Hello~ I'm fitting a random effects model using coxme and I was wondering how are the variance components estimated? Are the fixed and random effects estimated iteratively using Fisher scoring method? I referred to the coxme manual but it didn't specify how the parameters are estimated (https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/coxme/vignettes/coxme.pdf) Thank you!! -- Elise Lim PhD Candidate in Biostatistics Department of Biostatistics Boston University School of Public Health 801 Massachusetts Avenue, 3rd floor, 336C Boston, MA 02118 [[alternative HTML version deleted]]