code: def _compute_mle(self):
          
          xmax = self._lnlfn.interp.xmax
          x0 = max(self._lnlfn.mle(), xmax * 1e-5)
          ret = opt.fmin(lambda x: np.where(
              xmax > x > 0, -self(x), np.inf), x0, disp=False)
          mle = float(ret[0])
          return mle
docs: Maximum likelihood estimator.