Matrices are important mathematical objects, and they often describe
networks of flows among nodes. Example networks are given in the
following table. The power of matrices lies in their ability to organize
network-wide calculations, thereby simplifying the work of analysts who
study entire systems. However, three problems arise when performing
matrix operations in R and other languages. The
R package matsbyname enables matrix
mathematics wherein operations are performed “by name” and row and
column types are allowed.
Although built-in matrix functions ensure size conformity of matrix
operands, they do not respect the names of rows and columns (known as
dimnames in R). If the rows and columns are
not in the same order, mathematical operations with matrices are
nonsensical.
In many cases, operand matrices may have different numbers or different names of rows or columns. This situation can occur when, for example, products or industries changes across time periods. When performing matrix operations, rows or columns of zeros must be added to ensure name conformity. The analyst’s burden is cumbersome. But worse problems await. Respecting names (and adding rows and columns of zeroes) can lead to an inability to invert matrices downstream.
Matrix functions provided by R and other languages do
not ensure type conformity for matrix operands to matrix algebra
functions. In the example of matrix multiplication, columns of the
multiplicand must contain the same type of information as the as the
rows of the multiplier. If the columns of A are
countries, then the rows of B must also be countries
(and in the same order) if A %*%
B is to make sense.
This package provides functions that respect row and column names
when performing matrix mathematics in R. Furthermore,
operations can be performed on lists of matrices, such as columns in a
matsindf data
frame.
You can install matsbyname from CRAN with:
install.packages("matsbyname")You can install a recent development version of
matsbyname from github with:
# install devtools if not already installed
# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("MatthewHeun/matsbyname")
# To build vignettes locally, use
devtools::install_github("MatthewHeun/matsbyname", build_vignettes = TRUE)The functions in this package were used in Heun et al. (2018).
Find more information, including vignettes and function documentation, at https://MatthewHeun.github.io/matsbyname/.