Changelog

semtree now supports focus parameters in lavaan (but not for “fair” rule, yet)
default construction method for forests changed from “fair” to maxLR-based computation
bugfix in toTable() which would sometimes not show the decisions properly; also introduced default rounding of estimates
fixed bug in counting depth of a tree

In semtree control object, the option ‘use.maxlm’ was renamed to ‘use.maxlr’ for clarity because it refers to the maxLR statistic as proposed by Arnold et al. (2021)
bug fixes in score function: ensured symmetric labeling in the S matrix — this prevents issues with S_deriv creation; corrected labeling in the M matrix to allow proper subsetting and avoid duplicated mean labels; contributed by Moritz John
removed naive.bonferroni.correction in semtree.control object. This used to be an option to choose how the number of test was computed. This is now always the number of variables. Bonferroni correction is now also numerically more stable
moved code for Bonferroni correction outside the stopping rule code.
new vignettes to demonstrate parallel processing and Bonferroni correction

added multivariate density to evaluate loglikelihood of lavaan models (thanks to Yves Rosseel for support). New option in semtree.control allows to choose between different approaches for lavaan models. New default ist multivariate normal computation for lavaan models as it fixes bug with likelihood evaluation when the number of cases is small
now shipping a preliminary boruta implementation

added an error handler for score-based tests when the vcov matrix cannot be computed (e.g., models with Heywood cases)
leaner package imports: removed dependency on bitops and stringr package
prefer semforest_control() over semforest.control() and semtree_control() over semtree.control()
added heuristics for choosing mtry in forests (if NULL) and for choosing min.N and min.bucket (if NULL)
moved dependency on ctsemOMX to suggested package

changed default behavior of print function of varimp, such that na.omit=TRUE, which is consistent with other packages like party or partykit
fixed issues with toTable()-command, by default, all parameters are shown now, also fixed a bug with score-based tests and toTable()
fixed problem with focus-parameters and variable importance
bugfix in score-based tests that sometimes did not respect min.N constraints
new functionality for parameter contribution evaluation
more verbose vignettes
removed dependency on set, plotrix and digest package to make package imports leaner

removed all code based on parallel-package and replace by future-equivalent. Thanks to Michael Krause!
restored semtree.print() generic function that was accidentally dropped in 0.9.15
fix to score-based tests to support definition variables in OpenMx. Thanks to Manuel Arnold!

added requirement rpart.plot > 3.0.6 to avoid error w.r.t. to missing round.int
Manuel Arnold joined the team to work on a score-test implementation
fixed behavior of min.N in semtree.control()
semtree captions uses signif for truncating decision thresholds to three significant digits
fixed class type checks to be compatible with upcoming R 4.0.0

bugfix in split evaluation procedure for cases where variables are named ‘c’, which crashed semtree
bugfix in varimpConvergencePlot: na.omit command logic was inverted

semforests support for lavaan models including variable importance and partial dependence
crossvalidated likelihood supported with lavaan
plots of semtrees show correct #df when using focus parameters
added diversity functions

added NEWS.md file
bugfix to partial dependence on variables of type factor
bugfixes to plotting of partial dependence
deprecated partialDependencePlot and introduced partialDependence() function with S3 plotting method
added parallel computation option to partialDependence
added new demo scripts
added extra.legend parameter to varimpConvergencePlot
bugfix in traverse() that led to underestimations of variable importance in some cases
added error message when trying to use lavaan and global constraints

semtree 0.10.0 (2025)