This function is generic; method functions can be written to handle specific classes of objects. Classes which already have methods for this function include all corStruct classes.
The model matrices for each element of formula(object), calculated using data, are bound together column-wise. When multiple grouping levels are present (i.e. when length(object) > 1), the individual model matrices are combined from innermost (at the leftmost position) to outermost (at the rightmost position).
corSymm
(Package: nlme) :
General Correlation Structure
This function is a constructor for the corSymm class, representing a general correlation structure. The internal representation of this structure, in terms of unconstrained parameters, uses the spherical parametrization defined in Pinheiro and Bates (1996). Objects created using this constructor must later be initialized using the appropriate Initialize method.
An object returned by the gls function, inheriting from class "gls" and representing a generalized least squares fitted linear model. Objects of this class have methods for the generic functions anova, coef, fitted, formula, getGroups, getResponse, intervals, logLik, plot, predict, print, residuals, summary, and update.
getData
(Package: nlme) :
Extract Data from an Object
This function is generic; method functions can be written to handle specific classes of objects. Classes which already have methods for this function include gls, lme, and lmList.
an xyplot of the autocorrelations versus the lags, with type = "h", is produced. If alpha > 0, curves representing the critical limits for a two-sided test of level alpha for the autocorrelations are added to the plot.
This generic function fits a nonlinear mixed-effects model in the formulation described in Lindstrom and Bates (1990) but allowing for nested random effects. The within-group errors are allowed to be correlated and/or have unequal variances.
providing 
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