[R] BLUPS from lme models

[Patrick Connolly]

The bottom of page 276 of the "Gold Book" Modern Applied Statistics by
Venables and Ripley, 4th edition, the last sentence states: 

"Random effects are set either to zero or to their BLUP values."

Am I correct in inferring from that, it amounts respectively to
removing the random term from the model, or setting it as a fixed
effect?  To get something meaningful, one needs to choose which random
effects are relevant to the topic under study? 

Thank you.

-- 
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   ___    Patrick Connolly   
 {~._.~}                   Great minds discuss ideas    
 _( Y )_  	         Average minds discuss events 
(:_~*~_:)                  Small minds discuss people  
 (_)-(_)  	                      ..... Eleanor Roosevelt
	  
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