what is this function doing? replication [closed] - r

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rep_sample_n <- function(tbl, size, replace = FALSE, reps = 1)
{
rep_tbl = replicate(reps, tbl[sample(1:nrow(tbl), size, replace = replace),
], simplify = FALSE) %>%
bind_rows() %>%
mutate(replicate = rep(1:reps, each = size)) %>%
select(replicate, everything()) %>%
group_by(replicate)
return(rep_tbl)
}
Hey, can anyone help me there? What is this function doing? Is the first line setting the variables of the function? And then what is this "replicate" doing? Thanks!

Answer 1

This formula replicates your data. lets say we have a dataset of 10 observations. In order to come up with additional like-datasets of your current one, you can replicate it by introducing random sampling of your dataset.
You can check out the wikipedia page on
statistical replication if you're more curious.
Lets take a simple dataframe:
df <- data.frame(x = 1:10, y = 1:10)
df
x y
1 1 1
2 2 2
3 3 3
4 4 4
5 5 5
6 6 6
7 7 7
8 8 8
9 9 9
10 10 10
if we want to take a random sample of this, we can use the function rep_sample_n which takes 2 arguments tbl, size, and has another 2 optional arguments replace = FALSE, reps = 1.
Here is an example of us just taking 4 randomly selected columns from our data.
rep_sample_n(df, 4)
# A tibble: 4 x 3
# Groups: replicate [1]
replicate x y
<int> <int> <int>
1 1 1 1
2 1 3 3
3 1 4 4
4 1 10 10
Now if we want to randomly sample 15 observations from a 10 observation dataset, it will throw an error. Currently the replace = FALSE argument doesn't allow that because each time a sample row is chosen, it's removed from the pool for the next sample to be taken. In the example above, it chose the 1st observation, then it went to choose the 2nd (because we asked for 4), and it only have 2 through 10 left, and it chose the 3rd, then 4th and then 10th etc. If we allow replace = TRUE, it will choose an observation from the full dataset each time.
Notice how in this example, the 5th observation was chosen twice. That wouldn't happen with replace = FALSE
rep_sample_n(df, 4, replace = TRUE)
# A tibble: 4 x 3
# Groups: replicate [1]
replicate x y
<int> <int> <int>
1 1 5 5
2 1 3 3
3 1 2 2
4 1 5 5
Lastly and most importantly, we have the reps argument which is the basis for this function, really. It allows you randomly sample your dataset multiple times, and then combine all those samples together.
Below, we have sampled our original dataset of 10 observations by selecting 4 of them in a sample, then we replicated that 5 times, so we have 5 different sample dataframes of 4 observations each that have been combined together into one 20 observation dataframe, but each of the unique 5 dataframes has been tagged with a replicate #. The replicate column will point out which 4 observations goes with which replicated dataframe.
rep_sample_n(df, 4, reps = 5)
# A tibble: 20 x 3
# Groups: replicate [5]
replicate x y
<int> <int> <int>
1 1 8 8
2 1 4 4
3 1 3 3
4 1 1 1
5 2 4 4
6 2 5 5
7 2 8 8
8 2 3 3
9 3 6 6
10 3 1 1
11 3 3 3
12 3 2 2
13 4 5 5
14 4 7 7
15 4 10 10
16 4 3 3
17 5 7 7
18 5 10 10
19 5 3 3
20 5 9 9
I hope this provided some clarity

Answer 2

This function takes a data frame as input (and several input preferences). It takes a random sample of size rows from the table, with or without replacement as set by the replace input. It repeats that random sampling reps times.
Then, it binds all the samples together into a single data frame, adding a new column called "replicate" indicating which repetition of the sampling produced each row.
Finally, it "groups" the resulting table, preparing it for future group-wise operations with dplyr.
For general questions about specific functions, like "What is this "replicate" doing?", you should look at the function's help page: type ?replicate or help("replicate") to get there. It includes a description of the function and examples of how to use it. If you read the description, run the examples, and are still confused, feel free to come back with a specific question and example illustrating what you are confused by.
Similarly, for "Is the first line setting the variables of the function?", the arguments to function() are the inputs to the function. If you have basic questions about R like "How do functions work", have a look at An Introduction to R, or one of the other sources in the R Tag Wiki.