Addressing cluster-constant covariates in mixed effects models via likelihood-based boosting techniques

PLoS One. 2021 Jul 9;16(7):e0254178. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0254178. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Boosting techniques from the field of statistical learning have grown to be a popular tool for estimating and selecting predictor effects in various regression models and can roughly be separated in two general approaches, namely gradient boosting and likelihood-based boosting. An extensive framework has been proposed in order to fit generalized mixed models based on boosting, however for the case of cluster-constant covariates likelihood-based boosting approaches tend to mischoose variables in the selection step leading to wrong estimates. We propose an improved boosting algorithm for linear mixed models, where the random effects are properly weighted, disentangled from the fixed effects updating scheme and corrected for correlations with cluster-constant covariates in order to improve quality of estimates and in addition reduce the computational effort. The method outperforms current state-of-the-art approaches from boosting and maximum likelihood inference which is shown via simulations and various data examples.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Likelihood Functions
  • Models, Statistical*

Grants and funding

E.B.: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Projekt WA 4249/2-1 https://www.dfg.de/en/index.jsp Volkswagen Foundation Freigeist Fellowship https://www.volkswagenstiftung.de/en The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.