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----------------------- sirt NEWS -----------------------------

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sirt: Supplementary Item Response Theory

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Alexander Robitzsch
IPN - Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education 
at Kiel University

Questions or suggestions about sirt can be sent to:
robitzsch@ipn.uni-kiel.de

For reporting a bug, please provide always a reproducible R script 
and (if necessary) a corresponding dataset.

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CHANGELOG sirt
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




------------------------------------------------------------------------
VERSIONS sirt 1.15  |  2017-03-02  |  Last: sirt 1.15-41
------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE  * included option for choosing 'lavaan::lavaan' or 'lavaan::sem' as
        estimation function in function 'lsem.estimate'. In previous
        versions, only the 'lavaan::sem' function could be chosen 
        (thanks to Jenny Wagner).
NOTE  * restructured Rcpp functions
NOTE  * removed 'CallSwitch' function from namespace and package
NOTE  * removed minor bug in labeling items in 'sim.raschtype'
FIXED * fixed a bug in 'smirt' with handling of parameter bounds which
        was recently introduced in sirt 1.13 (thanks to David Armstrong)


DATA  * included/modified datasets: ---
EXAMP * included/modified examples: ---

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 1.14 -- 2017-01-11  --  CRAN sirt 1.14-0
------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE  * changed output of 'sim.raschtype' which is now of class data frame
NOTE  * added a not in 'lsem.estimate' that the model syntax should be
        always specified in an object lavmodel 
        (thanks to a communicated problem of Jenny Wagner)
NOTE  * included utility function 'mcmc_Rhat' for computation of the 
        Rhat statistic from a single chain
NOTE  * added statistics of average conditional covariances and MADCOV
        in 'conf.detect' and 'expl.detect'. An example for DETECT analysis
        for simulated unidimensional data has been included (Example 3)
        which shows that DETECT can become negative (motivated by discussions
        with Berend Terluin, Weiyi Cheng, Yifan Liu and Yunfei Chang)
NOTE  * added summary method for 'conf.detect'
NOTE  * disabled default fixed seed in 'expl.detect'
        
DATA  * included/modified datasets: ---
EXAMP * included/modified examples: mcmc_Rhat (1), conf.detect (3)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 1.13 -- 2016-11-17  --  CRAN sirt 1.13-1
------------------------------------------------------------------------

FIXED * fixed a bug in 'conf.detect' and 'expl.detect' with too few 
        items (routine crashed, thanks to Berend Terluin)
FIXED * fixed a bug in data preprocessing in 'mlnormal' function
NOTE  * included reference to subscore package in 'prmse.subscores.scales'
NOTE  * extended output values in 'categorize' function
NOTE  * added arguments for boundary values of a, b, c and d parameters
        in noncompensatory IRT model function 'smirt'
        (requested by Chia-Ling Hsu)
ADDED * added robust linking method for multiple studies based on bisquare
        robust regression estimation in 'linking.haberman'.
        In addition, a summary method has been added.
NOTE  * included functions 'starts_cov' and 'starts_sim1dim' for the 
        STARTS model of Kenny and Zautra

DATA  * included/modified datasets: ---
EXAMP * included/modified examples: mlnormal (3), linking.haberman (5),
        starts_cov (1)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 1.12 -- 2016-07-19  --  CRAN sirt 1.12-2
------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE  * included utility function 'prior_model_parse' for convenient
        specifications of priors for the 'amh' function
NOTE  * included utility function 'loglike_mvnorm' for calculation 
        of log-likelihood for a multivariate normal distribution based 
        on sufficient statistics
ADDED * added deterministic optimization for Bayesian model estimation 
        in the function 'pmle' (penalized maximum likelihood estimation).
        See the 'amh' help page.
NOTE  * fixed a bug in LSEM plot function for subsets of parameters
        (thanks to Johanna Hartung) 
NOTE  * corrected a bug in Example 1 in 'equating.rasch' 
        (thanks to Kelvin Gregory)
NOTE  * changed labelling of response pattern in 'md.pattern.sirt'
        to integers
NOTE  * included example in 'nedelsky-methods' for fitting the Nedelsky 
        model with xxirt function
NOTE  * added history of adaptive proposal standard deviations in
        'amh' function in output
NOTE  * added sampled parameter vector with highest value of posterior
        distribution in 'amh' for comparison with 'pmle' function
NOTE  * added comparison of MAP, multivariate MAP and mean estimator
        in 'amh' in value 'comp_estimators'. Now also included in
        'summary.amh'.
NOTE  * Defunct functions: 'rasch.conquest', 'rasch.pml2' , 'yen.q3',
        'testlet.yen.q3'
NOTE  * included utility functions 'CallSwitch' and 'parmsummary_extend'
NOTE  * included utility functions 'pow', 'tracemat', 'soft_thresholding',
        'hard_thresholding', 'bounds_parameters', 'dimproper',
        'ginverse_sym' (see '?sirt-utilities')
ADDED * included estimation routine 'mlnormal' for (restricted) maximum 
        likelihood estimation for mean and covariance structures for a
        multivariate normal distribution (e.g. multilevel models, factor
        analysis, structural equation models, multilevel structural equation
        models, social relations model, ...). Prior distribution and lasso
        penalities are also accomodated.

DATA  * included/modified datasets: ---
EXAMP * included/modified examples: prior_model_parse (1),
        loglike_mvnorm (1), amh (1), equating.rasch (1), amh (1),
        nedelsky-methods (1), sirt-utilities (1,2,3,4), 
        parmsummary_extend (1), mlnormal (1,2)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 1.11 -- 2016-05-30  --  CRAN sirt 1.11-0
------------------------------------------------------------------------

FIXED  * fixed a bug in 'mirt.wrapper.coef' which occured due to
         changes in output structures of mirt package
ADDED  * added user defined item response model estimation 'xxirt' with
         corresponding S3 methods
ADDED  * added experimental adaptive Metropolis-Hastings routine 'amh'
         with corresponding S3 methods
ADDED  * added utility functions for objects of class 'mcmc.list' (from
         coda package): 'mcmc_coef', 'mcmc_vcov', ..., 'mcmc_WaldTest'
NOTE   * included inverse gamma distribution ('rinvgamma2') with 
         parametrization in prior sample size and prior variance

DATA  * included/modified datasets: ---
EXAMP * included/modified examples: rasch.jml (1), xxirt (1,2),
        xxirt_createParTable (1), xxirt_createThetaDistribution (1),
        amh (1,2), mcmc_coef (1), rinvgamma2 (1)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 1.10 -- 2016-01-29  --  CRAN sirt 1.10-0
------------------------------------------------------------------------

FIXED * fixed a bug in summary function of MCMC based item
        response models (thanks to Andres Burga)  
FIXED * fixed a bug in 'rasch.mml2' when using the 'center.b'
        argument (thanks to Sarah Thomas) 
NOTE  * renamed functions 'yen.q3' into 'Q3' and 'testlet.yen.q3'
        into 'Q3.testlet'. The old function names can still be used.
NOTE  * included argument 'standardized' in 'lsem.estimate' which
        adds standardized solutions in the output using
        'lavaan::standardizedSolution' (thanks to Janina Kuenecke)
NOTE  * cleaned namespace file and defined imported functions
        in a more explicit way
		
DATA  * included/modified datasets: ---
EXAMP * included/modified examples: lsem.estimate (1)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 1.9 -- 2015-11-04  --  CRAN sirt 1.9-0
------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE  * allows thinning in 'plot.mcmc.sirt' function
NOTE  * fixed a minor bug in summary output of 'rasch.mml2' for
        irtmodel='missing1'
NOTE  * included argument 'zerosum' in 'rasch.pairwise' and 
        'rasch.pairwise.itemcluster' to apply a zero sum constraint of 
        for item difficulties (suggested by Chen-Wei Liu)
NOTE  * included example for bootstrapping standard errors for
        'rasch.pairwise' (suggested by Chen-Wei Liu)

DATA  * included/modified datasets: ---
EXAMP * included/modified examples: rasch.pairwise (1),
        dif.logistic.regression (2) 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 1.8 -- 2015-06-28  --  CRAN sirt 1.8-9
------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE  * corrected a non-working example in 'lsem.estimate' 
        (thanks to Takuya Yanagida)
NOTE  * changed defaults and outputs in 'mcmc.list.descriptives'
        and 'plot.mcmc.sirt'
ADDED * included argument 'est.delta' in 'rasch.mml2' for item specific
        estimation of delta parameters in irtmodel='missing1'. Now,
        the specification of est.delta has slightly been changed.
ADDED * included function 'likelihood.adjustment' for adjusting
        individual likelihood 
NOTE  * disabled the broken plot method for 'noharm.sirt' objects        

DATA  * included/modified datasets: ---
EXAMP * included/modified examples: lsem.estimate (1),
        rasch.mml2 (7.12-14, 8), likelihood.adjustment (1)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 1.7 -- 2015-06-05  --  CRAN sirt 1.7-0
------------------------------------------------------------------------

ADDED * included function 'btm' for estimating an extended Bradley-Terry
        model (suggested and fixed by Chris Weadon)
NOTE  * added minimum and maximum values in summary of 'lsem.estimate'
NOTE  * included JML estimation of Bradley-Terry model ('btm') with 
        elimination of persons with extreme scores
NOTE  * included infit and outfit statistics in 'btm'
NOTE  * changed layout of summary of 'lsem.estimate' and
        'plot.lsemPermutationTest'
NOTE  * added separation index for Bradley-Terry model
        (suggested by Sven De Maeyer)
FIXED * fixed a bug in 'categorize' function

DATA  * included/modified datasets: data.pw01
EXAMP * included/modified examples: btm (1,2)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 1.6 -- 2015-05-20  --  CRAN sirt 1.6-0
------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE  * added arguments 'minnode' and 'maxnode' in 'R2conquest' which 
        now allows full specification for the theta grid used in
        numerical approximation
FIXED * fixed a bug in 'truescore.irt' when no standard errors were provided
ADDED * added utility functions 'categorize' and 'decategorize' for
        categorizing variables in a data frame
ADDED * added function 'lsem.estimate' for fitting local structural
        equation models (LSEM). In addition, the permutation test
        is implemented in 'lsem.permutationTest'.         

DATA  * included/modified datasets: data.lsem01
EXAMP * included/modified examples: categorize (1,2), lsem.estimate (1)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 1.4/1.5 -- 2015-03-03  --  CRAN sirt 1.5-0
------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE  * changed default for argument 'itemcodes' in R2conquest fuction
NOTE  * included S3 methods for probabilistic Guttman model 'prob.guttman'
ADDED * included plot method for hierarchical rater model 'rm.sdt'
NOTE  * changed calculation of transformed parameters in 'rm.sdt'
FIXED * fixed a bug in 'rm.sdt' for datasets with differing number of
        item categories
ADDED * added option for specifying a discrete latemt variable in
        'rm.sdt' function. Options for fixed item parameters were also
        added.
NOTE  * added arguments for bounds of item slope and item difficulty
        parameters in 'rasch.mml2' (requested by Aysenur Erdemir)
ADDED * added option for estimating the missingness delta parameter
        in 'rasch.mml2' and 'irtmodel="missing1"'
FIXED * fixed a bug in 'rasch.mml2' for missing data models and 
        included CALL in summary
FIXED * corrected missing output of individual likelihood and posterior
        in 'rasch.mml2' for irtmodel='missing1'

DATA  * included/modified datasets: data.bs07a
EXAMP * included/modified examples: data.eid (4.3a),
        data.read (8e,9a), data.bs (07a), rm.sdt (2,3), rasch.mml2 (1,7)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 1.3 -- 2015-01-06  --  CRAN sirt 1.3
------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE  * defined several S3 methods for 'rasch.copula2' and 
        'rasch.copula3'
NOTE  * adapted S3 methods for mirt because the new class
        'SingleGroupClass' is defined in mirt >= 1.7 and removed
        'ConfirmatoryClass' and 'ExploratoryClass' methods
NOTE  * exported the object pcm.fit (it was spuriously 
        non-exported in sirt 1.2; reported by Sven Liepertz)
NOTE  * included the argument 'ignore.pid' for ignoring person
        identifiers in 'R2conquest' function (suggested by
        Kelvin Gregory)
NOTE  * changed Example 1 in 'f1d.irt' due to a change in 
        Suggests regarding the MASS package in the psych package
        which caused an error in CRAN checks (suggested by William 
        Revelle) 
ADDED * included S3 methods logLik, IRT.likelihood, IRT.posterior,
        IRT.modelfit, summary.IRT.modelfit and IRT.irfprob for 
        functions 'rasch.mml2', 'smirt', 'rasch.mirtlc', 'gom',
        'rm.facets' and 'rm.sdt'
NOTE  * extended modelfit.sirt for objects of class gom
ADDED * included function 'modelfit.cor.poly' for assessing
        absolute model fit for polytomous item responses
ADDED * included arguments for fixing item and rater parameters in 
        'rm.facets'
ADDED * included IRT.factor.scores method for 'rm.facets' and
        'rm.sdt'
ADDED * included function 'IRT.mle' for estimating MLE, WLE and
        MAP factor scores with user defined item response functions
        
DATA  * included/modified datasets: ---
EXAMP * included/modified examples: f1d.irt (1), rasch.mml2 (1),
        rasch.mirtlc (1), gom.em (1), rm.facets (2), IRT.mle (1,2,3)        

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 1.2 -- 2014-12-12  --  CRAN sirt 1.2
------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE  * included standard errors of WLE parameters in 'wle.rasch'
NOTE  * corrected formulas help file for 'pcm.conversion'
        (thanks to Thomas Kiefer)
FIXED * fixed computational problems for calculating tetrachoric        
        correlation with empty cells in 'tetrachoric2' resp.
        'polychoric2' (method of Olsson; thanks to a dataset 
        privided by Ulrike Kipman)
NOTE  * included S3 methods IRT.likelihood, IRT.posterior and
        IRT.irfprob for two classes (ConfirmatoryClass and
        ExploratoryClass) of mirt objects
ADDED * included item and person fit statistic in 'pcm.fit' 
        for the partial credit model (suggested by Hiroyuki 
        Yamada and Sven Liepertz) 
NOTE  * included C-test dataset 'data.g308' from 
        Schroeders et al. (2014)
NOTE  * included several examples from the book of Eid
        and Schmidt: "Testtheorie und Testkonstruktion",
        see data.eid

DATA  * included/modified datasets: data.g308, data.eid
EXAMP * included/modified examples: pcm.conversion (1),
        pcm.fit (1,2,3), brm.sim (1), data.g308 (1),
        data.eid (1,2)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 1.1  -- 2014-11-23  --  CRAN sirt 1.1
------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE  * included arguments for mean and covariance matrix for
        confirmatory multidimensional models in 'f1d.irt'
NOTE  * removed 'lavaanify.sirt' from sirt package and
        included this function as 'lavaanify.IRT' in 
        TAM package 
FIXED * fixed a bug in 'lavaan2mirt' (thanks to Hong Giang Pham)        
NOTE  * extended some person fit statistics to handle datasets
        with missing responses (thanks to Hiroyuki Yamada)
ADDED * included functions for estimating the Beta item 
        response model for continuous item responses 

DATA  * included/modified datasets: ---
EXAMP * included/modified examples: f1d.irt (2), brm.sim (1)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 1.0  -- 2014-10-27  --  CRAN sirt 1.0-3
------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE  * included argument 'progress' in 'gom.em' for optional
        printing of iteration progress
NOTE  * disabled warnings produced in 'rasch.mirtlc' by the glm
        function 
FIXED * fixed a bug in calculating the posterior in 'mirt.wrapper'
        for nonlinear item response models 
FIXED * fixed a bug in running exploratory factor analysis with
        one dimension in noharm.sirt (thanks to Russell Zheng)
FIXED * fixed a bug in datawide2long with Q-matrix input
FIXED * fixed a bug in data handling in 'invariance.alignment'
        with some missing intercepts and slopes
ADDED * included an extension of lavaan syntax to accomodate
        guessing and slipping parameters and "__" (item shortage 
        declaration) -> function 'lavaanify.sirt'
        The function lavaan2mirt also includes these options.
NOTE  * included coef and vcov method for function 'rasch.evm.pcm'
NOTE  * included argument weights in 'dirichlet.mle'
NOTE  * included utility function for conversion of different
        parameterizations in partial credit model
NOTE  * included helper function 'mirt.wrapper.itemplot'        
NOTE  * enabled progress argument in rasch.copula functions        
NOTE  * renamed DeCarlo's hierarchical rater model based on
        signal detection theory 'rm.hrm' into 'rm.sdt'
NOTE  * fixed an error in description of missing IRT models in
        'rasch.mml2.Rd' (thanks to Carmen Koehler)
NOTE  * fixed a bug in 'tam2mirt' for polytomous items 
        (thanks to Michal Modzelewski)
ADDED * included function 'mirt.specify.partable' for modifying
        a parameter table in mirt package 
NOTE  * included argument item type for polytomous data in 'lavaan2mirt'
NOTE  * updated 'lavaanify.sirt' function because of changes in 
        the lavaan::lavaanify function from lavaan 0.5-16 to the
        lavaan 0.5-17 package
NOTE  * changed mean constraint for rater parameters in 'rm.facets' 
ADDED * included estimation and simulation functions for the Nedelsky model
        ('nedelsky.sim', 'nedelsky.irf')

DATA  * included/modified datasets: data.ratings2, data.si06, data.ratings3
EXAMP * included/modified examples: dirichlet.simul (1,2),
        data.read (2), mirt.model.vars (1), rasch.mirtlc (4), 
        data.long (3,4), lavaanify.sirt (1), lavaan2mirt (1),
        dirichlet.mle (1,2), pcm.conversion (1), data.big5 (1),
        mirt.specify.partable (1), nedelsky-methods (1,2)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 0.47 -- 2014-08-30  --  CRAN sirt 0.47-36
------------------------------------------------------------------------

ADDED * included wrapper function of mirt output of extracting
        item parameters ('mirt.wrapper.coef')
EXAMP * added more examples for model estimation in mirt package
        using customized item response functions and/or 
        customized latent structure distributions
          o Ramsay's quotient model ('sim.qm.ramsay', Example 1)
          o Latent class analysis ('data.read', Model 7)
          o Mixed Rasch model ('data.read', Model 8)
          o Located latent class model/Latent class IRT model
            ('data.read', Model 12; 'rasch.mirtlc', Example 4, Model 4)
          o Probabilistic Guttman model ('prob.guttman', Example 1, 
            Model 3)
          o Nonparametric item response model with monotone item
            response functions ('prob.guttman', Example 4, Model 4)          
          o Discrete grade of membership model ('gom.em', Simulated 
            Example 2, Model 2m)
          o Multimensional item response model with discrete traits
            ('data.read', Model 13)   
          o DINA model ('data.read', Model 14)       
          o Rasch copula model ('rasch.copula2', Example 5)  
          o Rasch model with non-normal distibution ('data.read', Model 15)          
ADDED * included wrapper function of mirt output for extracting
        likelihood, posterior and expected counts 
ADDED * extended modelfit.sirt for fitted objects from mirt package
ADDED * included function 'lavaan2mirt' for converting syntax for the
        lavaan package to syntax for the mirt package
ADDED * included function 'tam2mirt' for converting a fitted object
        in TAM package into an object of class mirt in the mirt package
NOTE  * corrected some typos and improved some examples (thanks to Phil Chalmers)
EXAMP * included an example for running Mplus from within R using the
        MplusAutomation package ('data.read', Model 1)
NOTE  * renamed functionrasch.conquest into R2conquest -> function rasch.conquest
        can still be used
ADDED * included function 'mirt.wrapper.fscores' for computing EAPs, MAPs and MLEs
        for objects of class mirt

DATA  * included/modified datasets: ---
EXAMP * included/modified examples: mirt.wrapper (1,2,3,4,5),
        sim.qm.ramsay (1), modelfit.sirt (1), data.read (1,3,7,8,12,13,14),
        lavaan2mirt (1,2,3), tam2mirt (1,2,3,4), prob.guttman (1), gom.em (2),
        equating.rasch (1), data.reck (2), rasch.mirtlc (4),
        rasch.copula2 (5)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 0.46 -- 2014-08-05  --  CRAN sirt 0.46-15
------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE  * used the operator '::' for functions which are used from 
        other packages than sirt in example files for datasets
FIXED * fixed a bug in plot.noharm.sirt for unidimensional models
NOTE  * fixed a minor bug in summary in 'summary.rasch.pml2'
NOTE  * included argument 'use.maxincrement' for controlling
        increments in 'rasch.pml3'
NOTE  * speeded invariance alignment function and choose now 
        different starting values to ensure a global minimum.
        Changed also default parameters to obtain more
        stable results. 
NOTE  * excluded plotting function of 'invariance.alignment'
NOTE  * changed calculation of measures of noninvariance in
        invariance.alignment. Now, the noninvariance measures 
        in 'invariance.alignment' and 'linking.haberman' 
        are equivalent.

DATA  * included/modified datasets: ---
EXAMP * included/modified examples: data.read, data.big5,
        invariance.alignment (4,5) 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 0.45 -- 2014-05-30  --  CRAN sirt 0.45-23
------------------------------------------------------------------------

FIXED * fixed a bug in reliability calculation in noharm.sirt
NOTE  * included plots for 'noharm.sirt' using the semPlot package
ADDED * included first version of statistical implicative analysis ('sia.sirt')
ADDED * included function 'rasch.conquest' for running ConQuest from within R

DATA  * included/modified datasets: ---
EXAMP * included/modified examples: data.mixed1, noharm.sirt (1,2),
        sia.sirt (1), data.read, rasch.evm.pcm (4)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 0.44 -- 2014-04-27  --  CRAN sirt 0.44-48
------------------------------------------------------------------------

FIXED * fixed a bug in calculation of marginal parameters for testlet model
ADDED * included the partially compensatory item response model
        (irtmodel='partcomp' in 'smirt')
NOTE  * speeded 'rasch.copula' functions a bit
NOTE  * included argument 'increment.factor' in rasch.copula to improve
        convergence behavior
FIXED * fixed a bug in 'rasch.mirtlc' in saved parameter estimates for
        models with different initial estimates (n.starts>0)
ADDED * included function for calculating marginal item parameters for
        testlet (bifactor) model ('testlet.marginalized')
ADDED * extended 'modelfit.sirt' for objects of class tam.mml, tam.mml.2pl
        and tam.fa (from the TAM package)
FIXED * fixed a bug in parsing residual matrix from NOHARM output in 'R2noharm'
NOTE  * extended output in mcmc.list. descriptives
NOTE  * changed chi square p value in R2noharm in Values according to summary
ADDED * included R implementation of NOHARM ('noharm.sirt')
NOTE  * modelfit.sirt also allows for objects of class noharm.sirt
NOTE  * included Divgi estimation method of tetrachoric correlation
ADDED * included maximum likelihood estimation of polychoric correlation

DATA  * included/modified datasets: ---
EXAMP * included/modified examples: data.wide2long (1), smirt (3), modelfit.sirt (1),
        R2noharm (4), mcmc.list.descriptives (1), noharm.sirt (1,2), data.read,
        tetrachoric (2), polychoric2 (1)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 0.43 -- 2014-03-12  --  CRAN sirt 0.43-70
------------------------------------------------------------------------

ADDED * included function 'isop.test' for testing the ISOP model
ADDED * included (non-iterative) eigenvector method for estimating
        the partial credit model -> 'rasch.evm.pcm'
NOTE  * included argument 'ref.item' in rasch.mirtlc for specification
        of reference items
ADDED * included test of de Gooijer and Yuan (2011) that CSN is non-positive
        -> 'unidim.test.csn'   
ADDED * included option for testing differential item functioning in
        rasch.evm.pcm
NOTE  * changed convergence behavior in rasch.mirtlc for 2PL models
ADDED * robust linking alternative to mean-mean linking ('linking.robust')
NOTE  * corrected output for hierarchical rater model ('rm.hrm')
ADDED * included simple latent class model for two exchangeable raters 
        ('lc.2raters')
ADDED * extended unidimensional copula model to multiple dimensions ('rasch.copula3')
NOTE  * changed numerical differentiation parameters in several functions
        to a smaller value
ADDED * included missing data IRT model ('rasch.mml2', irtmodel='missing1')
NOTE  * included person (containing person parameters) as a value in rasch.copula2
        and rasch.copula2
FIXED * fixed a bug in 'testlet.yen.q3'
NOTE  * allowed correlated residuals in reliability calculation of 
        'reliability.nonlinearSEM'
NOTE  * included reliability estimation for pseudo maximum likelihood 
        estimation ('rasch.pml3')
NOTE  * included marginal item parameters in the output in testlet model 
        ('mcmc.3pno.testlet')

DATA  * included/modified datasets: data.reck73C1a, data.reck73C1b,
        data.reck75C2, data.reck78ExA, data.reck79ExB, 
        data.liking.science, data.si02, data.si03, data.si04, data.si05
EXAMP * included/modified examples: isop.test (1), rasch.evm.pcm (1,2,3,4,5,6),
        data.reck (2,3), rasch.mirtlc (3,4,5), gom.em (2), unidim.test.csn (1,2),
        gom.em (1), linking.robust (1,2,3), lc.2raters (1), data.wide2long (2),
        rasch.copula (4), rasch.mml2 (7), reliability.nonlinearSEM (1)  

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 0.42 -- 2014-01-31  --  CRAN sirt 0.42-25
------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE  * included further values in smirt to allow to apply itemfit.sx2
        in the CDM package
FIXED * fixed a bug in output of person parameters in smirt (missing
        standard errors; thanks to Balal Izanloo)
NOTE  * included empirical item-attribute discriminations in lsdm
NOTE  * changed NAMESPACE and DESCRIPTION files due to a change in Rcpp
FIXED * fixed a bug for constraint in mu for multidimensional models
        in rasch.mml2
FIXED * fixed warning messages when reading NOHARM output files
NOTE  * stabilized estimation of tetrachoric correlation coefficients
        for Tucker method (addition of cell sizes with a value .5) 
ADDED * included the method of Bonett and Price for calculation a
        tetrachoric correlation
NOTE  * included additional outputs and item parameters for the 
        HRM-SDT (thanks to a discussion with Robin Gleeson)
NOTE  * extended modelfit.sirt to objects of class R2noharm

DATA  * included/modified datasets: data.timss07.G8.RUS, data.reck611
EXAMP * included/modified examples: fuzcluster (1), modelfit.sirt (1)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 0.41 -- 2014-01-07  --  CRAN sirt 0.41-21
------------------------------------------------------------------------

ADDED * included maximum likelihood estimation for discrete data in the
        belief function framework ('fuzdiscr')
ADDED * included pseudo-log-likelihood estimation for fractional item
        responses (values between 0 and 1) in 'rasch.mml2'
ADDED * included clustering fur fuzzy continuous data (belief function
        framework) ('fuzcluster')

DATA  * included datasets: data.pirlsmissing
EXAMP * included examples: mcmc.2pno.ml (3), rasch.mml2 (7)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 0.40 -- 2013-12-09  --  CRAN sirt 0.40-9
------------------------------------------------------------------------

FIXED * fixed a bug in 'data.wide2long'
NOTE  * changed Rcpp code in eigenvalue calculation due to a CRAN request

DATA  * included datasets: data.big5.qgraph 
EXAMP * included examples: ---

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 0.39 -- 2013-11-17  --  CRAN sirt 0.39-30
------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE  * included approximating function of expected percent score in
        truescore.irt
NOTE  * added a check function for inits in smirt (thanks to Balal Izanloo)
FIXED * fixed a bug in output of person parameters (thanks to Balal Izanloo)
NOTE  * speeded latent regression model 'latent.em.regression.raschtype'
ADDED * included latent.em.regression.normal for normally distributed
        outcomes
NOTE  * included factor for convergence acceleration in invariance.alignment
NOTE  * included summary for latent regression models
ADDED * included function 'mle.pcm.group' for maximum likelihood estimation
        in generalized item response models which includes an option for
        estimating group parameters
NOTE  * changed algorithm in 'invariance.alignment' into a two-step approach
NOTE  * included plot method for function 'invariance.alignment'

DATA  * included datasets: data.inv4gr, data.ess2005, data.mcdonald.rape,
        data.si01 
EXAMP * included examples: lsdm (4,5), invariance.alignment (3),
        plausible.value.imputation.raschtype (2,3)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 0.38 -- 2013-10-23  --  CRAN sirt 0.38-25
------------------------------------------------------------------------

ADDED * included function for automated finding of a scoring key in
        a data frame with raw item responses ('automatic.recode')
FIXED * fixed a bug in linking.haberman function 
NOTE  * added argument personpars in linking.haberman for transformation
        of person parameters
ADDED * included alignment method for approximate invariance
        (Asparouhov & Muthen, 2013)
ADDED * included function truescore.irt for conversion of trait scores
        into true scores for unidimensional item response models

DATA  * included item parameters data.activity.itempars

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 0.37 -- 2013-10-02  --  CRAN sirt 0.37-24
------------------------------------------------------------------------

FIXED * fixed a bug in rasch.mirtlc with multiple starts in latent
        class models
NOTE  * allowed input of student weights and product-moment
        matrix in R2noharm
FIXED * fixed a bug in calculation of degrees of freedom in R2noharm 
        function
FIXED * fixed a bug in linear transformation for person parameters
        in linking.haberman
ADDED * included eigenvalue decomposition function 'eigenvalues.sirt'

DATA  * included datasets: 'data.noharmExC', 'data.mcdonald', 'data.reck'
DATA  * included data conversion function 'data.wide2long'  
DATA  * renamed 'data.noharm' into 'data.noharm18'  
  
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 0.35/0.36 -- 2013-09-08  --  CRAN sirt 0.36-30
------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE  * corrected legends and labels in plot.isop function
ADDED * included function rowKSmallest2.sirt
FIXED * fixed a bug in mcmc.3pno.testlet (thanks to Chun-Hsien Wu)
        -> removed parametrization 3 (bifactor model) because it
        produced untrustworthy results
NOTE  * included gregmisc in imports (thanks to Jean-Paul Fox)
NOTE  * disabled parametrization 2 in mcmc.3pno.testlet
        -> now only the original model from the Glas paper
          (parametrization 1) is estimated
NOTE  * included argument for item parameter fixings in
        pairwise conditional likelihood function rasch.pairwise.itemcluster
NOTE  * included ETS classification labels of uniform DIF in
        function dif.logistic.regression
NOTE  * included the option of not submitting any item strata 
        to stratified.cronbach.alpha and an example for using 
        the psych package
ADDED * included function 'md.pattern.sirt' for analyzing
        response patterns
NOTE  * included crossprod function in several sirt functions
ADDED * included monotone nonparametric estimation in 'rasch.mml2'
        as the default in case of irtmodel='npirt' and npformula=NULL
NOTE  * speeded irtmodel='npirt' in case of providing npformula
NOTE  * included output of summary of testlet effects in 
        mcmc.3pno.testlet
ADDED * included the functional unidimensional model (Ip et al. 2013)
ADDED * included the linking method of Haberman (2009)
NOTE  * included plot method for rasch.mml2 function
NOTE  * removed rasch.testlet.glmer function

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 0.34 -- 2013-08-13  --  CRAN sirt 0.34-46
------------------------------------------------------------------------

ADDED * included estimation of ISOP and ADISOP models
FIXED * fixed a bug in pbivnorm2 for negative correlations
NOTE  * included argument increment.factor in smirt to
        prevent nonconvergence (thanks to Balal Izanloo)
ADDED * included rowwise maximum and minimum and rowwise
        cumulative sum of a matrix based on Rcpp code
ADDED * included matrix functions rowIntervalIndex.sirt 
        (useful for simulations) and rowKSmallest.sirt 
        (useful for sorting matrix entries, e.g. for
        predictive mean matching in mice)
FIXED * fixed a bug in mcmc.2pno.ml (thanks to Ronny Scherer)
ADDED * included matrix row and column wise monotone regression
        function monoreg.rowwise (adapted from fdrtool package)
ADDED * included graded response model estimation in isop.poly
        function
ADDED * included plot method for ISOP models (isop.dich and
        isop.poly)

DATA  * included example data.big5
EXAMP * included an example for DETECT for polytomous data

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Versions 0.32/0.33 -- 2013-07-09  --  CRAN sirt 0.33-16
------------------------------------------------------------------------

ADDED * included the estimation  of the 2PL model via MCMC (mcmc.2pno)
NOTE  * included a function for estimating Rhat and MAP from MCMC output
        (mcmc.list.descriptives)
ADDED * included a function for writing coda files (mcmclist2coda)
NOTE  * renamed jacknife.rasch.jml into rasch.jml.jackknife1
ADDED * included mcmc.2pnoh for estimating a hierarchical IRT model
ADDED * included mcmc.3pno.testlet for estimating IRT testlet and
        bifactor models for dichotomous data
ADDED * included mcmc.2pno.ml function for estimating a multilevel
        IRT model for dichotomous and normally distributed data
ADDED * included R2NOHARM functions into this package for running
        NOHARM from within R
NOTE  * modelfit.sirt now allows objects of class smirt
NOTE  * speeded calculation of modelfit.sirt
NOTE  * speeded rasch.mml2, prob.guttman, rasch.mirtlc, rm.facets, rm.hrm

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 0.31 -- 2013-05-27  --  CRAN sirt 0.31-20
             [*** First CRAN Release ***]
------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE  * speeded rasch.pml2 a bit
FIXED * fixed a bug in smirt function (thanks to Izanloo Balal)
ADDED * included function tetrachoric2 faster calculation
        of the tetrachoric correlation matrix
ADDED * included pbivnorm2 for calculating the bivariate normal integral
NOTE  * included rasch.pml3, a bit faster version than rasch.pml2
FIXED * eliminated warning statements in smirt and fixed a bug in 
        estimation of a and b parameters in smirt (thanks to Izanloo Balal)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 0.30  -- 2013-04-30
------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE  * included a Rcpp function for faster calculations in rm.hrm
        (now there is a dependency of Rcpp and RcppArmadillo)
ADDED * included smirt function for estimating the multdimensional
        noncompensatory and compensatory models
ADDED * included variational approximation for the Rasch model
ADDED * included the (Rasch) grade of membership model

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 0.29  -- 2013-04-08
------------------------------------------------------------------------

ADDED * included function for computing eigenvalues and inverses of
        many matrices
ADDED * included facets models with item/rater intercepts and slopes
ADDED * included initial version of the hierarchical rater model based on
        signal detection theory (DeCarlo et al., 2011)
ADDED * included function for simulating and estimating the
        Dirichlet distribution
ADDED * included grade of membership model with joint maximum 
        likelihood estimation -> gom.jml

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 0.28  -- 2013-03-24
------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE  * included standard errors in rasch.mml2
ADDED * included marginal true score reliability for binary item 
        response data (Dimitrov, 2003; thanks to Ulrich Schroeders)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 0.27  -- 2013-02-26
------------------------------------------------------------------------

ADDED * included classification accuracy in the Rasch model
ADDED * implemented the multidimensional latent class Rasch model
        (Bartolucci, 2007)
NOTE  * cleaning of help files, included several datasets and
        examples
NOTE  * included log-linear smoothing of the theta distribution
        in rasch.mirtlc
ADDED * included 2PL estimation in rasch.mirtlc
ADDED * included global fit statistics in modelfit.sirt
NOTE  * included log-linear smoothing of the ability distribution
        in rasch.mml2
NOTE  * accelerated rasch.pml function and renamed it into rasch.pml2
NOTE  * allowed for linear constraints for residual correlations
        in rasch.pml2
NOTE  * accelerated latent.regression.em.raschtype and 
        plausible value routines

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 0.26  -- 2013-01-17
------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE  * restructured rasch.mml2 function to get a bit more compact code
NOTE  * do not export rasch.mml and rasch.copula anymore via namespace
ADDED * included nonparametric IRT function estimation in rasch.mml2
        -> argument irtmodel='npirt' (Rossi, Wang & Ramsay, 2002)
ADDED * included multidimensional models in rasch.mml2
NOTE  * added corrected AIC (AICc) in rasch.mml2 and rasch.copula2
NOTE  * corrected mean and SD estimation in rasch.mml2
FIXED * fixed a bug in the calculation of the number of estimated parameters
        in rasch.copula2
FIXED * corrected rasch.mml2 function in case of fixed weights of
        trait distribution
FIXED * corrected a bug in wle.rasch
ADDED * included probabilistic Guttman model
ADDED * added analytical bias correction method for JML estimation of the Rasch model
NOTE  * accelerated PMML estimation algorithm
ADDED * added 2PL estimation in rasch.pml

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 0.25  -- 2012-10-16
------------------------------------------------------------------------

FIXED * fixed bad numerical behavior in rasch.copula2 for Cook-Johnson
        and Frank copula models
NOTE  * improved speed in yen.q3 and extended output
NOTE  * speed improvement in rasch.mml and rasch.copula2
NOTE  * included version rasch.mml2 with substantial speed improvements
NOTE  * speed improvements for rasch.jml function

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 0.24 -- 2012-09-20
------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE  * changed algorithms behavior of rasch.copula2 
        (parameter increments depend on number of iterations)
FIXED * corrected deviance calculation in rasch.copula

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 0.23  -- 2012-08-31
------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE  * removed functions for running ConQuest from this package
ADDED * included Cook-Johnson and Frank copula in rasch.copula2 function
ADDED * included examples for wle.rasch.jackknife
FIXED * removed a minor printing bug in rasch.copula
FIXED * fixed a bug in jackknife.rasch.jml
NOTE  * included item parameter constraints in jackknife.rasch.jml
FIXED * corrected handling of extreme responses in rasch.prox

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 0.22 -- 2012-07-17
------------------------------------------------------------------------

ADDED * included estimation of residual error correlations in rasch.pml
NOTE  * restructured rasch.testlet.glmer function
DATA  * included data set reading data.read
NOTE  * set a different default in rasch.mml (estimation of trait SD seemed incorrect)
NOTE  * rasch.testlet.glmer: output EAPs and EAP reliability
NOTE  * included loglog and cloglog link functions in rasch.testlet.glmer
ADDED * included jackknife estimation of the joint maximum likelihood
        Rasch model
NOTE  * included a speeded version of rasch.copula and labelled it 
        as rasch.copula2 -> The old version rasch.copula remains in the package.
NOTE  * output posterior distribition, EAP estimates and
        EAP reliability in rasch.copula    
ADDED * introduced probit and logit version of rasch.pml: pairwise marginal 
        likelihood estimation
FIXED * removed some bugs (or inefficiencies) in numerical differentiation 
        in rasch.mml and rasch.copula
NOTE  * renamed sim.rasch.copula into sim.rasch.dep
ADDED * included function rasch.pairwise.itemcluster for the conditional 
        pairwise estimation method for locally dependent items   
NOTE  * package structure of sirtr is created
ADDED * included simulation function for Rasch copula model ('sim.rasch.copula')


**************************************************************************
# older sirt versions (formerly sirtr up to 0.21)

Version 0.21 -- 2012-06-23
Version 0.20 -- 2012-06-18
Version 0.19 -- 2012-04-26
Version 0.18 -- 2012-03-29
Version 0.17 -- 2012-02-22
Version 0.16 -- 2012-02-17
Version 0.15 -- 2011-12-19
Version 0.14 -- 2011-10-06
Version 0.13 -- 2010-08-26
Version 0.12 -- 2010-01-13
Version 0.11 -- 2010-01-12
Version 0.10 -- 2010-01-02
Version 0.9  -- 2009-11-01
Version 0.8  -- 2009-03-08
Version 0.7  -- 2009-03-02
Version 0.6  -- 2009-12-02
Version 0.5  -- 2008-11-12
Version 0.4  -- 2008-08-25
Version 0.3  -- 2008-05-06
Version 0.2  -- 2008-01-29
Version 0.1  -- 2007-12-22
Version 0.0  -- 2007-12-18
