Upgrading to R 3.2.0 on Windows

If you are using Windows you can easily upgrade to the latest version of R using the installr package. Simply run the following code:

# installing/loading the latest installr package:
install.packages("installr"); library(installr) #load / install+load installr
 
updateR() # updating R.

Running “updateR()” will detect if there is a new R version available, and if so it will download+install it (etc.).

If you are an R blogger yourself you are invited to add your own R content feed to this site (Non-English R bloggers should add themselves- here)

NEW FEATURES

• anyNA() gains a recursive argument.
• When x is missing and names is not false (including the default value), Sys.getenv(x, names) returns an object of class "Dlist" and hence prints tidily.
• (Windows.) shell() no longer consults the environment variable SHELL: too many systems have been encountered where it was set incorrectly (usually to a path where software was compiled, not where it was installed). R_SHELL, the preferred way to select a non-default shell, can be used instead.
• Some unusual arguments to embedFonts() can now be specified as character vectors, and the defaults have been changed accordingly.
• Functions in the Summary group duplicate less. (PR#15798)
• (Unix-alikes.) system(cmd, input = ) now uses ‘shell-execution-environment’ redirection, which will be more natural if cmd is not a single command (but requires a POSIX-compliant shell). (Wish of PR#15508)
• read.fwf() and read.DIF() gain a fileEncoding argument, for convenience.
• Graphics devices can add attributes to their description in .Device and .Devices. Several of those included with R use a "filepath" attribute.
• pmatch() uses hashing in more cases and so is faster at the expense of using more memory. (PR#15697)
• pairs() gains new arguments to select sets of variables to be plotted against each other.
• file.info(, extra_cols = FALSE) allows a minimal set of columns to be computed on Unix-alikes: on some systems without properly-configured caching this can be significantly faster with large file lists.
• New function dir.exists() in package base to test efficiently whether one or more paths exist and are directories.
• dput() and friends gain new controls hexNumeric and digits17 which output double and complex quantities as, respectively, binary fractions (exactly, see sprintf("%a")) and as decimals with up to 17 significant digits.
• save(), saveRDS() and serialize() now support ascii = NA which writes ASCII files using sprintf("%a") for double/complex quantities. This is read-compatible with ascii = TRUE but avoids binary->decimal->binary conversions with potential loss of precision. Unfortunately the Windows C runtime’s lack of C99 compliance means that the format cannot be read correctly there in R before 3.1.2.
• The default for formatC(decimal.mark =) has been changed to be getOption("OutDec"); this makes it more consistent with format() and suitable for use in print methods, e.g. those for classes "density", "ecdf", "stepfun" and "summary.lm".

  getOption("OutDec") is now consulted by the print method for class "kmeans", by cut(), dendrogram(), plot.ts() and quantile() when constructing labels and for the report fromlegend(trace = TRUE).

  (In part, wish of PR#15819.)

• printNum() and hence format() and formatC() give a warning if big.mark and decimal.mark are set to the same value (period and comma are not uncommonly used for each, and this is a check that conventions have not got mixed).
• merge() can create a result which uses long vectors on 64-bit platforms.
• dget() gains a new argument keep.source which defaults to FALSE for speed (dput() and dget() are most often used for data objects where this can make dget() many times faster).
• Packages may now use a file of common macro definitions in their help files, and may import definitions from other packages.
• A number of macros have been added in the new ‘share/Rd’ directory for use in package overview help pages, and promptPackage() now makes use of them.
• tools::parse_Rd() gains a new permissive argument which converts unrecognized macros into text. This is used by utils:::format.bibentry to allow LaTeX markup to be ignored.
• options(OutDec =) can now specify a multi-byte character, e.g., options(OutDec = "u00b7") in a UTF-8 locale.
• is.recursive(x) is no longer true when x is an external pointer, a weak reference or byte code; the first enables all.equal(x, x) when x .
• ls() (aka objects()) and as.list.environment() gain a new argument sorted.
• The "source" attribute (which has not been added to functions by R since before R version 2.14.0) is no longer treated as special.
• Function returnValue() has been added to give on.exit() code access to a function’s return value for debugging purposes.
• crossprod(x, y) allows more matrix coercions when x or y are vectors, now equalling t(x) %*% y in these cases (also reported by Radford Neal). Similarly, tcrossprod(x,y) and %*% work in more cases with vector arguments.
• Utility function dynGet() useful for detecting cycles, aka infinite recursions.
• The byte-code compiler and interpreter include new instructions that allow many scalar subsetting and assignment and scalar arithmetic operations to be handled more efficiently. This can result in significant performance improvements in scalar numerical code.
• apply(m, 2, identity) is now the same as the matrix m when it has named row names.
• A new function debuggingState() has been added, allowing to temporarily turn off debugging.
• example() gets a new optional argument run.donttest and tools::Rd2ex() a corresponding commentDonttest, with a default such that example(..) in help examples will run donttest code only if used interactively (a change in behaviour).
• rbind.data.frame() gains an optional argument make.row.names, for potential speedup.
• New function extSoftVersion() to report on the versions of third-party software in use in this session. Currently reports versions of zlib, bzlib, the liblzma from xz, PCRE, ICU, TRE and the iconv implementation.

  A similar function grSoftVersion() in package grDevices reports on third-party graphics software.

  Function tcltk::tclVersion() reports the Tcl/Tk version.

• Calling callGeneric() without arguments now works with primitive generics to some extent.
• vapply(x, FUN, FUN.VALUE) is more efficient notably for large length(FUN.VALUE); as extension of PR#16061.
• as.table() now allows tables with one or more dimensions of length 0 (such as as.table(integer())).
• names(x) now clears the names of call and ... objects.
• library() will report a warning when an insufficient dependency version is masking a sufficient one later on the library search path.
• A new plot() method for class "raster" has been added.
• New check_packages_in_dir_changes() function in package tools for conveniently analyzing how changing sources impacts the check results of their reverse dependencies.
• Speed-up from Peter Haverty for ls() and methods:::.requirePackage() speeding up package loading. (PR#16133)
• New get0() function, combining exists() and get() in one call, for efficiency.
• match.call() gains an envir argument for specifying the environment from which to retrieve the ... in the call, if any; this environment was wrong (or at least undesirable) when thedefinition argument was a function.
• topenv() has been made .Internal() for speedup, based on Peter Haverty’s proposal in PR#16140.
• getOption() no longer calls options() in the main case.
• Optional use of libcurl (version 7.28.0 from Oct 2012 or later) for Internet access:
  • capabilities("libcurl") reports if this is available.
  • libcurlVersion() reports the version in use, and other details of the "libcurl" build including which URL schemes it supports.
  • curlGetHeaders() retrieves the headers for http://, https://, ftp:// and ftps:// URLs: analysis of these headers can provide insights into the ‘existence’ of a URL (it might for example be permanently redirected) and is so used in R CMD check --as-cran.
  • download.file() has a new optional method "libcurl" which will handle more URL schemes, follow redirections, and allows simultaneous downloads of multiple URLs.
  • url() has a new method "libcurl" which handles more URL schemes and follows redirections. The default method is controlled by a new option url.method, which applies also to the opening of URLs via file() (which happens implicitly in functions such as read.table.)
  • When file() or url() is invoked with a https:// or ftps:// URL which the current method cannot handle, it switches to a suitable method if one is available.
• (Windows.) The DLLs ‘internet.dll’ and ‘internet2.dll’ have been merged. In this version it is safe to switch (repeatedly) between the internal and Windows internet functions within an Rsession.

  The Windows internet functions are still selected by flag –internet2 or setInternet2(). This can be overridden for an url() connection via its new method argument.

  download.file() has new method "wininet", selected as the default by –internet2 or setInternet2().

• parent.env<- can no longer modify the parent of a locked namespace or namespace imports environment. Contributed by Karl Millar.
• New function isLoadedNamespace() for readability and speed.
• names(env) now returns all the object names of an environment env, equivalently to ls(env, all.names = TRUE, sorted = FALSE) and also to the names of the corresponding list,names(as.list(env, all.names = TRUE)). Note that although names() returns a character vector, the names have no particular ordering.
• The memory manager now grows the heap more aggressively. This reduces the number of garbage collections, in particular while data or code are loaded, at the expense of slightly increasing the memory footprint.
• New function trimws() for removing leading/trailing whitespace.
• cbind() and rbind() now consider S4 inheritance during S3 dispatch and also obey deparse.level.
• cbind() and rbind() will delegate recursively to methods::cbind2 (methods::rbind2) when at least one argument is an S4 object and S3 dispatch fails (due to ambiguity).
• (Windows.) download.file(quiet = FALSE) now uses text rather than Windows progress bars in non-interactive use.
• New function hsearch_db() in package utils for building and retrieving the help search database used by help.search(), along with functions for inspecting the concepts and keywords in the help search database.
• New function .getNamespaceInfo(), a no-check version of getNamespaceInfo() mostly for internal speedups.
• The help search system now takes keyword entries in Rd files which are not standard keywords (as given in ‘KEYWORDS’ in the R documentation directory) as concepts. For standard keyword entries the corresponding descriptions are additionally taken as concepts.
• New lengths() function for getting the lengths of all elements in a list.
• New function toTitleCase() in package tools, tailored to package titles.
• The matrix methods of cbind() and rbind() allow matrices as inputs which have 2^31 or more elements. (For cbind(), wish of PR#16198.)
• The default method of image() has an explicit check for a numeric or logical matrix (which was always required).
• URLencode() will not by default encode further URLs which appear to be already encoded.
• BIC(mod) and BIC(mod, mod2) now give non-NA numbers for arima() fitted models, as nobs(mod) now gives the number of “used” observations for such models. This fixes PR#16198, quite differently than proposed there.
• The print() methods for "htest", "pairwise.htest" and "power.htest" objects now have a digits argument defaulting to (a function of) getOption("digits"), and influencing all printed numbers coherently. Unavoidably, this changes the display of such test results in some cases.
• Code completion for namespaces now recognizes all loaded namespaces, rather than only the ones that are also attached.
• The code completion mechanism can now be replaced by a user-specified completer function, for (temporary) situations where the usual code completion is inappropriate.
• unzip() will now warn if it is able to detect truncation when unpacking a file of 4GB or more (related to PR#16243).
• methods() reports S4 in addition to S3 methods; output is simplified when the class argument is used. .S3methods() and methods::.S4methods() report S3 and S4 methods separately.
• Higher order functions such as the apply functions and Reduce() now force arguments to the functions they apply in order to eliminate undesirable interactions between lazy evaluation and variable capture in closures. This resolves PR#16093.

More at http://cran.rstudio.com/

Reference: http://www.r-bloggers.com/r-3-2-0-is-released-using-the-installr-package-to-upgrade-in-windows-os/

CDSA is pleased to announce a 4 days hands-on training program on “Essentials of Statistics and Data Analysis using R” at ICGEB, Aruna Asaf Ali Road, New Delhi on December 1 – 4, 2015. This will involve developing and enhancing skills to understand basic principles of statistics for summarizing data and use of appropriate statistical tests as well as providing an understanding of data analysis using R. Didactic lectures with practical sessions will be delivered by experienced faculties from AIIMS and Novartis. Live classroom with power point presentations, case studies, mock exercise, practical sessions on R, group work with time for discussion and Q&A sessions are added advantages of this workshop.

Please contact gayatrivishwakarma.cdsa@thsti.res.in or vineetabaloni.cdsa@thsti.res.in for program and registration details.

Please nominate personage or register yourself on or before November 6, 2015 along with the electronic transfer of registration fee.

If you are using Windows you can easily upgrade to the latest version of R using the installr package. Simply run the following code in Rgui:

install.packages("installr") # install 
setInternet2(TRUE)
installr::updateR() # updating R.

Running “updateR()” will detect if there is a new R version available, and if so it will download+install it (etc.). There is also a step by step tutorial (with screenshots) on how to upgrade R on Windows, using the installr package. If you only see the option to upgrade to an older version of R, then change your mirror or try again in a few hours (it usually take around 24 hours for all CRAN mirrors to get the latest version of R).

I try to keep the installr package updated and useful, so if you have any suggestions or remarks on the package – you are invited to open an issue in the github page.

Keep scrolling. Using a data set about homes, we will create a machine learning model to distinguish homes in New York from homes in San Francisco.

Address of the bookmark: http://www.r2d3.us/visual-intro-to-machine-learning-part-1/

This is necessary in light of the increasing use of higher level statistics in biomedical research. I hope it accomplishes this mission and encourage its free distribution and use as a course text or supplement.

K Seefeld, May 2007

Basic usage:

Rscript Ideoplot.R --heatmap hm.bed --annotate annotations.bed --out ideogram.pdf
-or-
Rscript Ideoplot.R --annotate annotations.bed

Options
  --ideobed, i      A bed file of reference contig lengths/chromosome names
  --heatmap, -h     Fill chromosomes with normalized heatmap
                   (described below)
  --annotate, -a    Add character annotations.
  --out, -o         PDF output name.
  --stripes, -s     Specify a file containing the layout of the
                    annotations (description below)
  --bars, -b        Add track annotations
  --reference, -f   Either hg19, or hg38
  --topdown, r      Flag, when set, flips the orientation (P arms
                    drawn on top).

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/mchaisso/Ideoplot

If you use circlize in your publications, I would be appreciated if you can cite:

Gu, Z. (2014) circlize implements and enhances circular visualization in R. Bioinformatics. DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btu393

Address of the bookmark: http://zuguang.de/circlize_book/book/

More at https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/NEWS.html

What Is Julia Language?

Julia is a programming language that came into the limelight in 2012. It is a general-purpose programming language that was designed for solving scientific computations. Julia was meant to be an alternative to Python, R and other programming languages that were mainly used for manipulating data. This is because it has numerous features that can minimize the complexities of numerical computations. 

Julia optimizes on the best features of Python and R while at the same time overlooks their weaknesses. This explains why it is viewed as an alternative to these programming languages. For instance, it utilizes the readability and simplicity of Python then performs faster.

Julia is the most preferred programming language for data scientists and mathematicians. This is because its core features are similar to the ones that are used on most data software. Also, the language is ideal for these two subjects because its syntax is similar to the standard mathematical formulas.

Key Features Of Julia Language
Uses JIT Compilation
Parallelism
Dynamic Typing
Simple Syntax
Allows Metaprogramming
Accessible to Libraries
-1-Array Indexing

Julia Vs Python And R Programming Languages
1. Speed
Julia is faster than both Python and R. This is a very critical aspect that is given special attention in the big data programming. The high speed of Julia is because of JIT compilers. You will need to install external libraries on Python to achieve similar speed.

2. Syntax
Julia has a math-friendly syntax. The syntax of this programming language is similar to the mathematical formulas hence can be used to perform mathematical and scientific computations. This syntax makes it easier to learn than Python.

3. Parallelism
Although both Python and R use parallelism, Julia uses a top-level parallelism. Julia allows the processor to perform to the optimum level than what Python and R can achieve.

4. Versatility
Julia programming language is more versatile than Python and R. It allows a programmer to move from different codes and functions with ease.

The only area that Python and R are superior to Julia is in terms of community. Given that Julia is a new programming language, it has a small community as compared to others which have been around for years.

In overall Julia programming language is a better alternative that you can use to handle Big data projects. Despite having a small community, it is one of those programming languages that you can easily learn.

Address of the bookmark: http://www2.decipher.codes/