I have measured nitrous oxide for 42 days, the emission patterns are varied with days. Should I consider the day as a fixed or random factor? What kind of statistical model will be suitable to handle those data?
It is not clear if you have multiple sites of data collection, But assuming that you DO have multiple sites, I then assume that you are interested in fitting a growth model to the data and looking for predictors of the trajectories . . and this can be done in several packages inducing HLM; SAS Proc Mixed and SPSS linear mixed etc.
I think that Days is a fixed effect as you are NOT randomly sampling s set of days from a populations of days. But IF you are collecting data orm a set of sites then the sties might be random effects.
To make clear, my experiment was a lab experiment. So no multiple site effect. I have taken the gas samples in specific Day, hence as your suggestion, that could be a fixed effect. My experiment designed was quite complex. After taking sample in 1, 3 and 7 days from an incubated ring-soil, I destruct the sample for mineral N analysis.For days 10 and 14 I took different sets of ring-soil and destruct again for mineral N . Same process continued for 1 month. Now, whether I should use a multiple linear regression approach or mix effect modelling for the analyses or repeated measurement ? Could you suggest me.
Data are dependent in time in terms of the process. Without know the specific questions and goals, and the data structure, I suggest you might to look at least three types of approach. The linear mixed model approach (e.g. Pinheiro & Bates) have several forms to fight with the correlated structure based on time; It appears as most soundy for your inquiry. But also the time series approach and the survival approach may provide some conceptual insight to decision-making, and both experimental and statistical design.