No Arabic abstract
Microbiome data analyses require statistical tools that can simultaneously decode microbes reactions to the environment and interactions among microbes. We introduce CARlasso, the first user-friendly open-source and publicly available R package to fit a chain graph model for the inference of sparse microbial networks that represent both interactions among nodes and effects of a set of predictors. Unlike in standard regression approaches, the edges represent the correct conditional structure among responses and predictors that allows the incorporation of prior knowledge from controlled experiments. In addition, CARlasso 1) enforces sparsity in the network via LASSO; 2) allows for an adaptive extension to include different shrinkage to different edges; 3) is computationally inexpensive through an efficient Gibbs sampling algorithm so it can equally handle small and big data; 4) allows for continuous, binary, counting and compositional responses via proper hierarchical structure, and 5) has a similar syntax to lm for ease of use. The package also supports Bayesian graphical LASSO and several of its hierarchical models as well as lower level one-step sampling functions of the CAR-LASSO model for users to extend.
Microbiome data analyses require statistical models that can simultaneously decode microbes reactions to the environment and interactions among microbes. While a multiresponse linear regression model seems like a straightforward solution, we argue that treating it as a graphical model is flawed given that the regression coefficient matrix does not encode the conditional dependence structure between response and predictor nodes because it does not represent the adjacency matrix. This observation is especially important in biological settings when we have prior knowledge on the edges from specific experimental interventions that can only be properly encoded under a conditional dependence model. Here, we propose a chain graph model with two sets of nodes (predictors and responses) whose solution yields a graph with edges that indeed represent conditional dependence and thus, agrees with the experimenters intuition on the average behavior of nodes under treatment. The solution to our model is sparse via Bayesian LASSO and is also guaranteed to be the sparse solution to a Conditional Auto-Regressive (CAR) model. In addition, we propose an adaptive extension so that different shrinkage can be applied to different edges to incorporate edge-specific prior knowledge. Our model is computationally inexpensive through an efficient Gibbs sampling algorithm and can account for binary, counting, and compositional responses via appropriate hierarchical structure. We apply our model to a human gut and a soil microbial compositional datasets and we highlight that CAR-LASSO can estimate biologically meaningful network structures in the data. The CAR-LASSO software is available as an R package at https://github.com/YunyiShen/CAR-LASSO.
Modeling the diameter distribution of trees in forest stands is a common forestry task that supports key biologically and economically relevant management decisions. The choice of model used to represent the diameter distribution and how to estimate its parameters has received much attention in the forestry literature; however, accessible software that facilitates comprehensive comparison of the myriad modeling approaches is not available. To this end, we developed an R package called ForestFit that simplifies estimation of common probability distributions used to model tree diameter distributions, including the two- and three-parameter Weibull distributions, Johnsons SB distribution, Birnbaum-Saunders distribution, and finite mixture distributions. Frequentist and Bayesian techniques are provided for individual tree diameter data, as well as grouped data. Additional functionality facilitates fitting growth curves to height-diameter data. The package also provides a set of functions for computing probability distributions and simulating random realizations from common finite mixture models.
Over the past years, many applications aim to assess the causal effect of treatments assigned at the community level, while data are still collected at the individual level among individuals of the community. In many cases, one wants to evaluate the effect of a stochastic intervention on the community, where all communities in the target population receive probabilistically assigned treatments based on a known specified mechanism (e.g., implementing a community-level intervention policy that target stochastic changes in the behavior of a target population of communities). The tmleCommunity package is recently developed to implement targeted minimum loss-based estimation (TMLE) of the effect of community-level intervention(s) at a single time point on an individual-based outcome of interest, including the average causal effect. Implementations of the inverse-probability-of-treatment-weighting (IPTW) and the G-computation formula (GCOMP) are also available. The package supports multivariate arbitrary (i.e., static, dynamic or stochastic) interventions with a binary or continuous outcome. Besides, it allows user-specified data-adaptive machine learning algorithms through SuperLearner, sl3 and h2oEnsemble packages. The usage of the tmleCommunity package, along with a few examples, will be described in this paper.
This paper introduces the R package slm which stands for Stationary Linear Models. The package contains a set of statistical procedures for linear regression in the general context where the error process is strictly stationary with short memory. We work in the setting of Hannan (1973), who proved the asymptotic normality of the (normalized) least squares estimators (LSE) under very mild conditions on the error process. We propose different ways to estimate the asymptotic covariance matrix of the LSE, and then to correct the type I error rates of the usual tests on the parameters (as well as confidence intervals). The procedures are evaluated through different sets of simulations, and two examples of real datasets are studied.
Background and objective: The stepped wedge cluster randomized trial is a study design increasingly used for public health intervention evaluations. Most previous literature focuses on power calculations for this particular type of cluster randomized trials for continuous outcomes, along with an approximation to this approach for binary outcomes. Although not accurate for binary outcomes, it has been widely used. To improve the approximation for binary outcomes, two new methods for stepped wedge designs (SWDs) of binary outcomes have recently been published. However, these new methods have not been implemented in publicly available software. The objective of this paper is to present power calculation software for SWDs in various settings for both continuous and binary outcomes. Methods: We have developed a SAS macro %swdpwr and an R package swdpwr for power calculation in SWDs. Different scenarios including cross-sectional and cohort designs, binary and continuous outcomes, marginal and conditional models, three link functions, with and without time effects are accommodated in this software. Results: swdpwr provides an efficient tool to support investigators in the design and analysis of stepped wedge cluster randomized trails. swdpwr addresses the implementation gap between newly proposed methodology and their application to obtain more accurate power calculations in SWDs. Conclusions: This user-friendly software makes the new methods more accessible and incorporates as many variations as currently available, which were not supported in other related packages. swdpwr is implemented under two platforms: SAS and R, satisfying the needs of investigators from various backgrounds.