version 3.18

# Calculate parameters of fit

## Description

These functions returns inclusion (consistency) and coverage, plus PRI for sufficiency and RoN for necessity. The function `pofind()` is a stripped down version of the `pof()` function, to calculate parameters of fit for single conditions.

## Usage

    pof(setms = NULL, outcome = NULL, data = NULL, relation = "necessity",
          categorical = FALSE, inf.test = "", incl.cut = c(0.75, 0.5), add = NULL, ...)
    pofind(data = NULL, outcome = "", conditions = "", relation = "necessity",
          categorical = FALSE, ...)

## Arguments

`setms` |  |  |  | A data frame of (calibrated) set memberships, or a matrix of implicants, or a vector of row numbers from the implicant matrix, or a character expression
`outcome` |  |  |  | The name of the outcome column from a calibrated data frame, or the actual numerical column from the data frame, representing the outcome.
`data` |  |  |  | The calibrated data frame, in case the `outcome` is a name.
`conditions` |  |  |  | A single string containing the conditions' (columns) names separated by commas, or a character vector of conditions' names.
`relation` |  |  |  | The set relation to `outcome`, either `"necessity"` or `"sufficiency"`, partial words like `"suf"` being accepted (see examples).
`categorical` |  |  |  | Logical, use category labels if categorical causal conditions.
`inf.test` |  |  |  | Specifies the statistical inference test to be performed (currently only `"binom"`) and the critical significance level. It can be either a vector of length 2, or a single string containing both, separated by a comma.
`incl.cut` |  |  |  | The inclusion cutoff(s): either a single value for the presence of the output, or a vector of length 2, the second for the absence of the output.
`add` |  |  |  | A function, or a list containing functions, to add more parameters of fit.
`...` |  |  |  | Other arguments to be passed to the main function.

## Details

The function `pof()` is one of the most flexible functions in the QCA package. Depending on particular situations, its arguments can be provided in various formats which are automatically recognized and treated accordingly.

When specified as a data frame, the argument `setms` contains any kind of set membership scores:

- calibrated causal conditions from the original data,

- membership scores from the resulting combinations (component `coms`) of function `superSubset()`,

- prime implicant membership scores (component `pims`) from function `minimize()`,

- any other, custom created combinations of set memberships.

When specified as a matrix, `setms` contains the crisp causal combinations similar to those found in the truth table. If some of the causal conditions have been minimized, they can be replaced by the numerical value `-1` (see examples section). The number of columns in the matrix should be equal to the number of causal conditions in the original `data`.

More generally, `setms` can be a numerical vector of line numbers from the implicant matrix (see function `createMatrix()`), which are automatically transformed into their corresponding set membership scores.

The argument `setms` can also be a string expression, written in sum of products (SOP) form.

For all other situations when `setms` is something else than a data frame, it requires the original `data` to generate the set memberships.

If character, the argument `outcome` is the name of the column from the original `data`, to be explained (it is a good practice advice to specify it using upper case letters, although it will nevertheless be converted, by default).

If the outcome column is multi-value, the argument `outcome` should use the standard curly-bracket notation `X{value}`. Multiple values are allowed, separated by a comma (for example `X{1,2}`). Negation of the outcome can also be performed using the tilde `~` operator, for example `~X{1,2}`, which is interpreted as: "all values in X except 1 and 2" and it becomes the new outcome to be explained.

The argument `outcome` can also be a numerical vector of set membership values, either directly from the original data frame, or a recoded version (if originally multi-value).

The argument `inf.test` provides the possibility to perform statistical inference tests, comparing the calculated inclusion score with a pair of thresholds (`ic1` and `ic0`) specified in the argument `incl.cut`. Currently, it can only perform binomial tests (`"binom"`), which means that data should only be provided as binary crisp (not multivalue, not fuzzy).

If the critical significance level is not provided, the default level of `0.05` is taken.

The resulting object will contain the calculated p-values (pval1 and pval0) from two separate, one-tailed tests with the alternative hypothesis that the true inclusion score is:

- greater than `ic1` (the inclusion cutoff for an output value of 1)

- greater than `ic0` (the inclusion cutoff for an output value of 0)

It should be noted that statistical tests are performing well only when the number of cases is large, otherwise they are usually not significant.

For the necessity relation, the standard measures of inclusion and coverage are supplemented with the `RoN` (Relevance of Necessity) measure, as suggested by Schneider & Wagemann's (2012).

The negation of both `setms` and `outcome` is accepted and recognized using the Boolean subtraction from 1. If the names of the conditions are provided via an optional (undocumented) argument `conditions`, the colnames of the `setms` object are negated using `negate()`.

The logical argument `neg.out` is deprecated, but backwards compatible. `neg.out = TRUE` and a tilde `~` in the outcome name don't cancel each other out, either one (or even both) signaling if the `outcome` should be negated.

The arguments from function `pofind()` are passed to the main function `pof()` to calculate parameters of fit.

## References

Cebotari, V.; Vink, M.P. (2013) “A Configurational Analysis of Ethnic Protest in Europe”. International Journal of Comparative Sociology vol.54, no.4, pp.298-324.

Schneider, C. and Wagemann, C. (2012) Set-Theoretic Metods for the Social Sciences. A Guide to Qualitative Comparative Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

## Examples

    # -----
    # Cebotari & Vink (2013) fuzzy data

    conds <- CVF[, 1:5]
    PROTEST <- CVF$PROTEST

    # parameters of fit (default is necessity)
    pof(conds, PROTEST)

                 inclN  RoN    covN
    --------------------------------
    1  DEMOC     0.741  0.758  0.713
    2  ETHFRACT  0.680  0.830  0.755
    3  GEOCON    0.904  0.492  0.624
    4  POLDIS    0.518  0.878  0.744
    5  NATPRIDE  0.708  0.523  0.539
    --------------------------------

    # parameters of fit negating the conditions
    pof(1 - conds, PROTEST)

                  inclN  RoN    covN
    ----------------------------------
    1  ~DEMOC     0.564  0.736  0.601
    2  ~ETHFRACT  0.661  0.684  0.614
    3  ~GEOCON    0.317  0.873  0.601
    4  ~POLDIS    0.631  0.517  0.493
    5  ~NATPRIDE  0.597  0.952  0.899
    ----------------------------------

    # negating the outcome
    pof(conds, 1 - PROTEST)

                 inclN  RoN    covN
    --------------------------------
    1  DEMOC     0.618  0.682  0.580
    2  ETHFRACT  0.574  0.760  0.623
    3  GEOCON    0.784  0.436  0.529
    4  POLDIS    0.335  0.776  0.470
    5  NATPRIDE  0.932  0.622  0.693
    --------------------------------

    # parameters of fit for sufficiency
    pof(conds, PROTEST, relation = "suf")

                 inclS  PRI    covS   covU
    ---------------------------------------
    1  DEMOC     0.713  0.508  0.741  0.000
    2  ETHFRACT  0.755  0.578  0.680  0.002
    3  GEOCON    0.624  0.449  0.904  0.052
    4  POLDIS    0.744  0.624  0.518  0.000
    5  NATPRIDE  0.539  0.279  0.708  0.024
    ---------------------------------------

    # also negating the outcome
    pof(conds, 1 - PROTEST, relation = "suf")

                 inclS  PRI    covS   covU
    ---------------------------------------
    1  DEMOC     0.580  0.281  0.618  0.001
    2  ETHFRACT  0.623  0.349  0.574  0.000
    3  GEOCON    0.529  0.309  0.784  0.000
    4  POLDIS    0.470  0.221  0.335  0.000
    5  NATPRIDE  0.693  0.520  0.932  0.086
    ---------------------------------------

    # -----
    # standard analysis of necessity
    # using the "coms" component from superSubset()
    nCVF <- superSubset(CVF, outcome = "PROTEST", incl.cut = 0.90, cov.cut = 0.6)

    # also checking their necessity inclusion score in the negated outcome
    pof(nCVF$coms, 1 - PROTEST)

                                           inclN   RoN   covN
    ----------------------------------------------------------
     1  GEOCON                             0.784  0.436  0.529
     2  DEMOC+ETHFRACT+~GEOCON             0.881  0.440  0.579
     3  DEMOC+~ETHFRACT+POLDIS             0.804  0.450  0.545
     4  DEMOC+ETHFRACT+POLDIS              0.821  0.458  0.558
     5  DEMOC+~ETHFRACT+~NATPRIDE          0.809  0.476  0.560
     6  DEMOC+ETHFRACT+~NATPRIDE           0.801  0.463  0.550
     7  DEMOC+~GEOCON+POLDIS               0.792  0.474  0.550
     8  DEMOC+~GEOCON+~NATPRIDE            0.779  0.513  0.562
     9  DEMOC+POLDIS+~NATPRIDE             0.708  0.492  0.515
    10  ~ETHFRACT+POLDIS+~NATPRIDE         0.815  0.501  0.575
    11  ~DEMOC+ETHFRACT+POLDIS+~NATPRIDE   0.843  0.491  0.584
    12  ETHFRACT+~GEOCON+POLDIS+~NATPRIDE  0.768  0.533  0.567
    ----------------------------------------------------------

    # -----
    # standard analysis of sufficiency
    # using the "pims" component from minimize()

    # conservative solution
    cCVF <- minimize(CVF, outcome = "PROTEST", incl.cut = 0.8, details = TRUE)

    # verify if their negations are also sufficient for the outcome
    pof(1 - cCVF$pims, PROTEST)

                                               inclN   RoN   covN
    --------------------------------------------------------------
    1  ~DEMOC+~ETHFRACT+~GEOCON                0.841  0.452  0.575
    2  ~ETHFRACT+~GEOCON+~POLDIS               0.790  0.354  0.508
    3  ~DEMOC+~ETHFRACT+~POLDIS+NATPRIDE       0.892  0.259  0.526
    4  ~DEMOC+~GEOCON+~POLDIS+~NATPRIDE        0.893  0.304  0.542
    5  DEMOC+ETHFRACT+~GEOCON+POLDIS+NATPRIDE  0.945  0.299  0.567
    --------------------------------------------------------------

    # -----
    # using a SOP expression, translated using the function translate()

    # notice that lower case letters mean the absence of a causal condition
    pof("~NATPRIDE + GEOCON => PROTEST", data = CVF)

                   inclS   PRI   covS   covU
    -----------------------------------------
    1  ~NATPRIDE   0.899  0.807  0.597  0.042
    2  GEOCON      0.624  0.449  0.904  0.349
    3  expression  0.633  0.462  0.946    -
    -----------------------------------------

    # same for the negation of the outcome
    pof("~NATPRIDE + GEOCON => ~PROTEST", data = CVF)

                   inclS   PRI   covS   covU
    -----------------------------------------
    1  ~NATPRIDE   0.561  0.156  0.381  0.018
    2  GEOCON      0.529  0.309  0.784  0.421
    3  expression  0.524  0.303  0.803    -
    -----------------------------------------

    # necessity is indicated by the reverse arrow
    pof("~NATPRIDE + GEOCON <= PROTEST", data = CVF)

                   inclN   RoN   covN
    ----------------------------------
    1  ~NATPRIDE   0.597  0.952  0.899
    2  GEOCON      0.904  0.492  0.624
    3  expression  0.946  0.468  0.633
    ----------------------------------

    # -----
    # more parameters of fit, for instance Haesebrouck' consistency

    inclH <- function(x, y) {
        sum(fuzzyand(x, y)) /
        sum(fuzzyand(x, y) + sqrt(fuzzyor(x - y, 0)*x))
    }

    pof("~NATPRIDE + GEOCON => ~PROTEST", data = CVF, add = inclH)

                   inclS   PRI   covS   covU   inclH
    ------------------------------------------------
    1  ~NATPRIDE   0.561  0.156  0.381  0.018  0.517
    2  GEOCON      0.529  0.309  0.784  0.421  0.471
    3  expression  0.524  0.303  0.803    -    0.467
    ------------------------------------------------

## Author

Adrian Dusa

## See also

`minimize`, `superSubset`