[R-sig-ME] glmmADMB v 0.7.1

[Christopher Rota]

Dear R Users,

I am running into some trouble when using glmmADMB version 0.7.1 and am 
hoping someone in the R community may have some insight.

I am trying to fit a rather large negative binomial mixed-effects 
model.  I have 3980 observations (counts of foraging attempts).  My 
'global' model has 17 fixed effects and 2 random effects.  Fixed effects 
consist of both continuous and categorical variables.  Each categorical 
variable has at least 22 observations, most have considerably more.  One 
random effect is an 'observer' effect consisting of 11 different 
observers.  Each observer made at least 29 observations, but most made 
considerably more.  The other random effect in an 'individual bird' 
effect consisting of 78 individual birds.  There are at least 20 
observations made on each bird.

Here is my call to glmmadmb:
fit <- glmmadmb(formula=count~BrnLight + BrnMod + BrnMPB + BrnSev + 
GrnHit + GryHit + RedHit + Autumn + Spring + Winter + Yr01 + Yr12 + Yr23 
+ Yr34 + Yr45 + Est.DBH.in + Start.Time + (1|Color.Combo) + 
(1|Observers), data=beh.data, family='nbinom')

The variables 'BrnLight' through 'RedHit' represent categorical 
variables describing tree condition.  They are coded as dummy variables, 
and one tree condition category (Green) is omitted from model 
specification and interpreted as the intercept.  The season (Autumn, 
Spring, Winter) and year (Yr01, etc.) variables are coded in an 
identical manner (note that I also coded categorical variables as 
factors, and encountered the same problem described below).  DBH and 
Start.Time are continuous variables.

This global model runs for about 10 minutes, then fails with the 
following message:
Memory allocation error -- Perhaps you are trying to allocate too much 
memory in your program

When I monitor my computer performance with Windows Task Manager while 
the model is running, I can watch Physical Memory Usage slowly tick up. 
All of that increased memory use is attributed to glmmadmb.exe.  I will 
watch memory use for this program tick up to about 1.7GB, and that is 
when the model fails.  I am using a computer with a Windows Vista 32-bit 
operating system with 4GB RAM.  Is the problem simply that I do not have 
enough memory on my computer to run this model?  If indeed the problem 
is a shortage of memory, is there any way to make glmmadmb.exe use 
memory differently, or do I need to use a more powerful computer?

Thank you for any insight.

Chris Rota

-- 
Christopher Rota
Ph.D. Student

University of Missouri
Fisheries and Wildlife Science
302 Anheuser-Busch Natural Resources Building
Columbia, MO 65211

Office:  303O Anheuser-Busch Natural Resources Buildling
Email:  ctr4g2 at mail.missouri.edu
Phone:  573-239-6975
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