zanegbinomial {VGAM}R Documentation

Zero-Altered Negative Binomial Distribution

Description

Fits a zero-altered negative binomial distribution based on a conditional model involving a binomial distribution and a positive-negative binomial distribution.

Usage

zanegbinomial(lp0="logit", lmunb = "loge", lk = "loge",
              ep0=list(), emunb =list(), ek = list(),
              ik = 1, zero = -3, cutoff = 0.995, method.init=3)

Arguments

lp0 Link function for the parameter p0, called p0 here. See Links for more choices.
lmunb Link function applied to the munb parameter, which is the mean munb of an ordinary negative binomial distribution. See Links for more choices.
lk Parameter link function applied to the reciprocal of the dispersion parameter, called k. That is, as k increases, the variance of the response decreases. See Links for more choices.
ep0, emunb, ek List. Extra argument for the respective links. See earg in Links for general information.
ik Initial values for k. They must be positive, and one value for each response/species.
zero Integer valued vector, usually assigned -3 or 3 if used at all. Specifies which of the three linear predictors are modelled as an intercept only. By default, the k parameter (after lk is applied) for each response is modelled as a single unknown number that is estimated. It can be modelled as a function of the explanatory variables by setting zero=NULL. A negative value means that the value is recycled, so setting -3 means all k are intercept only.
cutoff A numeric which is close to 1 but never exactly 1. Used to specify how many terms of the infinite series are actually used. The sum of the probabilites are added until they reach this value or more. It is like specifying p in an imaginary function qnegbin(p).
method.init See negbinomial.

Details

The response Y is zero with probability p0, or Y has a positive-negative binomial distribution with probability 1-p0. Thus 0 < p0 < 1, which is modelled as a function of the covariates. The zero-altered negative binomial distribution differs from the zero-inflated negative binomial distribution in that the former has zeros coming from one source, whereas the latter has zeros coming from the negative binomial distribution too. The zero-inflated negative binomial distribution is currently not implemented in the VGAM package. Some people call the zero-altered negative binomial a hurdle model.

For one response/species, by default, the three linear/additive predictors are (logit(p0), log(munb), log(k))^T. This vector is recycled for multiple species.

Value

An object of class "vglmff" (see vglmff-class). The object is used by modelling functions such as vglm, and vgam.
The fitted.values slot of the fitted object, which should be extracted by the generic function fitted, returns the mean mu which is given by

mu = (1-p0) * munb / [1 - (k/(k+munb))^k].

Warning

Convergence for this VGAM family function seems to depend quite strongly on providing good initial values.

Inference obtained from summary.vglm and summary.vgam may or may not be correct. In particular, the p-values, standard errors and degrees of freedom may need adjustment. Use simulation on artificial data to check that these are reasonable.

Note

Note this family function allows p0 to be modelled as functions of the covariates. It is a conditional model, not a mixture model.

This family function effectively combines posnegbinomial and binomialff into one family function.

This family function can handle a multivariate response, e.g., more than one species.

Author(s)

T. W. Yee

References

Welsh, A. H., Cunningham, R. B., Donnelly, C. F. and Lindenmayer, D. B. (1996) Modelling the abundances of rare species: statistical models for counts with extra zeros. Ecological Modelling, 88, 297–308.

See Also

posnegbinomial, negbinomial, binomialff, rposnegbin, zinegbinomial, zipoisson.

Examples

## Not run: 
x = runif(n <- 2000)
p0 = logit(-1 + 2*x, inverse=TRUE)
y1 = rposnegbin(n, munb=exp(0+2*x), k=exp(1))   # With covariates
y2 = rposnegbin(n, munb=exp(1+2*x), k=exp(1))   # With covariates
y1 = ifelse(runif(n) < p0, 0, y1)
y2 = ifelse(runif(n) < p0, 0, y2)
table(y1)
table(y2)

fit = vglm(cbind(y1,y2) ~ x, zanegbinomial, trace=TRUE)
coef(fit, matrix=TRUE)
fitted(fit)[1:9,]
predict(fit)[1:9,]
## End(Not run)

[Package VGAM version 0.7-7 Index]