This generic function fits a nonlinear mixed-effects model in the formulation described in Lindstrom and Bates (1990) but allowing for nested random effects. The within-group errors are allowed to be correlated and/or have unequal variances.
nlme(model, data, fixed, random, groups, start, correlation, weights,
     subset, method, na.action, naPattern, control, verbose)# S3 method for formula
nlme(model, data, fixed, random, groups, start, correlation, weights,
     subset, method, na.action, naPattern, control, verbose)
an object of class nlme representing the nonlinear
  mixed-effects model fit. Generic functions such as print,
plot and summary have methods to show the results of the
  fit. See nlmeObject for the components of the fit. The functions
resid, coef, fitted, fixed.effects, and
random.effects  can be used to extract some of its components.
a nonlinear model formula, with the response on the left
    of a ~ operator and an expression involving parameters and
    covariates on the right, or an nlsList object.  If
    data is given, all names used in the formula should be
    defined as parameters or variables in the data frame. The method
    function nlme.nlsList is documented separately.
an optional data frame containing the variables named in
   model, fixed, random, correlation,
   weights, subset, and naPattern.  By default the
   variables are taken from the environment from which nlme is
   called.
a two-sided linear formula of the form
   f1+...+fn~x1+...+xm, or a list of two-sided formulas of the form
   f1~x1+...+xm, with possibly different models for different
   parameters. The f1,...,fn are the names of parameters included on
   the right hand side of model and the x1+...+xm
   expressions define linear models for these parameters (when the left
   hand side of the formula contains several parameters, they all are
   assumed to follow the same linear model, described by the right hand
   side expression).
   A 1 on the right hand side of the formula(s) indicates a single
   fixed effects for the corresponding parameter(s).
optionally, any of the following: (i) a two-sided formula
   of the form r1+...+rn~x1+...+xm | g1/.../gQ, with
   r1,...,rn naming parameters included on the right
   hand side of model, x1+...+xm specifying the
   random-effects model for
   these parameters and g1/.../gQ the grouping structure
   (Q may be equal to 1, in which case no / is
   required). The random effects formula will be repeated
   for all levels of grouping, in the case of multiple levels of
   grouping; (ii) a two-sided formula of the form
   r1+...+rn~x1+..+xm, a list of two-sided formulas of the form
   r1~x1+...+xm, with possibly different random-effects models
   for different parameters, a pdMat object with a two-sided
   formula, or list of two-sided formulas (i.e. a non-NULL value for
   formula(random)), or a list of pdMat objects with two-sided
   formulas, or lists of two-sided formulas. In this case, the grouping
   structure formula will be given in groups, or derived from the
   data used to fit the nonlinear mixed-effects model, which should
   inherit from class  groupedData,; (iii) a named list
   of formulas, lists of formulas, or pdMat objects as in (ii),
   with the grouping factors as names. The order of nesting will be
   assumed the same as the order of the order of the elements in the
   list; (iv) an reStruct object. See the documentation on
   pdClasses for a description of the available pdMat
   classes. Defaults to fixed,
   resulting in all fixed effects having also random effects.
an optional one-sided formula of the form ~g1
   (single level of nesting) or ~g1/.../gQ (multiple levels of
   nesting), specifying the partitions of the data over which the random
   effects vary. g1,...,gQ must evaluate to factors in
   data. The order of nesting, when multiple levels are present,
   is taken from left to right (i.e. g1 is the first level,
   g2 the second, etc.).
an optional numeric vector, or list of initial estimates
   for the fixed effects and random effects. If declared as a numeric
   vector, it is converted internally to a list with a single component
   fixed, given by the vector. The fixed component
   is required, unless the model function inherits from class
   selfStart, in which case initial values will be derived from a
   call to nlsList. An optional random component is used to specify
   initial values for the random effects and should consist of a matrix,
   or a list of matrices with length equal to the number of grouping
   levels. Each matrix should have as many rows as the number of groups
   at the corresponding level and as many columns as the number of
   random effects in that level.
an optional corStruct object describing the
   within-group correlation structure. See the documentation of
   corClasses for a description of the available corStruct
   classes. Defaults to NULL, corresponding to no within-group
   correlations.
an optional varFunc object or one-sided formula
   describing the within-group heteroscedasticity structure. If given as
   a formula, it is used as the argument to varFixed,
   corresponding to fixed variance weights. See the documentation on
   varClasses for a description of the available varFunc
   classes. Defaults to NULL, corresponding to homoscedastic
   within-group errors.
an optional expression indicating the subset of the rows of
   data that should be used in the fit. This can be a logical
   vector, or a numeric vector indicating which observation numbers are
   to be included, or a  character  vector of the row names to be
   included.  All observations are included by default.
a character string.  If "REML" the model is fit by
   maximizing the restricted log-likelihood.  If "ML" the
   log-likelihood is maximized.  Defaults to "ML".
a function that indicates what should happen when the
   data contain NAs.  The default action (na.fail) causes
   nlme to print an error message and terminate if there are any
   incomplete observations.
an expression or formula object, specifying which returned values are to be regarded as missing.
a list of control values for the estimation algorithm to
   replace the default values returned by the function nlmeControl.
   Defaults to an empty list.
an optional logical value. If TRUE information on
   the evolution of the iterative algorithm is printed. Default is
   FALSE.
José Pinheiro and Douglas Bates bates@stat.wisc.edu
The model formulation and computational methods are described in Lindstrom, M.J. and Bates, D.M. (1990). The variance-covariance parametrizations are described in Pinheiro and Bates (1996).
Lindstrom, M.J. and Bates, D.M. (1990) "Nonlinear Mixed Effects Models for Repeated Measures Data", Biometrics, 46, 673-687.
Pinheiro, J.C. and Bates., D.M. (1996) "Unconstrained Parametrizations for Variance-Covariance Matrices", Statistics and Computing, 6, 289-296.
For the different correlation structures, variance functions and links,
 see ‘References’ in lme.
nlmeControl, nlme.nlsList,
  nlmeObject, nlsList,
  nlmeStruct,
  pdClasses,
  reStruct, varFunc,
  corClasses, varClasses
fm1 <- nlme(height ~ SSasymp(age, Asym, R0, lrc),
            data = Loblolly,
            fixed = Asym + R0 + lrc ~ 1,
            random = Asym ~ 1,
            start = c(Asym = 103, R0 = -8.5, lrc = -3.3))
summary(fm1)
fm2 <- update(fm1, random = pdDiag(Asym + lrc ~ 1))
summary(fm2)
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