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Dear R-help list members, I forgot to copy my reply to the r-help list. Here's most of it. John -------------------------------- John Fox Department of Sociology McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario Canada L8S 4M4 905-525-9140x23604 http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox -------------------------------- -----Original Message----- From: John Fox [mailto:jfox at mcmaster.ca] Sent: Sunday,

Dear R-devel list members, For several years, I've maintained for my private use and for demonstrations a set of functions [e.g., for indexing, with(), summary(), etc.] that employ the RODBC package and a database to provide a "pseudo" data frame. Row "indexes" can be specified as SQL queries. I know that the idea isn't original, and I haven't done anything with

Dear r-devel list members, I've prepared a version of the Rcmdr package that uses the new tools for internationalization and localization in R 2.1.x. For the present, this is the development version of the Rcmdr package (1.1-0), available at <http://socserv.socsci.mcmaster.ca/jfox/Misc/Rcmdr/index.html>. There is currently a French translation provided with the package, courtesy of

Dear list members, I've just uploaded version 1.0-0 of the Rcmdr package to CRAN. For people who haven't seen the package before, the "R Commander" provides a basic-statistics graphical user interface to R, based on the tcltk package. The new version incorporates a number of improvements to the R Commander interface, as documented in the CHANGES file distributed with the

Dear list members, I've just uploaded version 1.0-0 of the Rcmdr package to CRAN. For people who haven't seen the package before, the "R Commander" provides a basic-statistics graphical user interface to R, based on the tcltk package. The new version incorporates a number of improvements to the R Commander interface, as documented in the CHANGES file distributed with the

Dear list members, In re-running with GLMM() from the lme4 package a generalized-linear mixed model that I had previously fit with glmmPQL() from MASS, I'm getting a warning of a convergence failure, even when I set the method argument of GLMM() to "PQL": > bang.mod.1 <- glmmPQL(contraception ~ as.factor(children) + cage + urban, + random=~as.factor(children) + cage +

Dear r-help members, Can lmer() in the lme4 package fit models that have a specified within-group correlation structure, as provided, for example, by the correlation argument to lme() in the nlme package? Thanks, John -------------------------------- John Fox Department of Sociology McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario Canada L8S 4M4 905-525-9140x23604 http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox

Dear list members, I've uploaded a new package, called polycor (version 0.5-0), to CRAN. The package has functions for computing polychoric and polyserial correlations, either by maximum-likelihood (in which case, standard errors are available) or by faster approximations. There's also a function to compute "heterogeneous" correlation matrices composed of product-moment,

Dear list members, I've uploaded a new package, called polycor (version 0.5-0), to CRAN. The package has functions for computing polychoric and polyserial correlations, either by maximum-likelihood (in which case, standard errors are available) or by faster approximations. There's also a function to compute "heterogeneous" correlation matrices composed of product-moment,

Dear list members, I think that it's a pity that there's no Windows binary for the rgl package on CRAN. I understand that rgl doesn't compile with the standard Windows tools and that there's a Windows binary on Daniel Adler's web site. But the lack of an rgl binary on CRAN provides presents a potential obstacle to at least some Windows users, such as many students in

Dear r-devel list members, I've experienced the following problem in getting a selection from a Tk list box using tcltk. This is a long-standing problem, but I've finally decided to tackle it. Consider the following: Library(tcltk) top <- tktoplevel() listbox <- tklistbox(top, height="10", width="2", exportselection="FALSE",

Dear list members, I'm encountering the following problem with package dependencies and imports: The Rcmdr package doesn't declare a formal dependency (via depends or suggests in the package DESCRIPTION) on the rgl package because the latter apparently causes problems on some systems. This allows the Rcmdr package to build and check on systems without rgl present; if rgl isn't

Dear R-devel list members, Under the development version of R (2.6.0), I notice that my sem package produces the following warning: checking Rd files ... WARNING Rd files with unknown encoding: residuals.Rd I wonder what the warning means. As far as I can see, residuals.Rd is similar to the other .Rd files in the package. At least for the time being, I won't reproduce residuals.Rd here

Dear R-devel list members, What's the best current advice about writing Fortran code for use in R packages? The Writing R Extensions manual still says that the .Fortran interface is primarily intended for FORTRAN 77 code. In particular, are there portability issues if I use Fortran 95 in a package? For example, I see that Rtools for Windows now include the gfortran compiler. (I know that

Dear r-help list members, Is there a way to test whether an object is an S4 object? The best that I've been able to come up with is isS4object <- function(object) !(is.null(slotNames(object))) which assumes that an S4 object has at least one slot. I think this is safe, but perhaps I'm missing something. Thanks, John -------------------------------- John Fox Department of

Dear r-help list members, Is there a way to test whether an object is an S4 object? The best that I've been able to come up with is isS4object <- function(object) !(is.null(slotNames(object))) which assumes that an S4 object has at least one slot. I think this is safe, but perhaps I'm missing something. Thanks, John -------------------------------- John Fox Department of

Dear Trevor, I've noticed a discrepancy in the degrees of freedom reported by gam() from the gam package in R vs. gam() in S-PLUS. The nonparametric df differ by 1; otherwise (except for things that depend upon the df), the output is the same: --------- snip ------------ *** From R (gam version 0.93): > mod.gam <- gam(prestige ~ lo(income, span=.6), data=Prestige) >

Dear R-packages list members, I've recently uploaded to CRAN version 1.1-1 of the Rcmdr ("R Commander") package. Based on the tcltk package, the Rcmdr provides a basic-statistics graphical interface to R. The general functionality of the R Commander has not changed much since version 1.0-0. There are some small improvements to the package, but the reason that I'm re-announcing

Dear R-packages list members, I've recently uploaded to CRAN version 1.1-1 of the Rcmdr ("R Commander") package. Based on the tcltk package, the Rcmdr provides a basic-statistics graphical interface to R. The general functionality of the R Commander has not changed much since version 1.0-0. There are some small improvements to the package, but the reason that I'm re-announcing

Dear R-packages list members, Last month, Peter Muhlberger posted a message to the r-help list that suggested, among other things, a desire for a more convenient method of performing Wald tests for statistical models fit in R. Thanks largely to Achim Zeleis's help, the linear.hypothesis function in the car package has been reworked so that (1) it is applicable to any model object that