This document discusses optimization techniques in R. It provides an overview of commonly used optimization functions like optim and optimize in R. It also discusses different optimization algorithms like conjugate gradient (CG), simulated annealing (SANN), Broyden–Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shanno (BFGS) and Nelder-Mead methods that are used in optim. The document provides examples of parameter estimation using optim and compares the results with linear regression. It also discusses applying optimization for problems like maximum likelihood estimation.