Non-Standard Semiparametric Regression via BRugs

Abstract

We provide several illustrations of Bayesian semiparametric regression analyses in the BRugs package. BRugs facilitates use of the BUGS inference engine from the R computing environment and allows analyses to be managed using scripts. The examples are chosen to represent an array of non-standard situations, for which mixed model software is not viable. The situations include: the response variable being outside of the one-parameter exponential family, data subject to missingness, data subject to measurement error and parameters entering the model via an index.