paste(". ~ .", paste(aliased, collapse = "-"), sep = "-"))
> update(mod, uF)
> }
>
> removeAliased(l)
> ------------------>8------------------
>
> This function works in principle, but this workaround with removing the
> factor levels is just, well, a workaround which could cause problems in some
> circumstances (when the name of a level matches the end of another variable,
> when I use a different contrast and R names the coefficients differently etc.
> - and I am not sure which other cases I am overlooking).
>
> So my question is whether there are some more intelligent ways of doing what
> I want to achieve? Is there a function to translate a coefficient of a LM
> back to the term, something like:
>
> termFromCoef("a1") ## a1
> termFromCoef("a1:b1") ## a:b
>
> With this I could simply translate the rownames from alias into the terms
> needed for the model update.
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> Kind Regards,
>
> Thorn Thaler
> NRC Lausanne
> Applied Mathematics
>
> ______________________________________________
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>
--
Eik Vettorazzi
Department of Medical Biometry and Epidemiology University Medical Center
Hamburg-Eppendorf
Martinistr. 52
20246 Hamburg
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