# Fitting conditional functions in nls

I'm trying to fit two equations with nls() function in R. The two functions are:

$f(x) = c_{1} \exp\left(-\left(\frac{x-\mu}{\sigma_{(x)}}\right)^2\right)$

where $\sigma_{(x)} = \sigma_{11}$ if $x \le \mu$ and $\sigma_{(x)} = \sigma_{12}$ if $x > \mu$

and

$f(x) = a K \exp\left(- \frac{a}{b} \exp\left(-b x\right) - bx\right)$

Below is my attempt with factitious data:

x <- seq(from = 17, to = 47, by = 5)
y <- c(26.2, 173.6, 233.9, 185.9, 115.4, 62.0, 21.7)
Data <- data.frame(y, x)
Fit1 <- nls(formula =  y ~ if (x <= Mu) Mean <- c1*exp(-((x-Mu)/Sigma11)^2) else Mean     <- c1*exp(-((x-Mu)/Sigma12)^2),
data = Data, start = list(c1 = 240, Mu = 25, Sigma11 = 5, Sigma12 = 14), trace = TRUE)

Fit2 <- nls(formula =  y~K*a*exp(-(a/b)*exp(-b*x)-b*x), data = Data,
start = list(K=4250, a=10, b=0.1), trace = TRUE)


Both codes produce Error and Warning messages. Any help to figure out these problems will be highly appreciated. Thanks

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What are the messages? I would guess they are related to the nondifferentiability of the first model and the terrible starting values in the second. – whuber Jun 5 '11 at 22:05
For first model the error message is Error in nlsModel(formula, mf, start, wts) : singular gradient matrix at initial parameter estimates; For the second model the Error message is: 133504.8 : 4250.0 10.0 0.1 Error in nls(formula = y ~ K * a * exp(-(a/b) * exp(-b * x) - b * x), : singular gradient – MYaseen208 Jun 5 '11 at 22:12
For the first problem, use an optimizer that does not assume differentiability. (There's a list of optimizers at cran.r-project.org/web/views/Optimization.html .) For the second, start with a better estimate. – whuber Jun 5 '11 at 22:22

In the first case, nls will not digest any ifs or other higher expressions... you may use ifelse, however this may make this function too complex to effectively fit it -- nls is not a magic wand.
Fit2<-nls(y~K*a*exp(-(a/b)*exp(-b*x)-b*x),Data,

do converge (consult ?nls for a list of methods).