closure_gauge_complexity: Heuristic to predict CLOSURE runtime

In unsum: Reconstruct Raw Data from Summary Statistics

Heuristic to predict CLOSURE runtime

Description

Before you run closure_generate(), you may want to get a sense of the time it will take to run. Use closure_gauge_complexity() to compute a heuristics-based complexity score. For reference, here is how it determines the messages in closure_generate():

Value	Message
if < 1	(no message)
else if < 2	"Just a second..."
else if < 3	"This could take a minute..."
else	"NOTE: Long runtime ahead!"

Usage

closure_gauge_complexity(mean, sd, n, scale_min, scale_max)

Arguments

mean	String (length 1). Reported mean.
sd	String (length 1). Reported sample standard deviation.
n	Numeric (length 1). Reported sample size.
scale_min, scale_max	Numeric (length 1 each). Minimal and maximal possible values of the measurement scale. For example, with a 1-7 Likert scale, use scale_min = 1 and scale_max = 7. Prefer the empirical min and max if available: they constrain the possible values further.

Details

The result of this function is hard to interpret. All it can do is to convey an idea about the likely runtime of CLOSURE. This is because the input parameters interact in highly dynamic ways, which makes prediction difficult.

In addition, even progress bars or updates at regular intervals (e.g., "10% complete") prove to be extremely challenging: the Rust code computes CLOSURE results in parallel, which makes it hard to get an overview of the total progress across all cores; and especially to display such information on the R level.

Value

Numeric (length 1).

Examples

# Low SD, N, and scale range:
closure_gauge_complexity(
  mean = 2.55,
  sd = 0.85,
  n = 84,
  scale_min = 1,
  scale_max = 5
)

# Somewhat higher:
closure_gauge_complexity(
  mean = 4.26,
  sd = 1.58,
  n = 100,
  scale_min = 1,
  scale_max = 7
)

# Very high:
closure_gauge_complexity(
  mean = 3.81,
  sd = 3.09,
  n = 156,
  scale_min = 1,
  scale_max = 7
)

unsum documentation built on June 20, 2025, 1:08 a.m.