Simple Optimization (Introduction to Statistical Computing)
Three-Toed Sloth 2013-12-20
Summary:
Lecture 10: Basics from calculus about minima. Taylor series. Gradient descent and Newton's method. Curve-fitting by optimization. Illustrations with optim and nls. R for examples
Reading: recipes 13.1 and 13.2 in The R Cookbook; chapters I.1, II.1 and II.2 in Red Plenty