# Convert SAS NLMIXED code for zero-inflated gamma regression to R

I'm trying to run a zero-inflated regression for a continuous response variable in R. I'm aware of a gamlss implementation, but I'd really like to try out this algorithm by Dale McLerran that is conceptually a bit more straightforward. Unfortunately, the code is in SAS and I'm not sure how to re-write it for something like nlme.

The code is as follows:

proc nlmixed data=mydata;
parms b0_f=0 b1_f=0
b0_h=0 b1_h=0
log_theta=0;

eta_f = b0_f + b1_f*x1 ;
p_yEQ0 = 1 / (1 + exp(-eta_f));

eta_h = b0_h + b1_h*x1;
mu    = exp(eta_h);
theta = exp(log_theta);
r = mu/theta;

if y=0 then
ll = log(p_yEQ0);
else
ll = log(1 - p_yEQ0)
- lgamma(theta) + (theta-1)*log(y) - theta*log(r) - y/r;

model y ~ general(ll);
predict (1 - p_yEQ0)*mu out=expect_zig;
predict r out=shape;
estimate "scale" theta;
run;


Note: There are no mixed effects present here - only fixed.

The advantage to this fitting is that (even though the coefficients are the same as if you separately fit a logistic regression to P(y=0) and a gamma error regression with log link to E(y | y>0)) you can estimate the combined function E(y) which includes the zeroes. One can predict this value in SAS (with a CI) using the line predict (1 - p_yEQ0)*mu .

Further, one is able to write custom contrast statements to test the significance of predictor variables on E(y). For example, here is another version of the SAS code I have used:

proc nlmixed data=TestZIG;
parms b0_f=0 b1_f=0 b2_f=0 b3_f=0
b0_h=0 b1_h=0 b2_h=0 b3_h=0
log_theta=0;

if gifts = 1 then x1=1; else x1 =0;
if gifts = 2 then x2=1; else x2 =0;
if gifts = 3 then x3=1; else x3 =0;

eta_f = b0_f + b1_f*x1 + b2_f*x2 + b3_f*x3;
p_yEQ0 = 1 / (1 + exp(-eta_f));

eta_h = b0_h + b1_h*x1 + b2_h*x2 + b3_h*x3;
mu    = exp(eta_h);
theta = exp(log_theta);
r = mu/theta;

if amount=0 then
ll = log(p_yEQ0);
else
ll = log(1 - p_yEQ0)
- lgamma(theta) + (theta-1)*log(amount) -                      theta*log(r) - amount/r;

model amount ~ general(ll);
predict (1 - p_yEQ0)*mu out=expect_zig;
estimate "scale" theta;
run;


Then to estimate "gift1" versus "gift2" (b1 versus b2) we can write this estimate statement:

estimate "gift1 versus gift 2"
(1-(1 / (1 + exp(-b0_f -b1_f))))*(exp(b0_h + b1_h)) - (1-(1 / (1 + exp(-b0_f -b2_f))))*(exp(b0_h + b2_h)) ;


Can R do this?

• user779747 did note in his cross posting to Rhelp that this had been posted here first. I haven't seen a specific request to post such a notice in SO, but some (most?) of us cross-helpeRs expect it because that is the stated expectation in the R Mailing Lists. – DWin Sep 14 '11 at 16:27

Having spent some time on this code, it appears to me as though it basically:

1) Does a logistic regression with right hand side b0_f + b1_f*x1 andy > 0 as a target variable,

2) For those observations for which y > 0, performs a regression with right hand side b0_h + b1_h*x1, a Gamma likelihood and link=log,

3) Also estimates the shape parameter of the Gamma distribution.

It maximizes the likelihood jointly, which is nice, because you only have to make the one function call. However, the likelihood separates anyway, so you don't get improved parameter estimates as a result.

Here is some R code which makes use of the glm function to save programming effort. This may not be what you'd like, as it obscures the algorithm itself. The code certainly isn't as clean as it could / should be, either.

McLerran <- function(y, x)
{
z <- y > 0
y.gt.0 <- y[y>0]
x.gt.0 <- x[y>0]

m1 <- glm(z~x, family=binomial)

list("p.ygt0"=m1,"ygt0"=m2)
}

# Sample data
x <- runif(100)
y <- rgamma(100, 3, 1)      # Not a function of x (coef. of x = 0)
b <- rbinom(100, 1, 0.5*x)  # p(y==0) is a function of x
y[b==1] <- 0

foo <- McLerran(y,x)
summary(foo$ygt0) Call: glm(formula = y.gt.0 ~ x.gt.0, family = Gamma(link = log)) Deviance Residuals: Min 1Q Median 3Q Max -2.08888 -0.44446 -0.06589 0.28111 1.31066 Coefficients: Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|) (Intercept) 1.2033 0.1377 8.737 1.44e-12 *** x.gt.0 -0.2440 0.2352 -1.037 0.303 --- Signif. codes: 0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1 (Dispersion parameter for Gamma family taken to be 0.3448334) Null deviance: 26.675 on 66 degrees of freedom Residual deviance: 26.280 on 65 degrees of freedom AIC: 256.42 Number of Fisher Scoring iterations: 6  The shape parameter for the Gamma distribution is equal to 1 / the dispersion parameter for the Gamma family. Coefficients and other stuff which you might like to access programatically can be accessed on the individual elements of the return value list: > coefficients(foo$p.ygt0)
(Intercept)           x
2.140239   -2.393388


Prediction can be done using the output of the routine. Here's some more R code that shows how to generate expected values and some other information:

# Predict expected value
predict.McLerren <- function(model, x.new)
{
x <- as.data.frame(x.new)
colnames(x) <- "x"
x$x.gt.0 <- x$x

pred.p.ygt0 <- predict(model$p.ygt0, newdata=x, type="response", se.fit=TRUE) pred.ygt0 <- predict(model$ygt0, newdata=x, type="response", se.fit=TRUE)

p0 <- 1 - pred.p.ygt0$fit ev <- (1-p0) * pred.ygt0$fit

se.p0 <- pred.p.ygt0$se.fit se.ev <- pred.ygt0$se.fit

se.fit <- sqrt(((1-p0)*se.ev)^2 + (ev*se.p0)^2 + (se.p0*se.ev)^2)

list("fit"=ev, "p0"=p0, "se.fit" = se.fit,
"pred.p.ygt0"=pred.p.ygt0, "pred.ygt0"=pred.ygt0)
}


And a sample run:

> x.new <- seq(0.05,0.95,length=5)
>
> foo.pred <- predict.McLerren(foo, x.new)
> foo.pred$fit 1 2 3 4 5 2.408946 2.333231 2.201889 2.009979 1.763201 > foo.pred$se.fit
1         2         3         4         5
0.3409576 0.2378386 0.1753987 0.2022401 0.2785045
> foo.pred$p0 1 2 3 4 5 0.1205351 0.1733806 0.2429933 0.3294175 0.4291541  Now for coefficient extraction and the contrasts: coef.McLerren <- function(model) { temp1 <- coefficients(model$p.ygt0)
temp2 <- coefficients(model$ygt0) names(temp1) <- NULL names(temp2) <- NULL retval <- c(temp1, temp2) names(retval) <- c("b0.f","b1.f","b0.h","b1.h") retval } contrast.McLerren <- function(b0_f, b1_f, b2_f, b0_h, b1_h, b2_h) { (1-(1 / (1 + exp(-b0_f -b1_f))))*(exp(b0_h + b1_h)) - (1-(1 / (1 + exp(-b0_f -b2_f))))*(exp(b0_h + b2_h)) } > coef.McLerren(foo) b0.f b1.f b0.h b1.h 2.0819321 -1.8911883 1.0009568 0.1334845  • You are correct with regard to what is happening with the "parts" (i.e logit regression for PR(y>0) and gamma regression for E(y|y>0) but it is the combined estimate (and standard errors, CI) that are of main interest - i.e E(y). Predictions of this quantity are made in the SAS code by (1 - p_yEQ0)*mu. This formulation allows you to conduct contrasts on the coefficients on this combined value. – B_Miner Jan 3 '12 at 2:32 • @B_Miner - I've added some code + examples that partially address the prediction issue, thanks for pointing that out. – jbowman Jan 5 '12 at 17:30 • Is this not just separate estimates though? In SAS, NLMIXED will give the abiity to estimate the point estimate of E(y) as well as a CI (using the delta method I believe). Also, you can write user defined contrasts of the parameters as I shown above to test linear hypothesis. There must be an R alternative? – B_Miner Jan 5 '12 at 22:14 • Well, yes and no. To use the example, the returned foo.pred$fit gives the point estimate of E(y), but the component foo.pred$pred.ygt0$pred would give you E(y|y>0). I added in the standard error calculation for y, BTW, returned as se.fit. The coefficients can be gotten from the components by coefficients(foo.pred$pred.ygt0) and coefficients(foo.pred$pred.p.ygt0); I'll write an extraction routine and a contrast routine in a little while. – jbowman Jan 5 '12 at 22:49
• Can you please describe where this comes from: se.fit <- sqrt(((1-p0)*se.ev)^2 + (ev*se.p0)^2 + (se.p0*se.ev)^2) – B_Miner Jan 6 '12 at 18:30