extract.lme.cov package:mgcv R Documentation _E_x_t_r_a_c_t _t_h_e _d_a_t_a _c_o_v_a_r_i_a_n_c_e _m_a_t_r_i_x _f_r_o_m _a_n _l_m_e _o_b_j_e_c_t _D_e_s_c_r_i_p_t_i_o_n: This is a service routine for 'gamm'. Extracts the estimated covariance matrix of the data from an 'lme' object, allowing the user control about which levels of random effects to include in this calculation. 'extract.lme.cov' forms the full matrix explicitly: 'extract.lme.cov2' tries to be more economical than this. _U_s_a_g_e: extract.lme.cov(b,data,start.level=1) extract.lme.cov2(b,data,start.level=1) _A_r_g_u_m_e_n_t_s: b: A fitted model object returned by a call to 'lme' data: The data frame/ model frame that was supplied to 'lme'. start.level: The level of nesting at which to start including random effects in the calculation. This is used to allow smooth terms to be estimated as random effects, but treated like fixed effects for variance calculations. _D_e_t_a_i_l_s: The random effects, correlation structure and variance structure used for a linear mixed model combine to imply a covariance matrix for the response data being modelled. These routines extracts that covariance matrix. The process is slightly complicated, because different components of the fitted model object are stored in different orders (see function code for details!). The 'extract.lme.cov' calculation is not optimally efficient, since it forms the full matrix, which may in fact be sparse. 'extract.lme.cov2' is more efficient. If the covariance matrix is diagonal, then only the leading diagonal is returned; if it can be written as a block diagonal matrix (under some permutation of the original data) then a list of matrices defining the non-zero blocks is returned along with an index indicating which row of the original data each row/column of the block diagonal matrix relates to. The block sizes are defined by the coarsest level of grouping in the random effect structure. 'gamm' uses 'extract.lme.cov2'. 'extract.lme.cov' does not currently deal with the situation in which the grouping factors for a correlation structure are finer than those for the random effects. 'extract.lme.cov2' does deal with this situation. _V_a_l_u_e: For 'extract.lme.cov' an estimated covariance matrix. For 'extract.lme.cov2' a list containing the estimated covariance matrix and an indexing array. The covariance matrix is stored as the elements on the leading diagonal, a list of the matrices defining a block diagonal matrix, or a full matrix if the previous two options are not possible. _A_u_t_h_o_r(_s): Simon N. Wood simon.wood@r-project.org _R_e_f_e_r_e_n_c_e_s: For 'lme' see: Pinheiro J.C. and Bates, D.M. (2000) Mixed effects Models in S and S-PLUS. Springer For details of how GAMMs are set up here for estimation using 'lme' see: Wood, S.N. (2006) Low rank scale invariant tensor product smooths for Generalized Additive Mixed Models. Biometrics 62(4):1025-1036 or Wood S.N. (2006) Generalized Additive Models: An Introduction with R. Chapman and Hall/CRC Press. _S_e_e _A_l_s_o: 'gamm', 'formXtViX' _E_x_a_m_p_l_e_s: library(nlme) data(Rail) b <- lme(travel~1,Rail,~1|Rail) extract.lme.cov(b,Rail)