pals_params: Create a PALS parameter set

In palsr: Projected Actor Locations for Spatial Interaction Modeling

Create a PALS parameter set

Description

A lightweight container for the four PALS smoothing parameters. Use it to project actor locations with known parameters (e.g. values reported in a paper), without estimating them from data.

Usage

pals_params(alpha, beta = 0, gamma = 0, eta = 0, model = c("four", "one"))

Arguments

alpha	Time-decay of the focal actor's own event history (⁠>= 0⁠). Larger values down-weight older events more steeply.
beta	Time-decay of the alters' event histories (⁠>= 0⁠). Ignored in the one-parameter model.
gamma	Intercept of the logistic mixing weight \pi. Higher values place more weight on the alters' average location. Ignored in the one-parameter model.
eta	Slope of the logistic mixing weight on the event-count ratio. Ignored in the one-parameter model.
model	Either "four" (full model: focal + alter histories) or "one" (focal-only; \pi = 0, so only alpha is used).

Details

The mixing weight is \pi = \mathrm{plogis}(\gamma + \eta v), where v = (n_i / n_k)^{1/\sqrt{n_k}} compares the number of focal events (n_i) with the number of alter events (n_k). The projected location is (1-\pi) times the recency-weighted mean of the focal actor's own past event locations plus \pi times the recency-weighted mean of its alters' locations. See project_pals() and the package vignette.

Value

An object of class pals_params.

Examples

p <- pals_params(alpha = 0.9, beta = 0.2, gamma = -10, eta = -10)
p
pals_params(alpha = 0.9, model = "one")

palsr documentation built on July 1, 2026, 5:07 p.m.