I have uploaded release 0.6-1 of the lme4 package to the incoming area on CRAN. I expect it will be transferred to the archive within a couple of days, after which Uwe's Windows build daemon should be able to get it to build a Windows version. The lme4 package itself is a pure R package (i.e. it does not contain any code to be compiled) but it depends on the Matrix_0.8-7 package which has a considerable amount of C code in it. This package contains the version of lme that I spoke of at useR!2004. Using sparse matrix methods - in particular, Tim Davis' LDL package - we are able to fit models with crossed random effects quickly and effectively. This package also contains an implementation of GLMM for Generalized Linear Mixed Models using either Penalized Quasi-Likelihood (PQL) or ML estimation using the Laplacian approximation to the marginal likelihood. At present method 'Laplace' is considerably slower than method = 'PQL'. We would recommend using PQL for model building and determining final parameter estimates using method = 'Laplace'. Feedback is welcome. -- Douglas Bates bates at stat.wisc.edu Statistics Department 608/262-2598 University of Wisconsin - Madison http://www.stat.wisc.edu/~bates/ _______________________________________________ R-packages mailing list R-packages at stat.math.ethz.ch https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-packages