NEWS

hdMTD 0.1.4 (2025-12-18)

Simplified the S3 class hierarchy: fitted objects of class MTDest now inherit from MTD.
Removed redundant class checks from S3 methods, relying on method dispatch.
Eliminated duplicated S3 methods (coef.MTDest, probs.MTDest), which now work via inheritance.
Streamlined plotting code: overlapping plot types in plot.MTDest are delegated to plot.MTD using NextMethod().
Simplified summary() methods by printing directly from the summary output, removing auxiliary summary-print classes.
Reorganized internal helper functions (e.g., moved PI() and sx() from utils.R to dedicated files).
Improved and consolidated user-facing documentation, explicitly listing available S3 methods and accessors in the constructors’ help pages.

Modified the tie-breaking rule in the FS (Forward Selection) procedure to ensure deterministic behavior.
Updated MTD-methods, MTDest-methods and MTD-accessors documentation to remove redundant links in the help system and streamline method listings.
Sample size is now a required argument in perfectSample().
Improved the error message in logLik.MTD() when a sample is not provided.

Added a plot.MTD() method for visualizing MTD models, including bar plots of lag contributions and mixture weights, as well as directed weighted graphs (via igraph) representing each lag-specific transition matrix.
Added a plot.MTDest() method for fitted MTDest objects, which mirrors plot.MTD() but also includes EM iteration diagnostics (log-likelihood variation per update) when available.

Accessor functions for "MTD": pj(), p0(), lambdas(), lags(), Lambda(), states(), and transitP(). See ?MTD-accessors.
Accessor functions for "MTDest": pj(), p0(), lambdas(), lags(), S() and states(). See ?MTD-accessors.
Accessor functions for "hdMTD": S() and lags(). See ?MTD-accessors.
Methods for "MTD" and "MTDest" objects: added print(), summary(), coef(), logLik() and probs(). For compact inspection of lag sets, state space, mixture weights and more. See ?MTD-methods and ?MTDest-methods.
Methods for "hdMTD" objects: added print() and summary() for compact inspection of lag selection results. See ?hdMTD-methods.
Coercion: new as.MTD() to rebuild an "MTD" object from an "MTDest" fit.

probs() is now a S3 generic with methods for "MTD" and "MTDest". Returns one-step-ahead predictive probabilities either for specific contexts (context=) or from sample rows (newdata=). If neither is supplied, it returns the full global transition matrix (transitP(object) for MTD; transitP(as.MTD(object)) for MTDest).
Renamed the sample-based estimator probs(X, S, ...) to empirical_probs(X, S, ...) to avoid ambiguity: empirical_probs() estimates transition probabilities from data, while probs() returns predictive probabilities from model/fit objects.

Replaced any(is.na(X)) with anyNA(X) in checkSample() for efficiency and clarity.

Removed unused datasets (raindata, sleepscoring, testChains).
Updated examples to use simulated data (via perfectSample()) instead of the removed testChains dataset.
Internal helpers marked @keywords internal so they no longer appear in help(package="hdMTD").