forked from IQSS/Zelig4
-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 0
/
RELEASE_NOTES
88 lines (73 loc) · 4.33 KB
/
RELEASE_NOTES
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
Zelig v4.0-4 Release Notes (May 16, 2011)
Introduction
================================================================================
This document is a brief overview of the current state of the Zelig project as
of the 4.0-3 release. This release hopes to maintain the canonical Zelig syntax
and interface for end-users, while supplying developers with tools to aid in
the development of effective statistical modeling techniques. Emphasis has been
placed on readability and modularity.
As a result of this gargantuan change, a plethora of features, API
functionality, and documentation has been added to the Zelig R-package. Several
previously existing models, however, have been removed temporarily or moved
from the Zelig core package to more-specific Zelig extensions.
Project Information
================================================================================
The Zelig software suite is an easy-to-use R-package geared towards making
complex statistical techniques available to end users, particularly those
researching the quantitative social sciences. In particular, it offers unifying
syntax and programming-style between seemingly disparate and unrelated
statistical mdoels.
To facilitate this purpose, Zelig (as of May 16th, 2011) includes an array of
programming tools, geared towards allowing the rapid development, debugging,
and inclusion of new statistical models. That is, Zelig now facilitates and
encourages collaboration between novel and pre-existing statistical packages.
Author Information
================================================================================
Zelig is a collaborative effort by Harvard's Institute for Quantitive Social
Sciences (Harvard IQSS). Publications, software releases, and additional
information can be found at:
http://gking.harvard.edu/
http://iq.harvard.edu/
Licensing
================================================================================
Zelig is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2, and as such
can be freely used and edited given proper attribution to Harvard's IQSS
Department.
What's New in this Release?
================================================================================
This release offers a large variety of coding style changes, as well as core
functionality. Please carefully read the following:
Major Changes (from version 3.5)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Models are now added to Zelig as separate extensions. The method
'zelig.skeleton' has been added to the R-package to facilitate this change.
- The main Zelig package now contains a mere 8 models. 22 additional models are
available via extensions, geared towards adding specific functionality to the
Zelig software suite.
- zelig.skeleton: a method used to create blank zelig packages. This follows
the style and format of the R-core method 'package.skeleton'
- Simplified zelig2-function API. See "?zelig2" within an R-session for help
- Enhanced API for 'param' and 'qi' functions. See develoepr documentation for
more information
Minor Changes (from version 3.5)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Slight changes to the plotting of simulated quantities of interest. Most
changes are stylistic
- Quantities of interest using two different sets of explanatory variables now
output information containing concerning the simulations of the second 'setx'
object's Predicted Values and Expected Values. This was previuosly not the
case
- ZeligListModels: a method used to list available models, installed on the
current operating system.
- More robust support for various ways of describing 'terms' of a statistical
model. This is essentially light error-detection
Missing Features
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- The 'setx' method currently doesn not support setting multiple
counterfactuals in a single call to 'setx'. This feature is under current
development, and should soon be admitted into the main branch.
- "ternaryplot" plotting style is ommitted from the core package, and will be
instead moved to the 'bivariate' and 'multinomial' Zelig modules.
- "Average Treatment Effect" quantities of interest are not being included in
zelig models temporarily. Simulation of these qi's will return pending a
minor update to the 'setx' function.