I have repeated measures data (over time) for each of 40 individuals with the number of observations per person varying greatly from 4 to 51. There are 578 measurements in total. There are no grouping variables or other covariates. I have been using the function carma in the library called growth to fit a cubic polynomial in time with AR(1) serial correlation plus measurement error. However, I have encountered a number of problems: 1. Varying the initial estimates of the ARMA parameters results in different fitted models and, in particular, the values of minus log-likelihood. How can I choose a "best" model? Some fitted models return NaN for some of the se's and/or correlations of the parameter estiamtes so presumably these can be ruled out. 2. I am not sure how I specify that I want random effects in the model and nor the nature of these (eg random intercept or random intercept and slope, etc). Any help would be greatly appreciated. Peter -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._