See Ben Bolker's response to r-sig-mixed. The variance covariance structure of the random effects and fixed effects can creep into extremely large values. This can be problematic.

From: Iker Vaquero Alba [mailto:karraspito@yahoo.es]
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 10:05 AM
To: Doran, Harold; Mike Lawrence; r-sig-mixed-models@r-project.org
Subject: Re: [R-sig-ME] Resume terminated lmer fit if verbose=TRUE?

   How can you check for overparameterization?
   Thanks. Iker

________________________________
De: "Doran, Harold" <HDoran@air.org>
Para: Mike Lawrence <Mike.Lawrence@dal.ca>; "r-sig-mixed-models@r-project.org" <r-sig-mixed-models@r-project.org>
Enviado: miércoles 27 de julio de 2011 15:29
Asunto: Re: [R-sig-ME] Resume terminated lmer fit if verbose=TRUE?

Yes. See ?lmer and the start argument. You can provide the function with starting values, which can come as the last iteration of the output from verbose. 100 hours is a ridiculous amount of computing time.

You might want to check your model and make sure it isn't overparameterized.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-sig-mixed-models-bounces@r-project.org<mailto:r-sig-mixed-models-bounces@r-project.org> [mailto:r-sig-mixed-models-
> bounces@r-project.org<mailto:bounces@r-project.org>] On Behalf Of Mike Lawrence
> Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 9:16 AM
> To: r-sig-mixed-models@r-project.org<mailto:r-sig-mixed-models@r-project.org>
> Subject: [R-sig-ME] Resume terminated lmer fit if verbose=TRUE?
>
> Hi folks,
>
> I ran a binomial lmer on a large data set with lots of levels of a
> random effect (1000+) and a large fixed effects structure (7 variables
> all interacting). My local machine wasn't up to the task (it needs
> about 16GB of memory so far as I can tell), so I put it on a serial
> node on a supercomputer to which I have access. I asked for 100 hours
> of compute time, but it seems that the model went over time and the
> process was terminated by the system's queue. However, I ran it in
> verbose mode and have all the output, so I'm wondering if there's any
> way to use this information to resubmit the job and have it resume
> where it left off. Any ideas?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Mike
>
> --
> Mike Lawrence
> Graduate Student
> Department of Psychology
> Dalhousie University
>
> Looking to arrange a meeting? Check my public calendar:
> http://tr.im/mikes_public_calendar
>
> ~ Certainty is folly... I think. ~
>
> _______________________________________________
> R-sig-mixed-models@r-project.org<mailto:R-sig-mixed-models@r-project.org> mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mixed-models

_______________________________________________
R-sig-mixed-models@r-project.org<mailto:R-sig-mixed-models@r-project.org> mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mixed-models


	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]


