R: Global options and term options for the 'ergm' package

ergm-options {ergm} | R Documentation

## Global options and term options for the `ergm` package

### Description

Options set via the built-in `options()` functions that affect `ergm` estimation and options that control the behavior of some terms.

### Global options and defaults

ergm.eval.loglik = TRUE

  Whether `ergm()` and similar functions will evaluate the likelihood of the fitted model. Can be overridden for a specific call by passing `eval.loglik` argument directly.

`ergm.loglik.warn_dyads = TRUE`

  Whether log-likelihood evaluation should issue a warning when the effective number of dyads that can vary in the sample space is poorly defined, such as if the degree sequence is constrained.

`ergm.cluster.retries = 5`

  ergm's parallel routines implement rudimentary fault-tolerance. This option controls the number of retries for a cluster call before giving up.

`ergm.term = list()`

  The default term options below.

### Term options

Term options can be set in three places, in the order of precedence from high to low:

1. As a term argument (not always). For example, `gw.cutoff` below can be set in a `gwesp` term by `gwesp(..., cutoff=X)`.

2. For functions such as `summary` that take `ergm` formulas but do not take a control list, the named arguments passed in as `...`. E.g, `summary(nw~gwesp(.5,fix=TRUE), gw.cutoff=60)` will evaluate the GWESP statistic with its cutoff set to 60.

3. As an element in a `term.options=` list passed via a control function such as `control.ergm()` or, for functions that do not, in a list with that argument name. E.g., `summary(nw~gwesp(.5,fix=TRUE), term.options=list(gw.cutoff=60))` has the same effect.

4. As an element in a global option list `ergm.term` above.

The following options are in use by terms in the `ergm` package:

`version`

  A string that can be interpreted as an R package version. If set, the term will attempt to emulate its behavior as it was that version of `ergm`. Not all past version behaviors are available.

`gw.cutoff`

  In geometrically weighted terms (`gwesp`, `gwdegree`, etc.) the highest number of shared partners, degrees, etc. for which to compute the statistic. This usually defaults to 30.

`cache.sp`

  Whether the `gwesp`, `dgwesp`, and similar terms need should use a cache for the dyadwise number of shared partners. This usually improves performance significantly and therefore defaults to `TRUE`, but it can be disabled.

`interact.dependent`

  Whether to allow and how to handle the user attempting to interact dyad-dependent terms (e.g., `absdiff("age"):triangles` or `absdiff("age")*triangles` as opposed to `absdiff("age"):nodefactor("sex")`). Possible values are `"error"` (the default), `"message"`, and `"warning"`, for their respective actions, and `"silent"` for simply processing the term.

[Package ergm version 4.1.2 Index]