0
$\begingroup$

I have Winbugs code for a zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP) model. I obtained this code from my lab at university and the person who wrote it is not accessible for me to ask questions. Here is the code:

model
{
for (i in 1:N) 
{
    z[i]<-0
    z[i] ~ dpois(phi[i])
    phi[i] <--ll[i]
    p[i]~ dbeta(1,1)
    ll[i]<-zero[i]*(log(p[i])-mu[i]+log(1-p[i]))+(1-zero[i])*(log(1-p[i])-
    mu[i]+y[i]*log(mu[i])-logfact(y[i])) #ll is log-likelihood
    zero[i] <- equals(y[i],0)
    log(mu[i]) <- log(e[i]+.0000001) + intercept + v[i]
    v[i] ~ dnorm(0, sig.v) 
}


# Other priors:
intercept ~ dflat()
sig.v ~ dgamma(0.1, 0.1)

}

I have 2 main questions:

1) In many of the Winbugs ZIP code I come across, such as here, I typically see dbern being used. However in this code I have, dbeta is used. Any clarification on this is appreciated, and

2) In the code, the variable ll is the log-likelihood. I am looking for a reference source for a formal definition of this equation from a book, journal, etc showing what are the various terms in this equation or an explanation showing what each terms in ll represents.

Any help is appreciated. I am also open to alternate formulations that may be equivalent to the code I posted.

$\endgroup$
3
  • $\begingroup$ This was crossposted at queryxchange.com/q/20_367219/…. $\endgroup$
    – jbowman
    Commented Sep 21, 2018 at 23:43
  • $\begingroup$ I did not post that....not sure how 'querychange' works but looks like it automatically copied my post from stack exchange. $\endgroup$
    – user121
    Commented Sep 22, 2018 at 2:46
  • $\begingroup$ It appears you're right... apple.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3177/… . I have to say I'd never heard of it before my search for Winbugs zero-inflated Poisson code examples in response to your question popped up that site. $\endgroup$
    – jbowman
    Commented Sep 22, 2018 at 2:55

1 Answer 1

1
+50
$\begingroup$

The likelihood function of a zero-inflated Poisson variate $x$ can be written as:

$$\mathcal{L}(\mu, p) = [p+(1-p)e^{-\mu}]^{1(y_i=0)}[(1-p)e^{-\mu}\mu^{y_i}/y_i!]^{1(y_i>0)}$$

where $p$ is the probability of $y_i=0$ due to the zero-inflation process, $1(y_i=0)$ is the indicator function that equals $1$ if the condition is true, $0$ otherwise, and $\mu$ is the mean of the Poisson variate. The first bracketed term on the left represents the two possible ways $y_i$ can equal $0$: first, if the zero inflation process takes over, which it does with probability $p$, and second, if the zero inflation process does not take over but the Poisson process generates a $0$ anyway, which happens with probability $(1-p)e^{-\mu}$. The second bracketed term represents the probability of $y_i|y_i > 0$, which can only occur if the zero-inflation process has not taken over.

Using the exponentiated $1(y_i=0)$ formulation allows us to avoid the awkward "if $y_i=0$ then ..." way of writing out the likelihood function, which leads to much messier (notationally speaking) expressions.

Note that $1(y_i=0)$ corresponds to the variable zero[i] in the code you've provided; you can see that from the line zero[i] <- equals(y[i], 0), and that $1(y_i>0)$ = 1 - zero[i] as well.

Taking the log gives us:

\begin{align} l(\mu, p) = &1(y_i=0)\log(p+(1-p)e^{-\mu}) +\\&1(y_i>0) [\log(1-p)-\mu + y_i\log(\mu) + \log(y_i!)] \end{align}

Translating this directly into code gives us:

ll[i] <-zero[i]*(log(p[i] + (1-p[i])*exp(-mu[i]))+(1-zero[i])*(log(1-p[i])- mu[i]+y[i]*log(mu[i])-logfact(y[i]))

where the only change required is subscripting the likelihood, $\mu$ and $p$ parameters.

This does not match with your code snippet, which has zero[i]*(log(p[i]) - mu[i] + log(1-p[i])) instead of zero[i]*(log(p[i] + (1-p[i])*exp(-mu[i])). It looks to me as though the original programmer mistakenly calculated the log of $p + (1-p)e^{-\mu}$ as the sum of the logs of the two additive terms: $\log(p) - \mu + \log(1-p)$, instead of: $\log(p + (1-p)e^{-\mu})$.

We can test the correctness of these two versions by implementing them, in this case in R, choosing parameters $\mu$ and $p$, then summing the exponentiated log likelihoods over $y=0$ to some number much larger than $\mu$ (large enough so that the total probability should be very close to one):

# Provided code 
foo <- function(y, p, mu) {
   zero <- y == 0
   ll <- zero * (log(p) - mu + log(1-p)) + 
      (1-zero) * (log(1-p) - mu + y*log(mu) - lfactorial(y))
}

# Derived code 
bar <- function(y, p, mu) {
   zero <- y == 0
   ll <- zero * log(p + (1-p)*exp(-mu)) + 
      (1-zero) * (log(1-p) - mu + y*log(mu) - lfactorial(y))
}

p = 0.5
mu = 0.2

y <- 0:10
> sum(exp(foo(y,p,mu)))
[1] 0.2953173
> sum(exp(bar(y,p,mu)))
[1] 1

... which would seem to confirm that the original code snippet is incorrect.

Using this way of formulating the likelihood, it is natural to put the prior distributions directly on $\mu$ and $p$, hence the use of p[i]~dbeta(1,1) (the uniform distribution on $(0,1)$). An alternative formulation creates "hidden variables" (the x[i] in the linked code) that take on the values 0 or 1 depending upon whether the zero-inflation process is "activated" or not for the $i^{th}$ observation. In this alternative formulation there are no indicator variables, therefore no zero[i] term or equivalent. Instead, the $x_i$ are treated in the same way as parameters (they are unobserved, after all) and estimated in the model in the same way that $\mu$ and $p$ are, hence the use of x[i]~dbern(pro[i]) in the linked code snippet. The end result of the estimation procedure should be the same, it's merely a matter of choice of algorithmic approach.

$\endgroup$

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.