Dear all, We are analysing some survey data and we are not sure if we are using the correct syntax for our design.
The population of interest is a set of 4416 polygons with different sizes ranging from 0.003 to 45.6 ha, 7460 ha in total. Each polygon has a binary attribute (presence/absence) and we want to estimate the probability of presence in the population. We used sampling with replacement weighted by the area of the polygon. The population was stratified using 2 variables: block and type. Each of the 14 blocks is a 20 by 50 km geographical region. Type is a two level factor. Not every level is present in each block. Each block has a Status attribute with two levels: medium (9 blocks) or good (5 blocks). Besides the overall ratio, we would like the estimate the ratio per Status. The samplesize per stratum was calculated with epi.stratasize() from the epiR package. The population size in the 21 strata ranges from 1 to 1158. The sample size ranges from 0 in the blocks with very few polygons (<20), 1 in blocks with a low number of polygon (20 - 50) and up to 25 polygons in the largest strata. Does the syntax below represents the data structure above? Any comments are welcome. library(survey) svydesign( id = ~ 1, #no clustering weights = ~ Area, #weighted by the area of the polygon strata = ~ Status + Block + Type, nest = TRUE ) # Is Area a correct weighting factor? Or should we use the area divided by the sum of the total area (per stratum?) # The code above runs. But when we omit "Status" from the strata, then we get an error: "a stratum has only 1 PSU". Shouldn't we get the same error with the code above? #with finity population correction svydesign( id = ~ 1, #no clustering weights = ~ Area, #weighted by the area of the polygon strata = ~ Status + Block + Type, fpc ~ nStatus + nBlock + nType, nest = TRUE ) #We are not sure what to use for nStatus, nBlock and nType. Is it the number of levels of that stratum (nStatus = 2)? The number of levels in the stratum below (nStatus = length(unique(Block)) per level of Status, nType = number of polygons per Status:Block:Type)? The total number of polygons in that stratum? Best regards, Thierry ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---- ir. Thierry Onkelinx Instituut voor natuur- en bosonderzoek team Biometrie & Kwaliteitszorg Gaverstraat 4 9500 Geraardsbergen Belgium Research Institute for Nature and Forest team Biometrics & Quality Assurance Gaverstraat 4 9500 Geraardsbergen Belgium tel. + 32 54/436 185 thierry.onkel...@inbo.be www.inbo.be To call in the statistician after the experiment is done may be no more than asking him to perform a post-mortem examination: he may be able to say what the experiment died of. ~ Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher The plural of anecdote is not data. ~ Roger Brinner The combination of some data and an aching desire for an answer does not ensure that a reasonable answer can be extracted from a given body of data. ~ John Tukey Druk dit bericht a.u.b. niet onnodig af. Please do not print this message unnecessarily. Dit bericht en eventuele bijlagen geven enkel de visie van de schrijver weer en binden het INBO onder geen enkel beding, zolang dit bericht niet bevestigd is door een geldig ondertekend document. The views expressed in this message and any annex are purely those of the writer and may not be regarded as stating an official position of INBO, as long as the message is not confirmed by a duly signed document. ______________________________________________ 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.