Greets, I'm using nlminb() to estimate the parameters of a multivariate normal random sample with missing values and ran into an unexpected result from my call to dmvnorm() within the likelihood function. Particular details are provided below. It appears that dmvnorm() makes a call to log(eigen(sigma)). Whereas eigen(sigma) is returning a negative number, I understand log()'s complaint. However, it is a mystery to me why this data set should produce such a result.
Any suggestions? Best Regards, Steven > complete [,1] [,2] [1,] 0.84761637 3.994261 [2,] 0.91487059 4.952595 [3,] 0.84527267 4.521837 [4,] 2.53821358 8.374880 [5,] 1.16646209 6.255022 [6,] 0.94706527 4.169510 [7,] 0.48813564 3.349230 [8,] 3.71828469 9.441518 [9,] 0.08953357 1.651497 [10,] 0.68530515 5.498403 [11,] 1.52771645 8.484671 [12,] 1.55710697 5.231272 [13,] 1.89091603 4.152658 [14,] 1.08483541 5.401544 [15,] 0.58125385 5.340141 [16,] 0.24473250 2.965046 [17,] 1.59954401 8.095561 [18,] 1.57656436 5.335744 [19,] 2.73976992 8.572871 [20,] 0.87720252 6.067468 [21,] 1.18403087 3.526790 [22,] -1.03145244 1.776478 [23,] 2.88197343 7.720838 [24,] 0.60705218 4.406073 [25,] 0.58083464 3.374075 [26,] 0.87913427 5.247637 [27,] 1.10832692 3.534508 [28,] 2.92698371 8.682130 [29,] 4.04115277 11.827360 [30,] -0.57913297 1.476586 [31,] 0.84804365 7.009075 [32,] 0.79497940 3.671164 [33,] 1.58837762 5.535409 [34,] 0.63412821 3.932767 [35,] 3.14032433 9.271014 [36,] -0.18183869 1.666647 [37,] 0.57535770 6.881830 [38,] 3.21417723 10.901636 [39,] 0.29207932 4.120408 [40,] 0.65938218 5.209301 > u [1] 1.267198 5.475045 > sigma [,1] [,2] [1,] 0.6461647 2.228951 [2,] 2.2289513 5.697834 > dmvnorm(x=complete,mean=u,sigma=sigma) [1] NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN [30] NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN Warning message: In log(eigen(sigma, symmetric = TRUE, only.values = TRUE)$values) : NaNs produced ______________________________________________ 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.