Release 21: new features

This page describes the changes in Release 21.

1. Highlights

• 2 new directives
• 19 new procedures
• additional date formats
• ability to use all date formats (including user-defined ones) in graphs
• information about the syntax of commands (SYNTAX, SPSYNTAX)
• estimation of BLUPs for block terms in an analysis of variance (ABLUPS)
• generation of doubly resolvable row-column designs (AFRCRESOLVABLE, AGRCRESOLVABLE) and augmented block designs (CDNAUGMENTEDDESIGN)
• fitting of 2-dimensional spline surfaces (VSURFACE)
• new procedures to help determine the appropriate fixed terms to include in a REML analysis (VRADD, VRDISPLAY, VRDROP, VRFIT, VRKEEP, VRSETUP, VRSWITCH, VRTRY)
• meta analysis for several treatments (instead of just a single contrast), using summary results from the individual experiments (VMETA)

2. What’s new

2.1 Directives

AGRCRESOLVABLE forms doubly resolvable row-column designs.
SYNTAX obtains details of the syntax of a command and the source code of a procedure.

2.2 Procedures

ABLUPS calculates BLUPs for block terms in an ANOVA analysis.
AFRCRESOLVABLE forms doubly resolvable row-column designs, with output.
DSEPARATIONPLOT creates a separation plot for visualising the fit of a model with a dichotomous (i.e. binary) or polytomous (i.e. multi-categorical) outcome.
CDNAUGMENTEDDESIGN constructs an augmented block design, using CycDesigN if the controls are in an incomplete-block design.
FPLOTNUMBER forms plot numbers for a row-by-column design.
SPSYNTAX puts details about the syntax of commands into a spreadsheet.
VALLSUBSETS fits all subsets of the fixed terms in a REML analysis.
VASMEANS saves experiment × treatment means from analysis of a series of trials by VASERIES.
VFLC performs an F-test of random effects in a linear mixed model based on linear combinations of the responses, i.e. an FLC test.
VMETA performs a multi-treatment meta analysis using summary results from individual experiments.
VRADD adds terms from a REML fixed model into a Genstat regression.
VRDISPLAY displays output for a REML fixed model fitted in a Genstat regression.
VRDROP drops terms in a REML fixed model from a Genstat regression.
VRFIT fits terms from a REML fixed model in a Genstat regression.
VRKEEP saves output for a REML fixed model fitted in a Genstat regression.
VRSETUP sets up Genstat regression to assess terms from a REML fixed model.
VRSWITCH adds or drops terms from a REML fixed model in a Genstat regression.
VRTRY tries the effect of adding and dropping individual terms from a REML fixed model in a Genstat regression.
VSURFACE fits a 2-dimensional spline surface using REML, and estimates its extreme point.

2.3 Functions

None.

3. What’s changed

Most of the changes are compatible with Release 20, the previous release. There are a few commands, however, where new options or parameters have been inserted into the existing lists. These may cause problems in statements where option or parameter names have been omitted or abbreviated (see Section 1.7.1 of Part 1 of the Guide to the Genstat Command Language for details). To avoid any difficulty, the name of the option/parameter after the new option/parameter should be given explicitly, and not abbreviated to fewer than four characters.

Any command, where changes in Release 21 may cause incompatibilities in existing programs, is marked in Sections 3.1 and 3.2 by the symbol ^†. The full details are given in Section 3.4.

3.1 Directives

^†AKEEP can now save least significant differences for means and combined means.
COMMANDINFORMATION has renamed parameter PRESENT to PRESENTNOW, to avoid confusion with the PRESENT parameter of the OPTION and PARAMETER directives. Existing programs will still run.
FCLASSIFICATION now allows you to exclude pseudo-terms from the numbers of terms and the output formulae.
FRAME and PEN now allow an additional setting match for some of their colour parameters; this takes the colour from the setting of an associated colour parameter.
GET can now access the value that controls how 2 digits can be used to represent years.
SET can now specify the value that controls how 2 digits can be used to represent years.
PRINT and other commands that produce output now support 10 additional date representations. You can also use the custom date formats supported by the client in Genstat for Windows.
RKESTIMATES can now save information about the constant term.
SPLOAD can now print a summary of values in each data structure in the file. It also allows you to read temporarily missing values as missing.
TX2VARIATE has a new option, YEAR, to handle the new date representations that specify only months and days, and it allows you to redefine the original text to be a variate.
XAXIS, YAXIS and ZAXIS now allow custom date formats to be used for the numbers labelling the marks.

3.2 Procedures

^†ASTATUS can now save the ANOVA design structure.
^†DOTHISTOGRAM now allows means, medians or inter-quartile ranges to be included in the plot, and allows you to change the symbols that are used.
GLMM now allows you remove the positive constraint on the variance components.
^†IMPORT can now print a summary of values in each data structure in the file. The UNICOLNAMES option has been renamed as COLUNICODENAMES as the previous name had the same initial four letters as the UNICODE option.
META can now save the confidence intervals of the estimates.
PPAIR can now save the letters identifying similar items and similar groups.
^†RLASSO can now use bootstrapping to provide standard errors and confidence limits for the fitted values.
^†VAIC allows the full likelihood to be used, so that you can use the coefficients to assess fixed models.
VHOMOGENEITY can now save the results of the test.
VRMETA has been renamed VRMETAMODEL to make its purpose clearer, and avoid confusion e.g. with VMETA. No changes are needed to existing programs.
VSOM now takes the fixed and random models from the most recent VCOMPONENTS command if neither the FIXED nor the RANDOM option is specified.

3.3 Functions

RGB(t) now allows the text, t, to contain the string ‘match‘ in its second and subsequent units, to repeat the colour in the previous unit.

3.4 Incompatibilities