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robsurvey NEXT VERSION (not published yet)

NEW FEATURES

• The survey methods with prefix svymean_ or svytotal_ can now be used with the function survey::svyby().
• Method mse() is now also available for objects of class svystat (which is defined in pkg survey).
• Functions to draw pps samples (without replacement) by Brewer’s method.

robsurvey VERSION 0.6 (2024-01-14)

This release of the package fixes a number of issues that were brought to our attention by an anonymous reviewer. It also fixes some other problems.

BUG FIX

Function huber2() erroneously returned NA if the initial scale estimate was less than DBL_EPSILON (i.e., zero in floating-point arithmetics) although not zero in real arithmetics. After removing the unnecessary scale < DBL_EPSILON check, the function behaves as expected.

CHANGES

• R-core has been added to the list of intellectual property owners with the roles c("cph", ctb") for zeroin2.c (see DESCRIPTION file).
• Automated tests have been part of the GitHub repo since the first commit. However, the tests have not been shipped with the source package. Now, the tests are included in the source package.
• Function robsvyreg() is not exported to the namespace anymore because it is regarded as an internal function (not to be called by users).
• Since version 4.2 of the survey package (released in May 2023), the survey package allows the definition of pre-calibrated weights (see argument calibrate.formula of the function survey::svydesign(); see also vignette Pre-calibrated weights of the survey package). From now on, we will use this functionality by default in the examples, vignettes and documentation. Our code automatically reverts/falls back to calling svydesign() without pre-calibrated weights (legacy mode) on R installations with an earlier version of the survey package. As a consequence, some of the variance and standard error estimates in legacy mode may differ from those with pre-calibrated weights.

MISC

• Many of the help files have been updated and expanded.
• Since version 0.3, the functions svyreg_huber() and svyreg_tukey() are deprecated but have been kept for compatibility reasons. The deprecated functions are now equipped with a call to .Deprecated() and are documented separately in help("robsurvey-deprecated").
• Some of the R and C code has been cleaned up; the NAMESPACE file has been consolidated; symbols of shared objects are now registered using src/init.c (this file has previously been called robsurvey_init.c) and loaded by useDynLib() as R objects (not character strings), whose names are pre-fixed by "C_" for reasons of transparency.
• The stratum variable strat in the dataset workplace is now a factor; the same applies to the variables REG, CL and Stratum in the datasets MU284strat and MU284pps.

robsurvey VERSION 0.5-2 (2022-12-04)

BUG FIX

Fixed a bug in the C function wquant0. For the special case of samples of size 2, the weighted quantile (other than the median) was wrong if the data were sorted in descending order. (Thanks to Ryota Suzuki, who detected the bug, Issue #1).

robsurvey VERSION 0.5-1 (2022-11-17)

CHANGE

The summary() method for objects of class formula has been replaced by svysummary() because it did not handle non-standard cases correctly (Thanks to the editorial office of the Journal of Statistical Software for pointing this out).

MISC

• Fixed defunct links in vignettes and added requireNamespace() as a guard for suggested packages in the vignettes.
• In the help files of functions that depend on the survey package or that extend its functionality, we added the following note: “Package survey must be loaded in order to use this function.” to the Details section.

robsurvey VERSION 0.5 (2022-10-07)

CHANGES

• Files in /doc folder are now in *.pdf format which takes less space compared with the *.html format. Thus, the warning checking installed package size... NOTE installed size is 5.4Mb sub-directories of 1Mb or more: doc 4.9Mb disappeared
• The print method for objects of class svystat_rob now correctly prints: [Estimator] of the population [mean/total].
• The default value of argument type in the functions weighted_mean_huber(), weighted_mean_tukey(), svymean_huber() and svymean_tukey() is now "rwm". Type "rhj" is still available (and will be supported in the future) but is silently converted to "rwm".

robsurvey VERSION 0.4 (2022-09-08)

NEW FEATURES

• Robust estimators of the ratio of two variables (svyratio_huber() and svyratio_tukey()); these functions are robust alternatives to survey::svyratio().
• Robust ratio estimators of the population mean and total, see svymean_ratio() and svytotal_ratio().
• Example data MU284pps: A pps sample without replacement of size 50 from the MU284 population in Särndal et al. (1992).

CHANGES

• Functions svymean_reg() and svytotal_reg() are not flagged as “experimental” anymore. Several changes took place (in fact, the functions have undergone a complete code refactoring):
  • Argument auxiliary has been replaced by the two arguments N (population size) and totals (i.e., population totals of non-constant explanatory variables). Important: svymean_reg() is now called with totals not the population means.
  • The arguments na.rm and verbose have been dropped (not needed).
  • The variance estimators in svymean_reg() and svytotal_reg() are now implemented as g-weighted residual variance estimators.
• Added documentation for variable strat in the workplace data and updated description of variable payroll.
• Added 45-degree line in the diagnostic plot method for “3 Response vs. Fitted values” (which = 3) of class svyreg_rob.
• Method SE() for class svyreg_rob is now exported to the namespace.

BUG FIX

• Slot estimator$string in the return value of function mer() indicates the name of the underlying estimator correctly.
• Fixed annotation of observations in diagnostic plot “Sqrt of abs(Residuals) vs. Fitted values” (which = 4 in plot) for class svyreg_rob.

robsurvey VERSION 0.3 (2022-06-04)

NEW FEATURES

• Diagnostic plots for fitted regression model, i.e., objects of class svyreg_rob
• Robust regression: If the estimated regression scale (by default weighted MAD) is zero (or nearly so), the weighted IQR is tried instead. If the weighted IQR ist also zero, the function returns with an error.
• Function mer() for minimum estimated risk estimation of location gained two new arguments:
  • method: the method used in the search for a minimum, e.g., "Brent", "BFGS", see stats::optim() for more details
  • init determines the left side of the search interval and the initial value in the minimization approach
• Function mse() computes/ extracts the estimated mean square error/ estimated risk in presence of representative outliers; see also mer()
• Robust generalized regression estimation (GREG) of the mean and total; see svymean_reg() and svytotal_reg(). The current implementation of the functions is EXPERIMENTAL and a warning is issued when calling the functions (unless verbose = FALSE). Experimental features may:
  • have undergone less extensive testing than is normal for standard features
  • interact with unstable (external) dependencies
  • be subject to change
  • not be directly supported by the developers in the event issues arise

CHANGES

• The default functions for regression M-estimators are now called svyreg_huberM() and svyreg_tukeyM(); the old functions svyreg_huber() and svyreg_tukey() are deprecated but are kept for compatibility reasons.
• Documentation files in folder inst/doc and test cases in tests have been updated
• Several internal changes (e.g., default value of k_Inf is now 1e06 not 1e05; see function svyreg_control()).

BUG FIX

For designs with unequal probability sampling, the variance estimates of the robust estimators of mean and total are now identical with the estimates of survey::svymean() and survey::svytotal() if the tuning constant is k = Inf or LB = 0 and UB = 1.

MISC

Added DOI to all references (where available).

robsurvey VERSION 0.2 (2022-01-17)

NEW FEATURES

• Weighted regression GM-estimators; see e.g., svyreg_huberGM()
• M- and GM-estimator of regression with Tukey biweight psi-function; see svyreg_tukey() and svyreg_tukeyGM()
• Weighted k winsorized mean and total; see weighted_mean_k_winsorized() and svymean_k_winsorized()
• Dalen’s weight reduction estimator of the mean and total; see weighted_mean_dalen() and svymean_dalen()
• Weighted M-estimator of the mean and total with Tukey biweight psi-function
• Weighted Huber Proposal 2 estimator; see huber2()
• Data sets counties, flour, losdata, and MU284strat

BUG FIX

The original C implementation of wquantile was buggy (with implications for the R function weighted_quantile() and also the iterative re-weighted least squares algorithm). The new C implementation of wquantile is sound.

CHANGE

Argument type = "rwm" of weighted_mean_huber() is not used anymore (deprecated); instead, the type is now called "rhj".

CHANGE of LICENSE and MAINTAINER

• The authors agreed on November 25, 2020, to license/ re-license the package version 0.2 under the GPL-2 resp. GPL-3 license. (Version 0.1 has been licensed under the MIT license).
• Tobias Schoch is now the maintainer of the package.