Hi all,
I have previously constructed MultiState models in RMark, and now I am attempting to fit MSLiveDead. I have 18 sampling occasions, thus 17 time intervals and 36 characters in the input (LD format). Begin time is 2008 and intervals are 0.5.
I don't know why but the MSLiveDead would not accept the 17 time intervals I define (whereas MultiState does) when running process.data. I had to include an 18th time interval. Upon further inspection of the data, the first "time" data point in the design data for Psi is 2008.5 (same as p, but the first "time" should actually be 2008 as per the S and r parameters). As a consequence, end.time is 2017 but it should be 2016.5. Is there a reason that the design of Psi behaves differently between the MSLiveDead and MultiState models? I have not read anything to suggest that this would be the case.
As a consequence, all the transitions between summer and winter are now reversed, and I wonder if this design inconsistency has a knock-on effect to other parameters estimated in the model?
Thanks in advance for your help
Andy