[ADMB Users] Reading in random effects start values from .pin file

[Ben Stevenson]

Hi ADMBers,

A while ago I noticed that all elements of a random_effects_vector seem to
start out at 0, regardless of what appears in the .pin file. I have
recently discovered that using the -noinit option results in behaviour that
one would expect, i.e., random effects start values are read in from the
.pin file.

However, when you have a SEPARABLE_FUNCTION, this persists even with the
-noinit option.

Hans suggested a nice workaround, whereby you read in a vector of offsets
(which can be set to your desired start values) from the .dat file, and use
v as your random effect, where

v = u + offset;

and u is the random_effects_vector which has elements with start value 0.

Can anyone shed any light on why start values in the .pin file for a
random_effects_vector do seem to do what one would expect? The ADMB-RE
manual suggests the .pin file initialisation should work.

I have attached a minimum working example of the behaviour I am seeing. The
compiled executable won't optimise anything, but start values for the
random effects are printed out. I get a bunch of 0s, even though the .pin
file provides the start values {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}.

Cheers,

Ben
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