# Conducting a Bayesian Regularized Meta-analysis

## Packages

First, load in the necessary packages. In addition, if you are running the model locally on a multi-core machine, you can set options(mc.cores = 4). This ensures the different MCMC chains will be run in parallel, making estimation faster.

library(pema)
library(tidySEM)
library(ggplot2)
options(mc.cores = 4)

## Data

In this application, we will work with the bonapersona data (Bonapersona et al., 2019). The data and codebook can be found here. First, we read in the data and make sure all relevant variables are of the correct type.

descriptives(bonapersona)[, c("name", "type", "n", "unique", "mean", "sd", "v")]
#>                    name      type   n unique     mean     sd     v
#> 1                   exp   integer 734    411  222.644 111.88    NA
#> 2                    id   integer 734    212   99.402  60.03    NA
#> 3                author character 734    209       NA     NA 0.990
#> 4                  year   integer 734     21 2011.014   4.45    NA
#> 5               journal character 734     69       NA     NA 0.945
#> 6               species    factor 734      3       NA     NA 0.433
#> 7         strainGrouped    factor 734     15       NA     NA 0.762
#> 8                origin    factor 734      4       NA     NA 0.617
#> 9                   sex    factor 734      3       NA     NA 0.373
#> 10              ageWeek   numeric 721     25   13.333   5.75    NA
#> 11                model    factor 734      6       NA     NA 0.667
#> 12           mTimeStart   integer 734     12    2.357   2.51    NA
#> 13             mTimeEnd   integer 734     18   12.802   4.39    NA
#> 14            mHoursAve   numeric 734     33   54.076  47.73    NA
#> 15         mCageGrouped    factor 734      4       NA     NA 0.485
#> 16           mLDGrouped    factor 734      5       NA     NA 0.469
#> 17          mRepetition    factor 734      7       NA     NA 0.446
#> 18      mControlGrouped    factor 734      4       NA     NA 0.069
#> 19          hit2Grouped    factor 734      3       NA     NA 0.493
#> 20    testAuthorGrouped    factor 734     27       NA     NA 0.894
#> 21        testLDGrouped    factor 734      4       NA     NA 0.295
#> 22     varAuthorGrouped    factor 734     47       NA     NA 0.914
#> 23               waterT    factor 734      9       NA     NA 0.125
#> 24           waterTcate    factor 734      5       NA     NA 0.123
#> 25         freezingType    factor 734     10       NA     NA 0.221
#> 26     retentionGrouped    factor 734      5       NA     NA 0.520
#> 27     directionGrouped    factor 734      5       NA     NA 0.648
#> 28 effectSizeCorrection   integer   5      2    1.000   0.00    NA
#> 29               cut_nC   integer  37      2    1.000   0.00    NA
#> 30         n_notRetriev   integer   5      2    1.000   0.00    NA
#> 31                   nC   numeric 734     25   10.719   4.07    NA
#> 32                meanC   numeric 734    412  167.110 112.13    NA
#> 33                  sdC   numeric 734    499   73.919  62.43    NA
#> 34                  seC   numeric 734    209   23.314  19.61    NA
#> 35                   nE   numeric 734     25   11.200   4.15    NA
#> 36                meanE   numeric 734    430  163.209 114.28    NA
#> 37                  sdE   numeric 734    500   76.684  62.99    NA
#> 38                  seE   numeric 734    206   23.554  19.54    NA
#> 39             dataFrom    factor 734      4       NA     NA 0.288
#> 40        seqGeneration    factor 734      3       NA     NA 0.487
#> 41             baseline    factor 734      4       NA     NA 0.412
#> 42           allocation    factor 734      3       NA     NA 0.170
#> 43              housing    factor 734      2       NA     NA 0.000
#> 44             blindExp    factor 734      4       NA     NA 0.429
#> 45              control    factor 734      4       NA     NA 0.043
#> 46               outAss    factor 734      4       NA     NA 0.456
#> 47             outBlind    factor 734      5       NA     NA 0.654
#> 48              incData    factor 734      3       NA     NA 0.219
#> 49            waterTNum   numeric  48      8   22.292   1.37    NA
#> 50                 each   integer 734    734  367.500 212.03    NA
#> 51          mTimeLength   integer 734     19   10.446   5.61    NA
#> 52 speciesStrainGrouped    factor 734     16       NA     NA 0.762
#> 53            blindRand    factor 734      3       NA     NA 0.317
#> 54                 bias   numeric 734      9    2.884   0.75    NA
#> 55                   tV    factor 734     60       NA     NA 0.929
#> 56              anxiety   integer 734      2    0.486   0.50    NA
#> 57            sLearning   numeric 734      2    0.277   0.45    NA
#> 58           nsLearning   numeric 734      2    0.143   0.35    NA
#> 59               social   integer 734      2    0.063   0.24    NA
#> 60             multiply   integer 734      2   -0.272   0.96    NA
#> 61               noMeta   numeric 734      2    0.031   0.17    NA
#> 62               domain    factor 734      6       NA     NA 0.662
#> 63        directionQual   numeric 617      4    0.183   0.58    NA
#> 64                   yi   numeric 734    726    0.243   1.34    NA
#> 65                   vi   numeric 734    728    0.263   0.36    NA

## Impute missings

bonapersona$ageWeek[is.na(bonapersona$ageWeek)] <- median(bonapersona$ageWeek, na.rm = TRUE) ## Moderators For this application, we use a smaller selection of moderators than in Bonapersona et al. (2019). datsel <- bonapersona[ , c("yi", "vi", "author", "mTimeLength", "year", "model", "ageWeek", "strainGrouped", "bias", "species", "domain", "sex")] ## Two-level model First, for simplicity, we run a two-level model ignoring the fact that certain effect sizes come from the same study. dat2l <- datsel dat2l[["author"]] <- NULL ### Two-level model with the lasso prior We start with running a penalized meta-analysis using the lasso prior. Compared to the horseshoe prior, the lasso is easier to use because it has only two hyperparameters to set. However, the lighter tails of the lasso can result in large coefficients being shrunken too much towards zero thereby leading to potentially more bias compared to the regularized horseshoe prior. For the lasso prior, we need to specify the degrees of freedom df and the scale. Both default to 1. The degrees of freedom determines the chi-square prior that is specified for the inverse-tuning parameter. Increasing the degrees of freedom will allow larger values for the inverse-tuning parameter, leading to less shrinkage. Increasing the scale parameter will also result in less shrinkage. The influence of these hyperparameters can be visualized through the implemented shiny app, which can be called via shiny_prior(). fit_lasso <- brma(yi ~ ., data = dat2l, vi = "vi", method = "lasso", prior = c(df = 1, scale = 1), mute_stan = FALSE) #### Assessing convergence and interpreting the results We can request the results using the summary function. Before we interpret the results, we need to ensure that the MCMC chains have converged to the posterior distribution. Two helpful diagnostics provided in the summary are the number of effective posterior samples n_eff and the potential scale reduction factor Rhat. n_eff is an estimate of the number of independent samples from the posterior. Ideally, the ratio n_eff to total samples is as close to 1 as possible. Rhat compares the between- and within-chain estimates and is ideally close to 1 (indicating the chains have mixed well). Should any values for n_eff or Rhat be far from these ideal values, you can try increasing the number of iterations through the iter argument. By default, the brma function runs four MCMC chains with 2000 iterations each, half of which is discarded as burn-in. As a result, a total of 4000 iterations is available on which posterior summaries are based. If this does not help, non-convergence might indicate a problem with the model specification. sum <- summary(fit_lasso) sum$coefficients[, c("mean", "sd", "2.5%", "97.5%", "n_eff", "Rhat")]
#>                                  mean      sd     2.5%   97.5% n_eff Rhat
#> Intercept                    -20.7265 14.4136 -50.9609  3.6187  1657    1
#> mTimeLength                   -0.0032  0.0048  -0.0143  0.0049  2070    1
#> year                           0.0104  0.0072  -0.0017  0.0254  1660    1
#> modelLG                        0.0855  0.1438  -0.1759  0.4025  2283    1
#> modelLNB                       0.1430  0.1059  -0.0270  0.3721  1210    1
#> modelM                         0.0213  0.0496  -0.0695  0.1329  2208    1
#> modelMD                        0.0229  0.0773  -0.1253  0.1856  2320    1
#> ageWeek                       -0.0073  0.0053  -0.0187  0.0015  1364    1
#> strainGroupedC57Bl6           -0.0189  0.0662  -0.1587  0.1117  2193    1
#> strainGroupedCD1              -0.1158  0.1813  -0.5305  0.2004  2074    1
#> strainGroupedDBA              -0.0253  0.1625  -0.3563  0.3059  1591    1
#> strainGroupedlisterHooded     -0.0540  0.3135  -0.7133  0.5434  2062    1
#> strainGroupedlongEvans         0.0712  0.1205  -0.1421  0.3397  2253    1
#> strainGroupedlongEvansHooded   0.1790  0.2181  -0.1823  0.6557  2302    1
#> strainGroupedNMRI              0.1200  0.2423  -0.3336  0.6518  2225    1
#> strainGroupedNS                0.0289  0.1497  -0.2674  0.3448  2842    1
#> strainGroupedother            -0.0227  0.1263  -0.2832  0.2302  2079    1
#> strainGroupedspragueDawley    -0.0041  0.0615  -0.1343  0.1176  1921    1
#> strainGroupedswissWebster      0.5557  0.4900  -0.2266  1.6393  2230    1
#> strainGroupedwistar            0.0236  0.0567  -0.0807  0.1512  2078    1
#> strainGroupedwistarKyoto       0.0295  0.2698  -0.5350  0.5813  2392    1
#> bias                          -0.0086  0.0290  -0.0716  0.0473  2087    1
#> speciesrat                     0.1191  0.0877  -0.0203  0.3179  1380    1
#> domainsLearning                0.0017  0.0501  -0.1012  0.1072  1986    1
#> domainnsLearning               0.1159  0.0815  -0.0215  0.2892  1553    1
#> domainsocial                   0.1702  0.1183  -0.0249  0.4232  1600    1
#> domainnoMeta                  -0.3615  0.1843  -0.7299 -0.0184  1212    1
#> sexM                           0.1205  0.0689  -0.0017  0.2605  1602    1
#> tau2                           0.4291  0.0394   0.3524  0.5098  1112    1

If we are satisfied with the convergence, we can continue looking at the posterior summary statistics. The summary function provides the posterior mean estimate for the effect of each moderator. Since Bayesian penalization does not automatically shrink estimates exactly to zero, some additional criterion is needed to determine which moderators should be selected in the model. Currently, this is done using the 95% credible intervals, with a moderator being selected if zero is excluded in this interval. In the summary this is denoted by an asterisk for that moderator. In this model, the only significant moderator is the dummy variable for sex. All other coefficients are not significant after being shrunken towards zero by the lasso prior.

Also note the summary statistics for tau2, the (unexplained) residual between-studies heterogeneity. The 95% credible interval for this coefficient excludes zero, indicating that there is a non-zero amount of unexplained heterogeneity. It is customary to express this heterogeneity in terms of $$I^2$$, the percentage of variation across studies that is due to heterogeneity rather than chance (Higgins and Thompson, 2002; Higgins et al., 2003). The helper function I2() computes the posterior distribution of $$I^2$$ based on the MCMC draws of tau2:

I2(fit_lasso)
#>    mean sd 2.5% 25% 50% 75% 97.5%
#> I2   68  2   64  67  68  69    72

### Two-level model with the horseshoe prior

Next, we look into the regularized horseshoe prior. The horseshoe prior has five hyperparameters that can be set. Three parameters are degrees of freedom parameters which influence the tails of the distributions in the prior. Generally, it is not needed to specify different values for these hyperparameters. Here, we focus instead on the global scale parameter and the scale of the slab.

# use the default settings
fit_hs1 <- brma(yi ~ .,
data = dat2l,
vi = "vi",
method = "hs",
prior = c(df = 1, df_global = 1, df_slab = 4, scale_global = 1, scale_slab = 1, relevant_pars = NULL),
mute_stan = FALSE)

# reduce the global scale
fit_hs2 <- brma(yi ~ .,
data = dat2l,
vi = "vi",
method = "hs",
prior = c(df = 1, df_global = 1, df_slab = 4, scale_global = 0.1, scale_slab = 1, relevant_pars = NULL),
mute_stan = FALSE)

# increase the scale of the slab
fit_hs3 <- brma(yi ~ .,
data = dat2l,
vi = "vi",
method = "hs",
prior = c(df = 1, df_global = 1, df_slab = 4, scale_global = 1, scale_slab = 5, relevant_pars = NULL),
mute_stan = FALSE)

Note that the horseshoe prior results in some divergent transitions. This can be an indication of non-convergence. However, these divergences arise often when using the horseshoe prior and as long as there are not too many of them, the results can still be used.

Next, we plot the posterior mean estimates for a selection of moderators for the different priors.

make_plotdat <- function(fit, prior){
plotdat <- data.frame(fit$coefficients) plotdat$par <- rownames(plotdat)
plotdat$Prior <- prior return(plotdat) } df0 <- make_plotdat(fit_lasso, prior = "lasso") df1 <- make_plotdat(fit_hs1, prior = "hs default") df2 <- make_plotdat(fit_hs2, prior = "hs reduced global scale") df3 <- make_plotdat(fit_hs3, prior = "hs increased slab scale") df <- rbind.data.frame(df0, df1, df2, df3) df <- df[!df$par %in% c("Intercept", "tau2"), ]
pd <- 0.5
ggplot(df, aes(x=mean, y=par, group = Prior)) +
geom_errorbar(aes(xmin=X2.5., xmax=X97.5., colour = Prior), width=.1, position = position_dodge(width = pd)) +
geom_point(aes(colour = Prior), position = position_dodge(width = pd)) +
geom_vline(xintercept = 0) +
theme_bw() + xlab("Posterior mean") + ylab("")

We can see that, in general, the different priors give quite similar results in this application. A notable exception is the estimate for the dummy variable testAuthorGrouped_stepDownAvoidance which is much smaller for the lasso compared to the horseshoe specification. This indicates that the lasso can shrink large coefficients more towards zero whereas the horseshoe is better at keeping them large.

## Three-level model

Finally, we can also take into account the fact that some effect sizes might come from the same study by fitting a three-level model as follows:

fit_3l <- brma(yi ~ .,
data = datsel,
vi = "vi",
study = "author",
method = "lasso",
standardize = FALSE,
prior = c(df = 1, scale = 1),
mute_stan = FALSE)

## Standardization

It is possible to override the default standardization, which standardizes all variables (including dummies). To do so, first manually standardize any variables that must be standardized. Then, in the call to brma(), provide a named list with elements list(center = ..., scale = ...). For variables that are not to be standardized, use center = 0, scale = 1. This retains their original scale. For variables that are to be standardized, use their original center and scale to restore the coefficients to their original scale.

In the example below, we standardize a continuous predictor, but we do not standardize the dummies:

moderators <- model.matrix(yi~ageWeek + strainGrouped, data = datsel)[, -1]
scale_age <- scale(moderators[,1])
stdz <- list(center = c(attr(scale_age, "scaled:center"), rep(0, length(levels(datsel$strainGrouped))-1)), scale = c(attr(scale_age, "scaled:scale"), rep(1, length(levels(datsel$strainGrouped))-1)))
moderators <- data.frame(datsel[c("yi", "vi", "author")], moderators)
fit_std <- brma(yi ~ .,
data = moderators,
vi = "vi",
study = "author",
method = "lasso",
prior = c(df = 1, scale = 1),
standardize = stdz,
mute_stan = FALSE)

Note that, in this example, only ageWeek is standardized; the remaining (dummy) variables are untouched. The object stdz provides the original center and scale for ageWeek, which allows brma() to properly rescale the coefficient for this moderator. As the center and scale for all remaining (dummy) variables are 0 and 1, these coefficients are not rescaled. See the pema paper for a discussion of standardization and further references.