SURPH.2 - Model Definition

A Model Definition encapsulates all the settings that go into defining a model, as follows:

1. The name of the model
2. The settings for the main effects, group covariates , and individual covariates for:
• Survival-related parameters (known-fate and release-recapture data).
• Detection-related parameters (release-recapture data only).
• Final product-related parameters (release-recapture data only).

The use of model definitions allows more than one model to be defined in advance, and the actual model creation (i.e., parameter estimation) to be performed as a separate operation. For some models, especially those with individual covariate parameters, a significant amount of time is required to estimate the parameters, hence there is an advantage to creating several model definitions in advance and estimating the parameters for all models in one operation.