Error: invalid link function specified: NA

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manolo01
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2018 2:01 pm

Error: invalid link function specified: NA

Post by manolo01 »

Hi,
this is the first time I am using R2MLwiN.

I want to run a model with random effects only. My database is a sub-sample of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey developed by UNICEF. By response variable is a binary variable where 1 indicates age of marriage before 18 y.o. and 0 indicates age of marriage after 18 y.o.

This is the code I wrote

Code: Select all

F1 <- logit(agem.18) ~ 1 + (1 | province) + (1 | w.id)
rand.eff <- runMLwiN(Formula = F1, D = "Binomial", data = moz.20)
and I get the following error message

Code: Select all

Invalid link function specified: NA 
Error in runMLwiN(Formula = F1, D = "Binomial", data = moz.20)
I am not sure what is causing this error. The response variable is a binary

Code: Select all

> str(moz.20$agem.18)
 Factor w/ 2 levels "No","Yes": 2 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 2 2 ...
Does it have anything to do with the denom? I read that when it is not specified, the denom is automatically set to 1.

Thanks for your help

Manolo
ChrisCharlton
Posts: 1351
Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2009 10:34 am

Re: Error: invalid link function specified: NA

Post by ChrisCharlton »

This appears to be a bug in our code for parsing the model formula where it does not correctly handle a "." in the response name, for example:

Code: Select all

> library(R2MLwiN)
> data(bang, package = "R2MLwiN")
> (mymodel1 <- runMLwiN(logit(use) ~ 1 + lc, D = "Binomial", data = bang))

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- 
MLwiN (version: 3.02)  multilevel model (Binomial) 
Estimation algorithm:  IGLS MQL1        Elapsed time : 0.6s 
Number of obs:  2867 (from total 2867)        The model converged after 4 iterations.
Log likelihood:      NA 
Deviance statistic:  NA 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
The model formula:
logit(use) ~ 1 + lc
Level 1: l1id      
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
The fixed part estimates:  
                    Coef.   Std. Err.        z    Pr(>|z|)         [95% Conf.   Interval] 
Intercept        -1.12288     0.08348   -13.45    3.05e-41   ***     -1.28650    -0.95926 
lcOne_child       0.93275     0.12156     7.67   1.676e-14   ***      0.69450     1.17100 
lcTwo_children    1.09250     0.12509     8.73   2.466e-18   ***      0.84733     1.33768 
lcThree_plus      0.87224     0.10302     8.47   2.523e-17   ***      0.67033     1.07416 
Signif. codes:  0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
The random part estimates at the l1id level: 
                Coef.   Std. Err. 
var_bcons_1   1.00000     0.00000 
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- 

> bang$use.test <- bang$use
> (mymodel1 <- runMLwiN(logit(use.test) ~ 1 + lc, D = "Binomial", data = bang))
Invalid link function specified: NA 
Error in runMLwiN(logit(use.test) ~ 1 + lc, D = "Binomial", data = bang) : 
Until this is fixed the workaround would be to rename agem.18 to remove the "." character.
manolo01
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2018 2:01 pm

Re: Error: invalid link function specified: NA

Post by manolo01 »

Thank you, Chris,
I renamed the variable as suggested and now it works and I was able to fit my models.
I posted the same question on StackOverFlow, can I share the link to this page as credit for your reply and close the question there?
Cheers
Manolo
ChrisCharlton
Posts: 1351
Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2009 10:34 am

Re: Error: invalid link function specified: NA

Post by ChrisCharlton »

I am glad to hear that this is now working for you. Yes, you are welcome to link to this page if you wish. I have now also added a reference to this bug to the R2MLwiN known bugs page (http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cmm/software/r ... nbugs.html).
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