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News
- Updates focused on
{antcolony.lavaan}.
- lavaan.model.specs now defaults to the default arugments. If a user
removes the arguments, they will be provided for them. If a user
overwrites a specific argument (e.g.,
estimator = 'wls'),
that will be respected.
- Some minor adjustments to checking fitted models for specific
warnings/errors that should result in better functioning when these do
not exist.
- Further updates to handle changes to
lavaan
error/warning messages more gracefully. These should continue into the
future for the SA and ACo methods without additional issues.
- Updates to handle changes to
lavaan error/warning
messages
- Fixed internal documentation to match current standards
- Updates to antcolony.lavaan default
lavaan.model.specs
- Spelling fixes
- Roxygen manual fixes
Bugfixes
- This version fixes minor bugs, most associated with CRAN messages
and warnings
Introduction of S4 Function
Classes
- This version (re-)introduces classes to each of the main function
outputs using S4 methods (instead of the S3 methods present in the prior
version)
- Each method has a
show (print), summary,
and plot method that provides revamped, concise information
about the algorithm
- Functions have been updated to accommodate these changes
- Some short form functions have been modified to work with parallel
processors, resulting in noticeably faster results particularly when the
solution space is larger (e.g., more starting items) or with more
complex models
- This has resulted in some function argument changes. Please check
any code that was written with older versions!
Minor cleanup
- Removed some unneeded code
Updated argument check
- The argument check for fit statistics (ACO, SA) were updated to
include fit statistics related to the “WLSMV” estimator (i.e, for
ordered data).
Bugfixes
A bug in the SA function that sometimes resulted in improper
items has been fixed.
A bug in the Tabu short form function that caused the Tabu list
to be erased if the best criterion value was reached has been
fixed.
- There are now additional checks for the function arguments related
to the fit statistics (ACO, SA) and the fit statistic tests (ACO) with
informative warnings for when the function arguments are not valid.
Introduction of Function
Classes
This version introduces classes to each of the main function
outputs (antcolony.lavaan == “antcolony”,
simulatedAnnealing == “simulatedAnnealing”,
tabuShortForm == “tabu”)
This will allow for plot and print
methods for each of these functions
Broken functionality:
antcolony_plot
- The function
antcolony_plot was replaced with
plot.antcolony (aka, a plot method)
New functionality: S3
method for plotting
With the addition of classes, a plot method and accompanying
documentation has been added.
Future updates will expand S3 methods for print()
and summary()
Bugfixes
- Bugfixes to the main functions when using them to create shortforms
of bifactor models.
- They should now produce actual bifactor shortforms (in 0.4.1,
sometimes the item names would be cut off in later iterations [FIXED]
and the relationship between latent variables would be changed when they
should have been kept constant [FIXED]).
Added a package loading
message
- Now, when using an interactive R session, a package message is
printed out (with a little Penguin holding it all up)!
New functionality:
Simulated Annealing
- The Simulated Annealing (SA) algorithm has been added to the
package, with a single user-facing function
simulatedAnnealing().
- SA can be used on anything lavaan can run, though the current
implementation focuses on traditional confirmatory models using
lavaan::cfa(). However, there are plans for more user
control in the modeling process to allow for other model defaults.
- An adaptation of the Tabu search to short form creation has been
added.
New functionality: ACO Plots
- The
antcolony_lavaan() function has been modified so
that it no longer will print a summaryfile.txt. Rather, the
function maintains the old summary file as an internal object and
returns it after completion,
- The new function
antcolony_plot() takes the results
from antcolony_lavaan() and creates three graphs: (a) a
plot showing how pheremone levels change as the algorithm progresses,
(b) a plot showing how the mean value of the regression coefficients
changes as the algorithm progresses, and (c) a plot showing how the mean
variance explained changes as the algorithm progresses.
New functionality: Bifactor
Models
- Each of the short form functions utilizing lavaan
(
antcolony.lavaan(), simulatedAnnealing(),
tabuShortForm()) are capable of handling bifactor
models.
- In theory, this means relatively arbitrary models can be specified
as well, but the functions utilize the “~” and “~~” operators for the
additional functionality as well as the
bifactor logical
option. No guarantee that an arbitrary model will work beyond those
currently tested.
Minor revisions
- The lavaan-based functions all have more controlled output to the R
console. This is most noticeable with the
antcolony.lavaan() function.
New functionality: Tabu
Search
- The Tabu search has been added to the package, with user-facing
functions
tabu.sem() and search.prep() for
most of the heavy lifting and various helper and internal functions. The
code was taken primarily from Carl Falk and Katerina Marcoulides (see
Marcoulides, K. M., & Falk, C. F. (2018). Model Specification
Searches in Structural Equation Modeling with R. Structural Equation
Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 1-8.). These have been tested in
limited circumstances, so please report any bugs as you find them!
Minor changes
- NEWS.md created.
- Description file updated.
- Authorship has been updated and URLs have been added to the ant
colony functions.
- No bugs have been found in the package thus far, but just a reminder
for any users that bug reports are helpful and welcome.
These binaries (installable software) and packages are in development.
They may not be fully stable and should be used with caution. We make no claims about them.