summarizeParallelDirection {metapod} | R Documentation

## Summarize overall direction of parallel tests

### Description

Summarize the overall direction of parallel tests in a meta-analysis, based on the influential tests defined by one of the `parallel*` functions.

### Usage

    summarizeParallelDirection(effects, influential, threshold = 0)

### Arguments

`effects` | A list of numeric vectors of the same length, containing the effect sizes for each set of tests. Each group of tests is defined as corresponding entries across vectors.
`influential` | A list of logical vectors with the same structure as `effects`, specifying the tests that are influential to the final per-group p-value.
`threshold` | Numeric scalar defining the threshold at which an effect is “"up"” or “"down"”.

### Details

We focus on the direction of effect for the influential tests that actually contribute to a group's final p-value. For example, if we did our meta-analysis using `parallelSimes`,we are not particularly concerned about the direction of tests with large p-values. Thus, we just ignore them when summarizing the group's direction in this function. Otherwise, we would unnecessarily obtain a `mixed` direction of effect if a test with a large p-value had a weakly opposing effect.

Of course, the interpretation of “influential” really depends on the choice of meta-analysis strategy. It is also possible that this function reports a single direction when the group really is mixed, e.g., if the tests with the lowest p-values are changing in one direction but tests with weaker but still interesting effects are changing in the other direction. The extent to which this is of interest is left to the discretion of the user.

### Value

A character vector of length equal to the number of groups. Each entry can be:

- `"up"`, if all influential tests have effects above `threshold`.

- `"down"`, if all influential tests have effects below `threshold`.

- `"none"`, if all influential tests have effects equal to `threshold`.

- `"mixed"`, if there are influential tests with effects above and below `threshold`.

### Author(s)

Aaron Lun

### See Also

`parallelSimes` and related `parallel*` functions, to obtain `influential`.

`summarizeGroupedDirection`, for the equivalent function based on a grouping factor.

`countParallelDirection`, to count the number of effects in each direction.

### Examples

    p1 <- rbeta(100, 0.5, 1)
    eff1 <- rnorm(100)
    p2 <- rbeta(100, 0.5, 1)
    eff2 <- rnorm(100)

    out <- parallelSimes(list(p1, p2))
    (dir <- summarizeParallelDirection(list(eff1, eff2), out$influential))

[Package metapod version 1.2.0 Index]