Dear R-helpers, I am trying to check whether a model of the form y(t) = a/(1 +b*t) fits the curve of downloads per day of a file in a specific online community better than a model of the form y(t) = a*exp(-b*t). For that, I used nls to fit both models and I am now trying to compare the fits with anova. The problem I find is that anova does not report an F statistic or a p-value when I compare these two models.
The data for a file is typically the following: > d V1 V2 1 1 293 2 2 101 3 3 63 4 4 53 5 5 42 6 6 19 7 7 28 8 8 23 9 9 18 10 10 17 11 11 14 12 12 18 13 13 5 14 14 9 15 15 10 16 15 0 My code: d <- read.table(url("http://ece.ubc.ca/~nazareno/85247.arrivalRates<http://ece.ubc.ca/%7Enazareno/85247.arrivalRates> ")) plot(d) f.exp.nw <- nls(V2 ~ a. * exp(-b. * V1), data = d, list( a. = d$V2[1], b. = 0.05)) f.exp5.nw <- nls(V2 ~ a. / (1+ b. *V1), data = d, list( a. = d$V2[1], b. = 2)) lines(d$V1, predict(f.exp.nw), col = "royalblue") lines(d$V1, predict(f.exp5.nw), col = "orange") anova(f.exp.nw, f.exp5.nw) However, the output from anova.nls is: Analysis of Variance Table Model 1: V2 ~ a. * exp(-b. * V1) Model 2: V2 ~ a./(1 + b. * V1) Res.Df Res.Sum Sq Df Sum Sq F value Pr(>F) 1 13 4994.9 2 13 314.7 0 0.0 and I cannot interpretate the lack of an F value. Looking at the implementation of the anova.nls() function, this seems to be related to the fact that the residuals' degrees of freedom are the same, but I could not find anywhere more information on whether they were required to be different. Thus, I'd greatly appreciate if you could spot any mistakes I might be doing or a (preferably online) reference for more on this issue. As a side question, it would be great also if someone with more experience on this matter could confirm with me that the proper direction for checking whether "the y(t) = a/(1 +b*t) form models more precisely the behavior of downloads of files in this communtiy" by quantifying for how many files it outperforms the exponential model. thank you very much in advance, Nazareno [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ 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.