Creates initial values for priors in a 'JAGS' model.
JAGS_get_inits(prior_list, chains, seed)named list of prior distribution (names correspond to the parameter names)
number of chains
seed for random number generation: a number between
-.Machine$integer.max and .Machine$integer.max. The initial values are drawn
after set.seed(seed); each chain's .RNG.seed is drawn from the
same seed with sample.int(.Machine$integer.max, chains), so the seed
of a chain does not depend on the number of chains. The caller's
random-number state (.Random.seed and RNGkind()) is restored
afterwards. With seed = NULL, the seed is first drawn from the
caller's random-number stream with sample(666666, 1), which
advances that stream by this one draw.
JAGS_get_inits returns a list with one element per chain,
containing the chain's JAGS initial values and its .RNG.name and
.RNG.seed. The generator is "base::Super-Duper" for up to
four chains and "lecuyer::RngStream" for more chains, so the streams
of a fit change when it is run with more than four chains. With an empty prior_list, each element contains
only .RNG.name and .RNG.seed, so that fits of models whose
priors are specified only in the model syntax remain reproducible.