R: Auxiliary for Controlling ERGM Simulation

control.simulate {ergm}

R Documentation

Auxiliary for Controlling ERGM Simulation

Description

Auxiliary function as user interface for fine-tuning ERGM simulation.

Usage

control.simulate(MCMC.burnin=10000,
                 MCMC.interval=1000,
                 MCMC.prop.weights="default",
                 MCMC.prop.args=list(),
                 MCMC.init.maxedges=20000,
                 MCMC.packagenames=c(),
                 MCMC.runtime.traceplot=FALSE,  
                 network.output="network",
                                                     
                 parallel=0,
                 parallel.type=NULL,
                 parallel.version.check=TRUE,
                 ...)

control.simulate.formula(MCMC.burnin=10000,
                         MCMC.interval=1000,
                         MCMC.prop.weights="default",
                         MCMC.prop.args=list(),
                         MCMC.init.maxedges=20000,
                         MCMC.packagenames=c(),
                         MCMC.runtime.traceplot=FALSE,
                         network.output="network",
                                                     
                         parallel=0,
                         parallel.type=NULL,
                         parallel.version.check=TRUE,
                         ...)

control.simulate.formula.ergm(MCMC.burnin=10000,
                              MCMC.interval=1000,
                              MCMC.prop.weights="default",
                              MCMC.prop.args=list(),
                              MCMC.init.maxedges=20000,
                              MCMC.packagenames=c(),
                              MCMC.runtime.traceplot=FALSE,
                              network.output="network",
                                                         
                              parallel=0,
                              parallel.type=NULL,
                              parallel.version.check=TRUE,
                              ...)

control.simulate.ergm(MCMC.burnin=NULL,
                      MCMC.interval=NULL,
                      MCMC.prop.weights=NULL,
                      MCMC.prop.args=NULL,
                      MCMC.init.maxedges=NULL,
                      MCMC.packagenames=NULL,
                      MCMC.runtime.traceplot=FALSE,
                      network.output="network",

                      parallel=0,
                      parallel.type=NULL,
                      parallel.version.check=TRUE,
                      ...)

Arguments

`MCMC.prop.weights`	Specifies the proposal distribution used in the MCMC Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. Possible choices are `"TNT"` or `"random"`; the `"default"` is one of these two, depending on the constraints in place (as defined by the `constraints` argument of the `ergm` function), though not all weights may be used with all constraints. The `TNT` (tie / no tie) option puts roughly equal weight on selecting a dyad with or without a tie as a candidate for toggling, whereas the `random` option puts equal weight on all possible dyads, though the interpretation of `random` may change according to the constraints in place. When no constraints are in place, the default is TNT, which appears to improve Markov chain mixing particularly for networks with a low edge density, as is typical of many realistic social networks.
`MCMC.prop.args`	An alternative, direct way of specifying additional arguments to proposal.
`MCMC.burnin`	Number of proposals before any MCMC sampling is done. It typically is set to a fairly large number.
`MCMC.interval`	Number of proposals between sampled statistics.
`MCMC.init.maxedges`	Maximum number of edges expected in network.
`MCMC.packagenames`	Names of packages in which to look for change statistic functions in addition to those autodetected. This argument should not be needed outside of very strange setups.
`MCMC.runtime.traceplot`	Logical: If TRUE, plot traceplots of the MCMC sample after every MCMC MLE iteration.
`network.output`	R class with which to output networks. The options are "network" (default) and "edgelist.compressed" (which saves space but only supports networks without vertex attributes)
`parallel`	Number of threads in which to run the sampling. Defaults to 0 (no parallelism). See the entry on parallel processing for details and troubleshooting.
`parallel.type`	API to use for parallel processing. Supported values are `"MPI"` and `"PSOCK"`. Defaults to using the `parallel` package with PSOCK clusters. See `ergm-parallel`
`parallel.version.check`	Logical: If TRUE, check that the version of `ergm` running on the slave nodes is the same as that running on the master node.
`...`	Additional arguments, passed to other functions This argument is helpful because it collects any control parameters that have been deprecated; a warning message is printed in case of deprecated arguments.

Details

This function is only used within a call to the simulate function. See the usage section in simulate.ergm for details.

Value