NEWS.md

In nonprobsvy: Inference Based on Non-Probability Samples

nonprobsvy News and Updates

nonprobsvy 0.2.0

Breaking changes

• functions pop.size, controlSel, controlOut and controlInf were renamed to pop_size, control_sel, control_out and control_inf respectively.
• function genSimData removed completely as it is not used anywhere in the package.
• argument maxLik_method renamed to maxlik_method in the control_sel function.
• control_out function:
• predictive_match renamed to pmm_match_type to align with the PMM (Predictive Mean Matching) estimator naming convention, where all related parameters start with pmm_
• control_sel function:
• argument method removed as it was not used
• argument est_method_sel renamed to est_method
• argument h renamed to gee_h_fun to make this more readable to the user
• start_type now accepts only zero and mle (for gee models only).
• control_inf function:
• bias_inf renamed to vars_combine and type changed to logical. TRUE if variables (its levels) should be combined after variable selection algorithm for the doubly robust approach.
• pi_ij -- argument removed as it is not used.
• nonprobsvy class renamed to nonprob and all related method adjusted to this change
• functions logit_model_nonprobsvy, probit_model_nonprobsvy and cloglog_model_nonprobsvy removed in the favour of more readable method_ps function that specifies the propensity score model
• new option control_inference=control_inf(vars_combine=TRUE) which allows doubly robust estimator to combine variables prior estimation i.e. if selection=~x1+x2 and y~x1+x3 then the following models are fitted selection=~x1+x2+x3 and y~x1+x2+x3. By default we set control_inference=control_inf(vars_combine=FALSE). Note that this behaviour is assumed independently from variable selection.
• argument nonprob(weights=NULL) replaced to nonprob(case_weights=NULL) to stress that this refer to case weights not sampling or other weights in non-probability sample

Features

• two additional datasets have been included: jvs (Job Vacancy Survey; a probability sample survey) and admin (Central Job Offers Database; a non-probability sample survey). The units and auxiliary variables have been aligned in a way that allows the data to be integrated using the methods implemented in this package.
• a check_balance function was added to check the balance in the totals of the variables based on the weighted weights between the non-probability and probability samples.
• citation file added.
• argument na_action with default na.omit
• new generic methods added:
• weights -- returns IPW weights
• update -- allows to update the nonprob class object
• new functions added and exported:
• method_ps -- for modelling propensity score
• method_glm -- for modelling y using glm function
• method_nn -- for the NN method
• method_pmm -- for the PMM method
• method_npar -- for the non-parametric method
• new print.nonprob, summary.nonprob and print.nonprob_summary methods

> result_mi
A nonprob object
 - estimator type: mass imputation
 - method: glm (gaussian)
 - auxiliary variables source: survey
 - vars selection: false
 - variance estimator: analytic
 - population size fixed: false
 - naive (uncorrected) estimators:
   - variable y1: 3.1817
   - variable y2: 1.8087
 - selected estimators:
   - variable y1: 2.9498 (se=0.0420, ci=(2.8674, 3.0322))
   - variable y2: 1.5760 (se=0.0326, ci=(1.5122, 1.6399))

number of digits can be changed using print(x, digits) as shown below

> print(result_mi,2)
A nonprob object
 - estimator type: mass imputation
 - method: glm (gaussian)
 - auxiliary variables source: survey
 - vars selection: false
 - variance estimator: analytic
 - population size fixed: false
 - naive (uncorrected) estimators:
   - variable y1: 3.18
   - variable y2: 1.81
 - selected estimators:
   - variable y1: 2.95 (se=0.04, ci=(2.87, 3.03))
   - variable y2: 1.58 (se=0.03, ci=(1.51, 1.64))

> summary(result_mi) |> print(digits=2)
A nonprob_summary object
 - call: nonprob(data = subset(population, flag_bd1 == 1), outcome = y1 + 
    y2 ~ x1 + x2, svydesign = sample_prob)
 - estimator type: mass imputation
 - nonprob sample size: 693011 (69.3%)
 - prob sample size: 1000 (0.1%)
 - population size: 1000000 (fixed: false)
 - detailed information about models are stored in list element(s): "outcome"
----------------------------------------------------------------
 - distribution of outcome residuals:
   - y1: min: -4.79; mean: 0.00; median: 0.00; max: 4.54
   - y2: min: -4.96; mean: -0.00; median: -0.07; max: 12.25
 - distribution of outcome predictions (nonprob sample):
   - y1: min: -2.72; mean: 3.18; median: 3.04; max: 16.28
   - y2: min: -1.55; mean: 1.81; median: 1.58; max: 13.92
 - distribution of outcome predictions (prob sample):
   - y1: min: -0.46; mean: 2.95; median: 2.84; max: 10.31
   - y2: min: -0.58; mean: 1.58; median: 1.39; max: 7.87
----------------------------------------------------------------

Bugfixes

• basic methods and functions related to variance estimation, weights and probability linking methods have been rewritten in a more optimal and readable way.

Other

• more informative error messages added.
• documentation improved.
• switching completely to snake_case.
• extensive cleaning of the code.
• more unit-tests added.
• new dependencies: formula.tools

Documentation

• annotation has been added that argument strata is not supported for the time being.

Replication materials

• to verify the quality of the software please refer to the replication materials available here: https://github.com/ncn-foreigners/software-tutorials

nonprobsvy 0.1.1

Bugfixes

• bug Fix occurring when estimation was based on auxiliary variable, which led to compression of the data from the frame to the vector.
• bug Fix related to not passing maxit argument from controlSel function to internally used nleqslv function
• bug Fix related to storing vector in model_frame when predicting y_hat in mass imputation glm model when X is based in one auxiliary variable only - fix provided converting it to data.frame object.

Features

• added information to summary about quality of estimation basing on difference between estimated and known total values of auxiliary variables
• added estimation of exact standard error for k-nearest neighbor estimator.
• added breaking change to controlOut function by switching values for predictive_match argument. From now on, the predictive_match = 1 means $\hat{y}-\hat{y}$ in predictive mean matching imputation and predictive_match = 2 corresponds to $\hat{y}-y$ matching.
• implemented div option when variable selection (more in documentation) for doubly robust estimation.
• added more insights to nonprob output such as gradient, hessian and jacobian derived from IPW estimation for mle and gee methods when IPW or DR model executed.
• added estimated inclusion probabilities and its derivatives for probability and non-probability samples to nonprob output when IPW or DR model executed.
• added model_frame matrix data from probability sample used for mass imputation to nonprob when MI or DR model executed.

Unit tests

• added unit tests for variable selection models and mi estimation with vector of population totals available

nonprobsvy 0.1.0

Features

• implemented population mean estimation using doubly robust, inverse probability weighting and mass imputation methods
• implemented inverse probability weighting models with Maximum Likelihood Estimation and Generalized Estimating Equations methods with logit, complementary log-log and probit link functions.
• implemented generalized linear models, nearest neighbours and predictive mean matching methods for Mass Imputation
• implemented bias correction estimators for doubly-robust approach
• implemented estimation methods when vector of population means/totals is available
• implemented variables selection with SCAD, LASSO and MCP penalization equations
• implemented analytic and bootstrap (with parallel computation - doSNOW package) variance for described estimators
• added control parameters for models
• added S3 methods for object of nonprob class such as
  • nobs for samples size
  • pop.size for population size estimation
  • residuals for residuals of the inverse probability weighting model
  • cooks.distance for identifying influential observations that have a significant impact on the parameter estimates
  • hatvalues for measuring the leverage of individual observations
  • logLik for computing the log-likelihood of the model,
  • AIC (Akaike Information Criterion) for evaluating the model based on the trade-off between goodness of fit and complexity, helping in model selection
  • BIC (Bayesian Information Criterion) for a similar purpose as AIC but with a stronger penalty for model complexity
  • confint for calculating confidence intervals around parameter estimates
  • vcov for obtaining the variance-covariance matrix of the parameter estimates
  • deviance for assessing the goodness of fit of the model

Unit tests

• added unit tests for IPW estimators.

Github repository

• added automated R-cmd check

Documentation

• added documentation for nonprob function.

nonprobsvy documentation built on April 3, 2025, 7:08 p.m.