I get upset when software dies and refuses to give me an answer. I'd much rather have a routine give me a wrong answer -- with an error message -- than just an error message. Maybe refuse to print standard errors when the hessian is singular, but at least give me a progress report with the singular hessian. Without that, I have to program "optim" or something else separately to get the answers and the hessian in order to do my own diagnosis -- if I know enough to do that.
Just my 0.02 Euros. spencer graves Roel de Jong wrote: > Of course it is generally possible to generate datasets for a perfectly > well-defined model that are hard to fit, but in this particular case I > feel it should be possible. In my observations, glmm.admb is far more > numerically stable fitting GLMM's than other software I've seen. Further > , I don't think the data I generated come from a model that is > overparameterized, severely contaminated with outliers, has no noise, or > is nonlinear. But I encourage anyone to run a simulation study with > generated data they think are acceptable and compare the robustness of > several methods. I leave it at this. > > Best regards, > Roel de Jong > > Berton Gunter wrote: > >>May I interject a comment? >> >> >> >>>When data is generated from a specified model with reasonable >>>parameter >>>values, it should be possible to fit such a model successful, >>>or is this >>>me being stupid? >> >> >>Let me take a turn at being stupid. Why should this be true? That is, why >>should it be possible to easily fit a model that is generated ( i.e. using a >>pseudo-random number generator) from a perfectly well-defined model? For >>example, I can easily generate simple linear models contaminated with >>outliers that are quite difficult to fit (e.g. via resistant fitting >>methods). In nonlinear fitting, it is quite easy to generate data from >>oevrparameterized models that are quite difficult to fit or whose fit is >>very sensitive to initial conditions. Remember: the design (for the >>covariates) at which you fit the data must support the parameterization. >> >>The most dramatic examples are probably of simple nonlinear model systems >>with no noise which produce chaotic results when parameters are in certain >>ranges. These would be totally impossible to recover from the "data." >> >>So I repeat: just because you can generate data from a simple model, why >>should it be easy to fit the data and recover the model? >> >>Cheers, >> >>Bert Gunter >>Genentech >> >> > > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html -- Spencer Graves, PhD Senior Development Engineer PDF Solutions, Inc. 333 West San Carlos Street Suite 700 San Jose, CA 95110, USA [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.pdf.com <http://www.pdf.com> Tel: 408-938-4420 Fax: 408-280-7915 ______________________________________________ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html