[R] sem problem - did not converge

John Fox jfox at mcmaster.ca
Mon Feb 14 23:11:11 CET 2011


Dear Felipe,

Without the data or the input covariance or correlation matrix it's not possible to say much. sem() would have complained if the input moment matrix weren't positive-definite, so your check of the eigenvalues of the matrix isn't providing additional information. 

If you haven't already done so, you might try modifying the par.size argument, as described in ?sem, or specifying the argument debug=TRUE to see if you can detect where the optimization is going off the rails. You might also try supplying your own start values for some or all of the parameters. 

It may just be that the problem is ill-conditioned and that sem() isn't capable of maximizing the likelihood.

I hope this helps,
 John

------------------------------------------------
John Fox
Sen. William McMaster Prof. of Social Statistics
Department of Sociology
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox/
On Mon, 14 Feb 2011 13:44:53 -0200
 Felipe Bhering <felipelbhering at gmail.com> wrote:
>  Someone can help me? I tried several things and always don't converge
> I am making a confirmatory factor analysis model.
> 
> # Model
> library(sem)
> dados40.cov <- cov(dados40,method="spearman")
> model.dados40 <- specify.model()
> F1 ->  Item11, lam11, NA
> F1 ->  Item31, lam31, NA
> F1 ->  Item36, lam36, NA
> F1 ->  Item54, lam54, NA
> F1 ->  Item63, lam63, NA
> F1 ->  Item65, lam55, NA
> F1 ->  Item67, lam67, NA
> F1 ->  Item69, lam69, NA
> F1 ->  Item73, lam73, NA
> F1 ->  Item75, lam75, NA
> F1 ->  Item76, lam76, NA
> F1 ->  Item78, lam78, NA
> F1 ->  Item79, lam79, NA
> F1 ->  Item80, lam80, NA
> F1 ->  Item83, lam83, NA
> F2 ->  Item12, lam12, NA
> F2 ->  Item32, lam32, NA
> F2 ->  Item42, lam42, NA
> F2 ->  Item47, lam47, NA
> F2 ->  Item64, lam64, NA
> F2 ->  Item66, lam66, NA
> F2 ->  Item68, lam68, NA
> F2 ->  Item74, lam74, NA
> F3 ->  Item3, lam3, NA
> F3 ->  Item8, lam8, NA
> F3 ->  Item18, lam18, NA
> F3 ->  Item23, lam23, NA
> F3 ->  Item28, lam28, NA
> F3 ->  Item33, lam33, NA
> F3 ->  Item38, lam38, NA
> F3 ->  Item43, lam43, NA
> F4 ->  Item9, lam9, NA
> F4 ->  Item39, lam39, NA
> F5 ->  Item5, lam5, NA
> F5 ->  Item10, lam10, NA
> F5 ->  Item20, lam20, NA
> F5 ->  Item25, lam25, NA
> F5 ->  Item30, lam30, NA
> F5 ->  Item35, lam35, NA
> F5 ->  Item45, lam45, NA
> Item3 <-> Item3, e3,   NA
> Item5 <-> Item5, e5,   NA
> Item8 <-> Item8, e8,   NA
> Item9 <-> Item9, e9,   NA
> Item10 <-> Item10, e10,   NA
> Item11 <-> Item11, e11,   NA
> Item12 <-> Item12, e12,   NA
> Item18 <-> Item18, e18,   NA
> Item20 <-> Item20, e20,   NA
> Item23 <-> Item23, e23,   NA
> Item25 <-> Item25, e25,   NA
> Item28 <-> Item28, e28,   NA
> Item30 <-> Item30, e30,   NA
> Item31 <-> Item31, e31,   NA
> Item32 <-> Item32, e32,   NA
> Item33 <-> Item33, e33,   NA
> Item35 <-> Item35, e35,   NA
> Item36 <-> Item36, e36,   NA
> Item38 <-> Item38, e38,   NA
> Item39 <-> Item39, e39,   NA
> Item42 <-> Item42, e42,   NA
> Item43 <-> Item43, e43,   NA
> Item45 <-> Item45, e45,   NA
> Item47 <-> Item47, e47,   NA
> Item54 <-> Item54, e54,   NA
> Item63 <-> Item63, e63,   NA
> Item64 <-> Item64, e64,   NA
> Item65 <-> Item65, e65,   NA
> Item66 <-> Item66, e66,   NA
> Item67 <-> Item67, e67,   NA
> Item68 <-> Item68, e68,   NA
> Item69 <-> Item69, e69,   NA
> Item73 <-> Item73, e73,   NA
> Item74 <-> Item74, e74,   NA
> Item75 <-> Item75, e75,   NA
> Item76 <-> Item76, e76,   NA
> Item78 <-> Item78, e78,   NA
> Item79 <-> Item79, e79,   NA
> Item80 <-> Item80, e80,   NA
> Item83 <-> Item83, e83,   NA
> F1 <-> F1, NA,    1
> F2 <-> F2, NA,    1
> F3 <-> F3, NA,    1
> F4 <-> F4, NA,    1
> F5 <-> F5, NA,    1
> F1 <-> F2, F1F2, NA
> F1 <-> F3, F1F3, NA
> F1 <-> F4, F1F4, NA
> F1 <-> F5, F1F5, NA
> F2 <-> F3, F2F3, NA
> F2 <-> F4, F2F4, NA
> F2 <-> F5, F2F5, NA
> F3 <-> F4, F3F4, NA
> F3 <-> F5, F3F5, NA
> F4 <-> F5, F4F5, NA
> 
> 
> ###i tryed several correlations, such as hetcor and polychor of polycor
> library
> 
> 
> hcor <- function(data) hetcor(data, std.err=FALSE)$correlations
> hetdados40=hcor(dados40)
> 
> 
> dados40.sem <- sem(model.dados40, dados40.cov, nrow(dados40))
> Warning message:
> In sem.default(ram = ram, S = S, N = N, param.names = pars, var.names =
> vars,  :
>   Could not compute QR decomposition of Hessian.
> Optimization probably did not converge.
> 
> #####################################################
> 
> The same happen if i put hetdados40 in the place of dados40.cov
> of course hetdados40 has 1 in the diag, but any 0
> 
> what should i do? i tryed several things...
> 
> all value positive..
> 
> #####################################################
> 
> > eigen(hetdados40)$values
>  [1] 14.7231030  4.3807378  1.6271780  1.4000193  1.0670784  1.0217670
>  [7]  0.8792466  0.8103790  0.7397817  0.7279262  0.6909955  0.6589746
> [13]  0.6237204  0.6055884  0.5777750  0.5712017  0.5469284  0.5215437
> [19]  0.5073809  0.4892339  0.4644124  0.4485545  0.4372404  0.4290573
> [25]  0.4270672  0.4071262  0.3947753  0.3763811  0.3680527  0.3560231
> [31]  0.3537934  0.3402836  0.3108977  0.3099143  0.2819351  0.2645035
> [37]  0.2548654  0.2077900  0.2043732  0.1923942
> > eigen(dados40.cov)$values
>  [1] 884020.98 337855.95 138823.30 126291.58  87915.21  79207.04  73442.71
>  [8]  68388.11  60625.26  58356.54  55934.05  54024.00  50505.10  48680.26
> [15]  46836.47  45151.23  43213.65  41465.42  40449.59  37824.73  37622.43
> [22]  36344.34  35794.22  33959.29  33552.64  32189.94  31304.44  30594.85
> [29]  30077.32  29362.66  26928.12  26526.72  26046.47  24264.50  23213.18
> [36]  21503.97  20312.55  18710.97  17093.24  14372.21
> 
> #####################################################
> 
> There are no missing data and  40 variables and 1004 subjects, should not be
> a problem the number of variables also!
> 
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.



More information about the R-help mailing list