Your function is non-smooth and nasty looking. You might want to set the function value to a large positive number if an illegal arithmetic operation is performed and `NaN' is returned.
fn <- function(p) { ftemp <- 263*log(sqrt(2*pi)*sd(test$A))+ sum(log(abs(c(test$A[-1], 1))^p[3])) + (sum(((test$A-p[1]+(p[2]+1)*c(test$A[-1], 1)))^2)/sum(sd(test$A)*(abs(c(test$A[-1], 1))^p[3])^2))/2 if (is.nan(ftemp)) ftemp <- 1.0e11 # return(ftemp) } Another option is to specify bounds on the parameters. This will help avoid illegal arithmetic. If you still unsuccessful after these changes, you might want to try optimizing using "optimx" package, as it will try various optimization tools. Hopefully, some of them will be successful. If you send the data test$A, we might be able to help you better. Hope this helps, Ravi. ------------------------------------------------------- Ravi Varadhan, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology School of Medicine Johns Hopkins University Ph. (410) 502-2619 email: rvarad...@jhmi.edu -----Original Message----- From: r-help-boun...@r-project.org [mailto:r-help-boun...@r-project.org] On Behalf Of Gabrielsen, Alexandros Sent: Monday, February 14, 2011 7:17 AM To: r-help@r-project.org Subject: [R] Optimization Question Hi all, This is my first optimization code and am receiving the following error for the following function: fn <- function(p) { +263*log(sqrt(2*pi)*sd(test$A))+ sum(log(abs(c(test$A[-1], 1))^p[3])) + (sum(((test$A-p[1]+(p[2]+1)*c(test$A[-1], 1)))^2)/sum(sd(test$A)*(abs(c(test$A[-1], 1))^p[3])^2))/2 } out <- optim(fn, p = c(0.1, 0.1, 2.5), method="BFGS", hessian=TRUE) Error in optim(fn, p = c(0.1, 0.1, 2.5), method = "BFGS", hessian = TRUE) : non-finite finite-difference value [3] Have tried multiple initial values however, the error remains tha same. Running R 2.12.1 Many Thanks! [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ 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. ______________________________________________ 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.