monte {ssExtra}R Documentation

Generate Objects of Class "monteDoubleSampling"

Description

This is the ‘phantom’ generic for generating objects of class "monteDoubleSampling." Phantom because in reality the generic is defined in sampSurf and this documentation just links that generic to the double sampling framework; i.e., there is no new monte generic definition in package ssExtra. There are currently two methods corresponding to this generic for double sampling, the main one being for objects of class ssBigBAF; the full documentation for both methods may be found in monte-methods.

Usage

monte(object, ...)

Arguments

object

Signature argument, which differs for each method. This specifies the population from which samples will be drawn.

...

See methods.

Details

The methods associated with this generic should be used to construct objects of class "monteDoubleSampling." These objects are specifically designed to hold information about Monte Carlo experiments where one resamples from a known population to infer efficiency and perhaps locate any bias in different sampling estimators. The constructor methods can be used to look at traditional normal theory and bootstrap confidence intervals in terms of nominal capture rates for the population mean.

As already noted, the monte generic is actually defined in sampSurf (see monte for details) and has been appropriated here for use in double sampling designs. The structure of the double sampling objects is quite different than those for the original sampSurf version. Thus, there is no new monte generic defined, but there are new methods defined for the generic in this package for double sampling designs. See the returned value below for the difference.

Value

A valid object of class “monteDoubleSampling”.

Note

Please note that there are two methods currently associated with the monte generic that can be used for double sampling. However, only the main method whose signature argument is of class “ssBigBAF” should normally be called by the user. The second constructor method takes and object of class “monteBigBAF”. This may seem a little strange, as this is the class that we are actually building in the first constructor. The key here is that the point-based Delta method (PBDM), or “Lynch's method”, for big BAF sampling variance estimation, was not developed until after the main code was written. It seemed best not to add to the rather long original constructor method for “ssBigBAF” objects or the code would be very difficult to follow, indeed much more so than it already is. Also, adding the code through a simple function would have entailed passing a large number of arguments, or a a large list object to the function to add the required components for the PBDM. The simplest strategy was to build an almost complete object with everything but the PBDM variance components in the main (“ssBigBAF”-based) constructor, pass this invalid object to the “monteBigBAF”-based constructor method, and return from that a valid object of class “monteBigBAF”.

This process does indeed work well. Please note that calling the “monteBigBAF”-based constructor with a valid object will not hurt anything as it will simply write over the contents of the PBDM additions. So if one is inclined to do so, one can with no harm done other than a little wasted CPU time; and there may be some occasion to do so, but it is largely discouraged. The upshot is that one should simply use the monte constructor method with signature for “ssBigBAF” objects and that is all that is necessary to construct a valid object of class“monteBigBAF”.

Author(s)

Jeffrey H. Gove

References

The ‘“monte”: When is n Sufficiently Large?’ vignette in sampSurf.

Please also see the User's Guide vignette for the ssExtra package.

See Also

monte, monteDoubleSampling, monte-methods

Examples

#
# this example is commented-out because it consumes a lot of 
# cpu time when checking the package--just copy and paste
# it if you want to try them out...
#
# from an existing ssBigBAF object wpAll520.bb that has
# surfaces with count BAF = 5, and big BAF = 20...
#
## Not run: 
wpAll520.mc = monte(wpAll520.bb, n=c(10,25,50), start=355, mcS=50)
hist(wpAll520.mc)

## End(Not run)


[Package ssExtra version 0.1-2 Index]