# self-starting nonlinear power law function in R
# Written by C. Scherber, 4th December 2013

# Please acknowledge me should you use this function in publications.
# note that response and explanatory variables need to be strictly positive.

powermodel=function(x,a,b,c)
{a+b*x^c}

powermodelInit=function(mCall,LHS,data){
xy=sortedXyData(mCall[["x"]],LHS,data)
lmFit1=lm(xy[,"y"]~1) #for "intercept", a
lmFit2=lm(log(xy[,"y"])~log(xy[,"x"])) #for b and c
coefs1=coef(lmFit1)
coefs2=coef(lmFit2)
a=coefs1
b=exp(coefs2[1])
c=coefs2[2]
value=c(a,b,c)
names(value)=mCall[c("a","b","c")]
value
}

SSpower=selfStart(powermodel,powermodelInit,c("a","b","c"))

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