Statistical modelling

With the random terms specified in the model the estimate of the residual among lamb variance is reduced from 4.939 to 3.427 kg2, and also the effective degrees of freedom from 688 to 332.60.

This is due to taking into account the variations among rams and ewes within breeds, whereas the earlier output assumes all variation to be at the lamb level.

Therefore, the REML analysis with the random model describes more accurately the different layers of variation associated with the hierarchical data and provides a more appropriate and correct analysis.

 
**Estimated Variance Components **
Random term Component S.e.
RAM_ID 0.067 0.089
EWE_ID 1.457 0.283

*** Residual variance model ***

Parameter

Estimate

S.e.

Sigma2

3.427

0.266


**Approximate stratum variances *** 
   

Effective d.f.

RAM_ID

4.733

57.66

EWE_ID

6.490

297.74

*units*

3.427

332.60


* Matrix of coefficients of components for each stratum
RAM_ID

10.31

0.42

1.00

EWE_ID

0.00

2.10

1.00

*units*

0.00

0.00

1.00


*** Deviance: -2*Log-Likelihood ***
Deviance d.f.
1817.10 685

*** Wald tests for fixed effects ***
Fixed term Wald statistic

d.f.

Wald/d.f.

Chi-sq prob

* Sequentially adding terms to fixed model
YEAR

230.32

5

46.06

<0.001

SEX

9.66

1

9.66

0.002

AGEWEAN

63.84

1

63.84

<0.001

DL

30.44

1

30.44

<0.001

DQ

78.41

1

78.41

<0.001

RAM_BRD

6.64

1

6.64

0.010

EWE_BRD

2.91

1

2.91

0.088

Table of content  Back     next