Bayesian estimation of log-normal parameters - Update

Using the log-normal density can be confusing because it's parameterized in terms of the mean and precision of the log-scale data, not the original-scale data. Thus, if your data, y, are nicely described by a log-normal distribution, the estimated mean and precision are for log(y), not y. To get the corresponding parameters for the original-scale data, you have to transform the estimated parameters. And the prior on the mean and precision have to be appropriate for log(y), as opposed to y. This post shows an example of a JAGS program (with rjags) for estimating the parameters of log-normal distributed data.
 
This post updates the R+JAGS code from a previous post. Please see that previous post for more background. The previous post had code appropriate for the 1st edition of the book; this post updates a few details for use with the 2nd edition of the book. In particular, the new code shows new MCMC diagnostic plots and uses a more appropriate prior on meanOfLogY. Here are some of its output graphs; R code follows below.

Here is the full R script:

#------------------------------------------------------------------------------

# Jags-Ymet-Xnom1grp-MlogNormal-Script.R
# April 19, 2016. John K. Kruschke.
# Requires auxiliary R scripts that accompany the book,
# Kruschke, J. K. (2015). Doing Bayesian Data Analysis, Second Edition:
# A Tutorial with R, JAGS, and Stan. Academic Press / Elsevier.

# graphics.off()
# rm(list=ls(all=TRUE))

source("DBDA2E-utilities.R")
fileNameRoot="Jags-Ymet-Xnom1grp-MlogNormal-Script"
graphFileType="png"

#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# THE DATA.

# Generate some random data from known parameter values:
set.seed(47405)
trueLogM = 5.0 # true mean of log(y)
trueLogSD = 0.5 # true sd of log(y)
y = rnorm( n=125 )  # normal distribution of log-scale values
LogY = (y-mean(y))/sd(y)*trueLogSD + trueLogM
y = exp(LogY) # y is exponentiated values of log(y)

# OR JUST PUT IN YOUR ACTUAL DATA HERE:
# y = ...
# Package the data for shipping to JAGS:
dataList = list(
  y = y ,
  N = length(y) ,
  meanOfLogY = mean(log(y)) ,
  sdOfLogY = sd(log(y))
)

#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# THE MODEL.

modelstring = "
  model {
    for( i in 1 : N ) {
      y[i] ~ dlnorm( muOfLogY , 1/sigmaOfLogY^2 )
    }
  sigmaOfLogY ~ dunif( 0.001*sdOfLogY , 1000*sdOfLogY )
  muOfLogY ~ dnorm( meanOfLogY , 1/(10*sdOfLogY)^2 ) # updated 8/16/2017
  muOfY <- exp(muOfLogY+sigmaOfLogY^2/2)
  modeOfY <- exp(muOfLogY-sigmaOfLogY^2)
  sigmaOfY <- sqrt(exp(2*muOfLogY+sigmaOfLogY^2)*(exp(sigmaOfLogY^2)-1))
}
" # close quote for modelstring
writeLines(modelstring,con="model.txt")

#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# INTIALIZE THE CHAINS.
# Let JAGS do it

#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# RUN THE CHAINS

require(rjags)

parameters = c("muOfLogY" , "sigmaOfLogY" , "muOfY" , "modeOfY" , "sigmaOfY" )
adaptSteps = 1000         # Number of steps to "tune" the samplers.
burnInSteps = 1000        # Number of steps to "burn-in" the samplers.
nChains = 3               # Number of chains to run.
numSavedSteps=20000       # Total number of steps in chains to save.
thinSteps=1               # Number of steps to "thin" (1=keep every step).
nPerChain = ceiling( ( numSavedSteps * thinSteps ) / nChains ) # Steps per chain.
# Create, initialize, and adapt the model:
jagsModel = jags.model( "model.txt" , data=dataList ,
                        n.chains=nChains , n.adapt=adaptSteps )
# Burn-in:
cat( "Burning in the MCMC chain...\n" )
update( jagsModel , n.iter=burnInSteps )
# The saved MCMC chain:
cat( "Sampling final MCMC chain...\n" )
mcmcCoda = coda.samples( jagsModel , variable.names=parameters ,
                            n.iter=nPerChain , thin=thinSteps )

#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# EXAMINE THE RESULTS

# Display diagnostics of chain, for specified parameters:
parameterNames = varnames(mcmcCoda) # get all parameter names
for ( parName in parameterNames ) {
  diagMCMC( codaObject=mcmcCoda , parName=parName ,
            saveName=fileNameRoot , saveType=graphFileType )
}


# Convert coda-object codaSamples to matrix object for easier handling.
mcmcChain = as.matrix( mcmcCoda )
chainLength = NROW(mcmcChain)

openGraph(width=10,height=6)
layout(matrix(1:6,nrow=2,byrow=TRUE))
# posterior predictive
hist( dataList$y , xlab="y" , main="Data w. Post. Pred." , breaks=30 ,
      col="pink" , border="white" , prob=TRUE , cex.lab=1.5)
pltIdx = floor(seq(1,chainLength,length=20))
xComb = seq( min(dataList$y) , max(dataList$y) , length=501 )
for ( chnIdx in pltIdx ) {
  lines( xComb ,
         dlnorm( xComb, mcmcChain[chnIdx,"muOfLogY"], mcmcChain[chnIdx,"sigmaOfLogY"] ),
         col="skyblue" )
}
# param's of log(y)
postInfo = plotPost( mcmcChain[,"muOfLogY"] , xlab="mu of log(y)" )
postInfo = plotPost( mcmcChain[,"sigmaOfLogY"] , xlab="sigma of log(y)" )
# param's of y
postInfo = plotPost( mcmcChain[,"modeOfY"] , xlab="mode of y" )
postInfo = plotPost( mcmcChain[,"muOfY"] , xlab="mu of y" )
postInfo = plotPost( mcmcChain[,"sigmaOfY"] , xlab="sigma of y" , cenTend="mode")

saveGraph(file=fileNameRoot,type=graphFileType)
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------