Any rule is going to depend on the relative cost of making an error. In some fields, an error >10% may be a good cutpoint, but in others, it may need to be substantially less. Also, percentages are notorious for being scale dependent. In your example, a deviation of 13 with a denominator of 588, leads to a percentage error of 2%. However, suppose your model predicted a deviation of only 1.3 (much better), but the denominator was only 5.88. Now the percentage error is 22%, even though the absolute prediction is a magnitude more precise. That probably doesn't answer your question of HOW to set a cutpoint in EM, but it is something to consider when the question is put forward. Steve Denham
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