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<p class="MsoNormal">Hi All:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Any suggestions as to how to determine the minimum dataset size and missingness characteristics to which TraMineR may be applied sensibly would be helpful. I looked for information in documentation but did not see anything that I could
use as a heuristic.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I am using TraMineR to analyze 5 years of BMI observations, coded as a four level ordinal categorical variable for 5046 elementary school children (grades k-5) . Only 414 of these have 5 observations ( ~ 56% of the K, 1 students measured
at time 1 who could have had been measured in years 1 to 5.) . Here are have two related, if not well stated, questions:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">Is it legitimate to focus only on complete cases since I only have 5 data points and high cumulative natural attrition. Testing the complete cases against all cases reveals no substantive difference in
values of predictors. The analyses from complete cases are informative, while including all cases , regardless of imputation choice, just makes things noisy. I tried admitting only sequences of 4 or 5 but results were still noisy.<o:p></o:p></li></ol>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<ol style="margin-top:0in" start="2" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">Is five too short a sequence object to use with TraMineR, given the imputation patterns required by the full dataset, regardless of whether they are due to planned missingness or MAR?<o:p></o:p></li></ol>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<ol style="margin-top:0in" start="3" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">Below is the number of cases with from 1 to 5 observations.<o:p></o:p></li></ol>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> 1 2 3 4 5<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> 1846 1287 869 630 414<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">TraMineR is a great tool. I want to make sure I am using it appropriately.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Thanks.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Shawn Boles, Ph.D.<br>
Senior Research Associate<br>
Oregon Research Institute<br>
1776 Millrace Drive<br>
Eugene, Oregon 97403-2536<br>
USA<br>
Phone (541) 484-2123 ext 2225<br>
Fax: (541) 484-1108<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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