--- /dev/null
+# Copyright (C) 2003,2004,2005 Michael Creel <michael.creel@uab.es>
+#
+# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
+# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+# the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
+# (at your option) any later version.
+#
+# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
+# GNU General Public License for more details.
+#
+# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+# along with this program; If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+
+## usage: [obj_value, score] = mle_obj(theta, data, model, modelargs, nslaves)
+##
+## Returns the average log-likelihood for a specified model
+## This is for internal use by mle_estimate
+
+
+function [obj_value, score] = mle_obj(theta, data, model, modelargs, nslaves)
+
+ n = rows(data);
+
+ if nargin < 5 nslaves = 0; endif
+ if nslaves > 0
+ global NSLAVES PARALLEL NEWORLD NSLAVES TAG;
+
+ nn = floor(n/(NSLAVES + 1)); # number of obsns per slave
+
+ # The command that the slave nodes will execute
+ cmd=['contrib = mle_obj_nodes(theta, data, model, modelargs, nn); ',...
+ 'MPI_Send(contrib,0,TAG,NEWORLD);'];
+
+ # send items to slaves
+ NumCmds_Send({"theta", "nn", "cmd"}, {theta, nn, cmd});
+
+ # evaluate last block on master while slaves are busy
+ obj_value = mle_obj_nodes(theta, data, model, modelargs, nn);
+
+ # collect slaves' results
+ contrib = 0.0; # must be initialized to use MPI_Recv
+ for i = 1:NSLAVES
+ MPI_Recv(contrib,i,TAG,NEWORLD);
+ obj_value = obj_value + contrib;
+ endfor
+
+ # compute the average
+ obj_value = - obj_value / n;
+ score = "na"; # fix this later to allow analytic score in parallel
+
+ else # serial version
+ [contribs, score] = feval(model, theta, data, modelargs);
+ obj_value = - mean(contribs);
+ if isnumeric(score) score = - mean(score)'; endif # model passes "na" when score not available
+ endif
+
+ # let's bullet-proof this in case the model goes nuts
+ if (((abs(obj_value) == Inf)) || (isnan(obj_value)))
+ obj_value = realmax/10;
+ endif
+
+endfunction