Optimizing degrees of freedom in spline regression

I have two gene-expression time-course data sets:

First, gene expression was measured over 14 time points from 4 groups:

df1 <- structure(list(val = c(-0.1, -0.13, -0.4, -0.3, -0.3, -0.2, -0.24, 
                            0.1, 0.2, 0.13, 0, 0.63, 0.83, 0.85, -0.07, -0.07, -0.27, -0.2, 
                            -0.2, -0.1, 0.2, 0.1, 0.07, 0.17, 0.6, 0.75, 1.1, 1.1, -0.13, 
                            -0.15, -0.26, -0.25, -0.14, 0.04, 0.2, 0.24, 0.23, 0.2, 0.1, 
                            0.73, 1, 1.3, 0, 0.06, -0.24, -0.17, -0.17, -0.04, 0.16, 0.1, 
                            0.14, 0.27, 0.34, 0.9, 0.97, 1.04), 
                    time = c(-1, 0, 1, 1.58,2, 2.58, 3, 3.32, 3.58, 4.17, 4.58, 5.58, 6.17, 7.39, 
                             -1, 0, 1, 1.58, 2, 2.58, 3, 3.32, 3.58, 4.17, 4.58, 5.58, 6.17, 7.39, 
                             -1, 0, 1, 1.58, 2, 2.58, 3, 3.32, 3.58, 4.17, 4.58, 5.58, 6.17,7.39, 
                             -1, 0, 1, 1.58, 2, 2.58, 3, 3.32, 3.58, 4.17, 4.58, 5.58,6.17, 7.39), 
                    group = structure(c(1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L,1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 
                                        2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L,2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 
                                        3L, 3L, 3L, 3L, 3L, 3L, 3L, 3L, 3L, 3L, 3L,3L, 3L, 3L, 
                                        4L, 4L, 4L, 4L, 4L, 4L, 4L, 4L, 4L, 4L, 4L, 4L, 4L,4L), 
                                      .Label = c("a", "b", "c", "d"), class = "factor")), .Names = c("val","time", "group"), 
               row.names = c(NA, -56L), class = "data.frame")


df1$group <- factor(df1$group,levels=c("a","b","c","d"))

which looks like this (adding a loess smoothed trend line):

library(ggplot2)
ggplot(df1,aes(x=time,y=val,color=group))+geom_point()+theme_minimal()+geom_smooth(se=F)+theme(legend.position="top",legend.title=element_blank())

Second, gene expression was measured over similar 14 time points but now from 2 different groups, each represented by the two sexes:

df2 <- structure(list(val = c(-0.23, -0.01, -0.14, -0.01, -0.21, -0.16, 
                       -0.24, -0.11, 0.02, -0.11, -0.01, -0.25, -0.47, -1.25, 0.02, 
                       -0.3, -0.02, 0.14, 0.25, -0.05, 0.15, 0.11, -0.24, -0.18, -0.39, 
                       -0.49, -0.5, -0.65, -0.06, 0.09, 0.1, 0.15, 0.08, 0.15, 0.4, 
                       0.24, 0.07, 0.08, -0.18, -0.35, -0.19, -0.81, -0.16, 0.29, -0.05, 
                       0.14, 0.14, 0.48, 0.34, 0.11, -0.07, -0.13, -0.41, -0.22, -0.54, 
                       -0.76, 0.35, 0.34, -0.06, 0.21, 0.14, 0.14, 0.25, 0.22, 0.25, 
                       0.16, 0.3, 0.44, 0.08, 0.48, 0.1, 0.16, -0.03, -0.22, 0.2, 0.01, 
                       -0.09, -0.02, -0.01, 0.06, -0.13, 0.19, 0.11, -0.04, -0.39, 0.03, 
                       -0.01, 0.09, 0.1, -0.14, -0.12, -0.1, 0.36, 0.08, 0.09, 0.09, 
                       0.42, 0.37, -0.14, 0.12, 0.09, 0.03, 0.06, -0.25, 0.2, -0.06, 
                       -0.44, 0.23, 0.03, 0.16, 0.81, 0.83),
               time = c(-1, 0, 1, 1.58,2, 2.58, 3, 3.32, 3.58, 4.17, 4.58, 5.58, 6.17, 7.39, 
                        -1, 0,1, 1.58, 2, 2.58, 3, 3.32, 3.58, 4.17, 4.58, 5.58, 6.17, 7.39, 
                        -1, 0, 1, 1.58, 2, 2.58, 3, 3.32, 3.58, 4.17, 4.58, 5.58, 6.17,7.39, 
                        -1, 0, 1, 1.58, 2, 2.58, 3, 3.32, 3.58, 4.17, 4.58, 5.58,6.17, 7.39, 
                        -1, 0, 1, 1.58, 2, 2.58, 3, 3.32, 3.58, 4.17, 4.58,5.58, 6.17, 7.39, 
                        -1, 0, 1, 1.58, 2, 2.58, 3, 3.32, 3.58, 4.17,4.58, 5.58, 6.17, 7.39, 
                        -1, 0, 1, 1.58, 2, 2.58, 3, 3.32, 3.58, 4.17, 4.58, 5.58, 6.17, 7.39, 
                        -1, 0, 1, 1.58, 2, 2.58, 3, 3.32, 3.58, 4.17, 4.58, 5.58, 6.17, 7.39), 
               sex = structure(c(1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 
                                 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 
                                 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L), 
                               .Label = c("F", "M"), class = "factor"), group = structure(c(1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 
                                                                                            2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L), 
                                                                                          .Label = c("a", "b"), class = "factor")), .Names = c("val", "time", "sex", "group"), row.names = c(NA, -112L), class = "data.frame")
df2$sex <- ordered(df2$sex,levels=c("M","F"))

df2$group <- ordered(df2$group,levels=c("a","b"))

df2$col <- factor(paste0(df2$group,":",df2$sex))

which looks like this (adding a loess smoothed trend line):

ggplot(df2,aes(x=time,y=val,color=col))+geom_point()+theme_minimal()+geom_smooth(se=F)+theme(legend.position="top",legend.title=element_blank())

For df1, I would like to estimate the effect of time on val, adjusting for group.

For df2, I would like to estimate the effect of time:group on val, adjusting for sex.

Looking at the data I thought using spline regressions would be appropriate so I used the gam function from the mgcv package, which as far as I understand optimizes the degrees of freedom of the splines fitted to the data.

This is what I fitted for df1:

mgcv1.fit <- mgcv::gam(val ~ group+s(time),data=df1)

Which gives:

Family: gaussian 
Link function: identity 

Formula:
val ~ group + s(time)

Estimated degrees of freedom:
7.18  total = 11.18 

GCV score: 0.01258176

But 7.18 degrees of freedom seems too much for these data.

For df2:

mgcv2.fit <- mgcv::gam(val ~ sex+s(time,by=group),data=df2)

which gives:

Family: gaussian 
Link function: identity 

Formula:
val ~ sex + s(time, by = group)

Estimated degrees of freedom:
1.72  total = 3.72 

GCV score: 0.08522094

I guess that in this case I'd imagine the degrees of freedom to be slightly higher.

One more point. Plotting the fitted values for these two data sets:

df1$mgcv <- mgcv1.fit$fitted.values
ggplot(df1,aes(x=time,y=mgcv,color=group))+geom_point()+theme_minimal()+geom_smooth(se=F)+theme(legend.position="top",legend.title=element_blank())

which looks fine.

But for df2

df2$mgcv <- mgcv2.fit$fitted.values
ggplot(df2,aes(x=time,y=mgcv,color=col))+geom_point()+theme_minimal()+geom_smooth(se=F)+theme(legend.position="top",legend.title=element_blank())

Looks like it flipped the group labels.

So my questions are:

Am I using mgcv::gam correctly for optimizing the spline degrees of freedom for my questions?
Does mgcv reorders the samples in its fitted.values?

Solution

First of all, mgcv does the right thing on the factor levels. If you check str(df2$sex), you will see that "M" (male) is the first level and "F" (female) is the second. But it seems from str(df2$col) that "F" is the first, so you get some mislabeling when making plot.

Secondly, your second model has not been specified correctly.

The spline s(time) is under centering constraint when there is no "by" variable, or the "by" is a factor. So you to provide your "by" variable group as a separate term in your model formula to catch its marginal effect;
Since the "by" variable group is an ordered variable, mgcv applies contrasts on it, dropping the first level "a" when constructing the s(time, by = group). So you need to provide a separate s(time) as the baseline smooth.

Your current mgcv2.fit is a rather poor model (not surprising), giving an explained deviance of 9%. But if you do the following you get 64%.

gam(val ~ sex + s(time) + group + s(time, by = group), data = df2, method = "REML")

The ggplot now looks right (I haven't changed df2$col so the coloring is still probably reversed).

gam defaults to use "GCV.Cp" as smoothing parameter selection method. But it is recommended to use "REML" as it is less prone to overfitting.

Remark 1

If the "by" variable group is a (non-ordered) factor, it is not subject to contrasts. So the model formula should be:

val ~ sex + group + s(time, by = group)

The following is quoted from 'by' variables section of ?gam.models:

 If a ‘by’ variable is a ‘factor’ then it generates an indicator
 vector for each level of the factor, unless it is an ‘ordered’
 factor. In the non-ordered case, the model matrix for the smooth
 term is then replicated for each factor level, and each copy has
 its rows multiplied by the corresponding rows of its indicator
 variable. The smoothness penalties are also duplicated for each
 factor level.  In short a different smooth is generated for each
 factor level (the ‘id’ argument to ‘s’ and ‘te’ can be used to
 force all such smooths to have the same smoothing parameter).
 ‘ordered’ ‘by’ variables are handled in the same way, except that
 no smooth is generated for the first level of the ordered factor
 (see ‘b3’ example below).  This is useful for setting up
 identifiable models when the same smooth occurs more than once in
 a model, with different factor ‘by’ variables.

Remark 2

I am not to judge your model, but there seems to be a clear within-group difference between "F" and "M". From your data we see that "F" and "M" has a bigger difference in group "b" than in group "a". At the moment the effect of sex is identical in both groups, and it is just a vertical shift. You can observe this in the above ggplot in this answer. It is up to you to decide the model in the end, but just in case that you want to model this sex-group interaction, you can do

df2$sex_group <- with(df2, interaction(sex, group))  ## the new variable is unordered
test <- gam(val ~ sex + group + s(time, by = sex_group), data = df2, method = "REML")

Note how I provide two factor variables to by. An auxiliary variable sex_group is created.