Hi, I have a simple question on interpreting output results from your msm package in R when using a categorical model with hcovariates i.e. covariates on the parameters of the emission model. The interpretation is straightforward for normal distributions, etc. but when using categorical distributions I get results like these: prob P(1) 0.8597657482 P(2) 0.0001943636 P(3) 0.0042761544 P(4) 0.0002781397 P(5) 0.0005549986 P(6) 0.1349305955 DC_MAX_POSSIBLE_L1 0.4804758829 DC_MAX_POSSIBLE_L1 0.4216246143 DC_MAX_POSSIBLE_L1 -0.0552074714 DC_MAX_POSSIBLE_L1 0.1899573843 DC_MAX_POSSIBLE_L1 0.0963140485 at first glance I thought that 1 unit of DC_MAX_POSSIBLE_L1 was responsible for increasing the probability of outcome of factor 2 (P(2)) by 0.48 but that does not make sense given that DC_MAX_POSSIBLE_L1 is an integer ranging from -20 to +20. How do I interpret the results ? the original call was: msm_pc10 = msm( OUTCOME ~ TIME, data = myFrame, qmatrix = qmatrix ,hmodel = list (hmmDist_1,hmmDist_2) ,hcovariates = list ( ~ 1 + DC_MAX_POSSIBLE_L1, ~ 1 + DC_MAX_POSSIBLE_L1) ,control = list(reltol = 1e-03) ,method = "BFGS", use.deriv = FALSE, hessian=FALSE, analyticp=FALSE , est.initprobs=TRUE ); with hmmDist_1 and hmmDist_2 being hmmCat distributions as specified in the msm manual. Thanks! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This message is for the named person(s) use only. It may contain confidential proprietary or legally privileged information. No confidentiality or privilege is waived or lost by any mistransmission. If you receive this message in error, please immediately delete it and all copies of it from your system, destroy any hard copies of it and notify the sender. You must not, directly or indirectly use, disclose, distribute, print, or copy any part of this message if you are not the intended recipient. Allston Trading LLC and its subsidiaries and affiliates each reserve the right to monitor all e-mail communications through its networks. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the message states otherwise and the sender is authorized to state them to be the views of any such entity. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [[alternative HTML version deleted]]