[R] mixed-effects models for left-censored data?

[Remko Duursma]

Dear R-helpers,

excuse me if this is not exclusively an R-related question.

I have data from a nested design, both temporally and spatially, and the reponse variable of interest is left-censored. That is, only values > "some treshold" are available, otherwise "LOW" is reported. 

Are there ways of building a linear model with both fixed and random effects, when the response variable is censored? Can the tobit model be modified to do this? Does anyone have experience with this type of dataset?

Help is much appreciated,

Remko Duursma



^'~,_,~'^'~,_,~'^'~,_,~'^'~,_,~'^'~,_,~'^'~,_,~'
Remko Duursma, Ph.D. student
Forest Biometrics Lab / Idaho Stable Isotope Lab
University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, U.S.A.