[R-pkgs] Major update: meta version 2.0-0

[Guido Schwarzer]

Version 2.0-0 of meta (an R package for meta-analysis) is now available 
on CRAN. Changes are described below.

Yours,
Guido


Major revision

R package meta linked to R package metafor by Wolfgang Viechtbauer to 
provide additional statistical methods, e.g. meta-regression and other 
estimates for tau-squared (REML, ...)

New functions:
  - metareg              (meta-regression)
  - metabias             (generic method for function metabias)
  - metabias.default     (generic method for function metabias)
  - metabias.meta        (generic method for function metabias)
  - metabias.rm5         (generic method for function metabias)
  - print.rm5            (generic method for rm5-object)
  - print.summary.rm5    (generic method for rm5-object)
  - summary.rm5          (generic method for rm5-object)
  - catmeth              (function used internally)
  - crtitle              (function used internally)
  - hypergeometric       (function used internally)
  - is.installed.metafor (function used internally)
  - kentau               (function used internally)
  - linregcore           (function used internally)
  - p2logit              (function used internally)

Functions metabin, metacont, metacor, metagen, metaprop:
  - new arguments:
    - hakn (Hartung-Knapp method)
    - method.tau (estimation method for tau-squared)
    - tau.preset (fixed value for tau)
    - TE.tau (prespecified treatment effect to estimate tau)
    - method.bias (test for funnel plot asymmetry used in metabias)
    - label.left (Label on left side of forest plot, new argument in
                  functions metabin, metacont, and metagen)
    - label.right (Label on right side of forest plot, new argument in
                   functions metabin, metacont, and metagen)
    - warn (print warning messages, new argument in functions metacont
            and metagen)
  - new list components of returned object:
    - se.tau2 (standard error of tau-squared)
    - hakn (Hartung-Knapp method)
    - method.tau (estimation method for tau-squared)
    - tau.preset (fixed value for tau)
    - TE.tau (prespecified treatment effect to estimate tau)
    - method.bias (test for funnel plot asymmetry used in metabias)
    - label.left (Label on left side of forst plot, new list component
                  in functions metabin, metacont, and metagen)
    - label.right (Label on right side of forst plot, new list component
      in functions metabin, metacont, and metagen)
  - argument 'warn' suppresses more warning messages if FALSE
  - function metabin: studies are excluded from meta-analysis if
    (event.e > n.e | event.c > n.c) or (n.e <= 0 | n.c <= 0) or
    (event.e < 0 | event.c < 0)

Function metacum and metainf:
  - modified so that NULL is returned if function is used with a single
    study
  - modified so that new arguments hakn, method.tau, tau.preset,
    method.bias, label.left, label.right are considered in execution of
    the function
  - argument level removed

Function metaprop:
  - modified so that the correct variance function 1/(n+0.5) instead of
    1/(n+1) is used for the Freeman-Tukey-Transformation (i.e. sm="PFT")
  - see also news on function asin2p

Function asin2p:
  - completely rewritten as back transformation of Freeman-Tukey
    transformed proportions was inaccurate
  - back transformation of Freeman-Tukey proportions according to
    Miller (1978) - see help page of R command metaprop

Function print.metabias:
  - print a warning if number of studies is too small to conduct a
    test for funnel plot asymmetry (see new argument k.min)

Function print.summary.meta:
  - new argument bylab.nchar
  - print test for subgroup differences for both fixed effect and
    random effects model
  - value 'invisible(NULL)' returned for metacum and metainf objects

Function metacr:
  - new arguments:
    - sm (summary measure)
    - method (pooling method)
    - comb.fixed (fixed effect model)
    - comb.random (random effects model)
    - swap.events (only for binary data)
    - method.tau (estimation method for between-study variance)
    - hakn (Hartung-Knapp adjustment)
    - title (Title of Cochrane review)
    - complab (Comparison label)
    - outclab (Outcome label)
    - warn (print warning messages)
  - removed argument:
    - smother (summary measure)
  - value 'NULL' returned if no data is available for selection of
    comp.no and outcome.no

Function read.rm5:
   - changed substantially for reading of RevMan 5.1 files

Function summary.meta:
  - modified so that new arguments hakn, method.tau, tau.preset,
    method.bias are considered in execution of the function
  - argument 'warn' suppresses more warning messages

Function forest.meta:
  - modified so that the treatment effect and 95% confidence interval
    is printed in the correct order for objects of class metaprop if
    argument sort or order is used
  - symmetric forest plot by default (argument xlim="s")
  - new arguments:
    - smlab, smlab.pos, fs.smlab, fflab
      (Label for summary measure - at top of figure)
    - label.right, label.left, fs.lr, ff.lr
      (Label on right and left side)
    - overall.hetstat (heterogeneity information for overall effect)

Function funnel.default and funnel.meta:
  - modified so that arguments col.fixed and col.random are recognised

Function metabias.default and metabias.meta:
  - new argument k.min:
    test for funnel plot asymmetry only conducted if number of studies
    in meta-analysis is larger or equal to k.min
  - new argument '...' (ignored at the moment)

Function trimfill.default and trimfill.meta:
  - value 'invisible(NULL)' returned if number of studies is smaller
    than 3

New datasets: amlodipine, cisapride

File FLEISS93.MTV moved from directory data to directory extdata

Update of several help pages. Some new help pages added.

-- 
Dr. Guido Schwarzer (sc at imbi.uni-freiburg.de)
Institute of Medical Biometry and Medical Informatics
Stefan-Meier-Str. 26, D-79104 Freiburg | Phone: +49 (0)761 203 6668
http://www.imbi.uni-freiburg.de        | Fax:   +49 (0)761 203 6680