Hi - I have a likelihood function that involves sums of two possions: L = a*dpois(Xi,theta1)*dpois(Yi,theta2)+b*(1-c)*a*dpois(Xi,theta1+theta3)*dpois(Yi,theta2)
where a,b,c,theta1,theta2,theta3 are parameters to be estimated. (Xi,Yi) are observations. However, Xi and Yi are usually big (> 20000). This causes dpois to returns 0 depending on values of theta1, theta2 and theta3. My first question is: is there anyway around this? My second question is regarding the likelihood function value. Since dpois returns 0, my log likelihood becomes infinite and causes problem when optimization. Is there any smart way to avoid this? Thank you, rc ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.