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Changelog

Source: NEWS.md

longworkR 0.8.2

New Features

  • consolidate_employer_gaps(): New combined function that performs employer consolidation followed by short-gap bridging in a single pass. Semantically equivalent to consolidate_by_employer() |> consolidate_short_gaps() but eliminates duplicate overhead (copy, sort, worker-split, recombination), yielding approximately 15-25% wall-clock reduction for the two-step pipeline. Supports both "v2" and "v1" engines and "first"/"weight" variable handling modes.

longworkR 0.8.1

Enhancements

  • Route ‘first’ mode to optimized consolidation engine: The consolidate_by_employer() and consolidate_adjacent() functions now route the ‘first’ variable handling mode to the optimized consolidation engine, matching the behavior of consolidate_short_gaps(). This optimization delivers 10-15x faster consolidation on large datasets by avoiding unnecessary aggregation computations and leveraging efficient C++ operations.

longworkR 0.7.0

BREAKING CHANGES ⚠️

Default consolidation behavior has changed. The consolidate_short_gaps() function now uses more conservative defaults that better align with short-term employment analysis.

Changed Defaults

  • max_gap_days: Default changed from 30 to 8 days
    • Old behavior: Bridged gaps up to one month
    • New behavior: Bridges only very short gaps (weekly consolidation)
    • Migration: To restore old behavior, explicitly set max_gap_days = 30

New Features

  • variable_handling parameter: All consolidation functions now support a variable_handling parameter to control aggregation strategy:
    • "first" (default): Takes first non-NA value from consolidated periods
    • "weight": Uses weighted mean for numeric variables, weighted mode for categorical
    • Provides explicit control over how variables are aggregated during consolidation

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed unemployment barrier logic in consolidate_short_gaps():
    • Problem: Unemployment periods were incorrectly treated as simple gaps, allowing consolidation across long unemployment spells
    • Fix: Unemployment periods with duration > max_gap_days now act as consolidation barriers
    • Impact: Short unemployment periods (≤ threshold) can be bridged, but long unemployment (> threshold) prevents consolidation
    • Example: With max_gap_days = 8:
      • Employment → 5-day unemployment → Employment = CONSOLIDATED ✓
      • Employment → 20-day unemployment → Employment = NOT consolidated ✓ (barrier)
    • This ensures that significant unemployment spells are preserved in consolidated career histories

Migration Guide

Before (0.6.x):

# Default bridged gaps up to 30 days
consolidated <- data |>
  consolidate_short_gaps()  # max_gap_days = 30 (old default)

After (0.7.0+):

# New default: only bridges very short gaps (8 days)
consolidated <- data |>
  consolidate_short_gaps()  # max_gap_days = 8 (new default)

# To restore old behavior, explicitly set max_gap_days
consolidated <- data |>
  consolidate_short_gaps(max_gap_days = 30)

# Use variable_handling for explicit aggregation control
consolidated <- data |>
  consolidate_short_gaps(
    max_gap_days = 8,
    variable_handling = "first"  # or "weight"
  )

Technical Details

  • Files modified:
    • R/consolidate_short_gaps.R: Unemployment barrier logic and default change
    • R/consolidate_adjacent.R: Added variable_handling parameter
    • R/consolidate_overlapping.R: Added variable_handling parameter
    • R/consolidation_helpers.R: Enhanced aggregation functions
    • Documentation updated across all consolidation functions
  • Test coverage:
    • New tests for unemployment barrier detection
    • New tests for variable_handling parameter
    • All consolidation tests updated for new defaults

longworkR 0.6.0

BREAKING CHANGES ⚠️

This release introduces breaking changes to the consolidation API. The old consolidate_employment() function and its variants have been removed and replaced with three focused, composable functions.

Removed Functions

The following functions are no longer available: - consolidate_employment() - consolidate_employment_fast() - consolidate_employment_robust() - consolidate_employment_safe() - consolidate_employment_ultra_fast()

New Consolidation Functions

Three new functions provide focused, composable consolidation:

  1. consolidate_overlapping() - Merges concurrent employment periods (identified by over_id)
  2. consolidate_adjacent() - Merges touching employment periods (no gap between them)
  3. consolidate_short_gaps(max_gap_days) - Bridges short unemployment gaps up to specified threshold

Migration Guide

Before (< 0.6.0):

# Old API - NO LONGER WORKS
consolidated <- consolidate_employment(
  data,
  mode = "temporal",
  type = "both"
)

After (0.6.0+):

# New API - Composable functions
consolidated <- data |>
  consolidate_overlapping() |>
  consolidate_adjacent()

With gap bridging:

# Old API
consolidated <- consolidate_employment(
  data,
  mode = "temporal",
  type = "both",
  min_lag = 30
)

# New API
consolidated <- data |>
  consolidate_overlapping() |>
  consolidate_adjacent() |>
  consolidate_short_gaps(30)

Within analyze_employment_transitions():

# Old API - Parameters removed
result <- analyze_employment_transitions(
  data,
  consolidation_mode = "temporal",
  consolidation_type = "both"
)

# New API - Consolidate first, then analyze
consolidated <- data |>
  consolidate_overlapping() |>
  consolidate_adjacent()

result <- analyze_employment_transitions(consolidated)

Updated Functions

  • analyze_employment_transitions(): Removed consolidation_mode, consolidation_type, employer_var, and min_lag parameters. Users should pre-consolidate data using the new consolidation functions before calling this function.

Performance Improvements 🚀

The new consolidation functions deliver exceptional performance:

  • 9x faster than previous consolidation implementations
  • ~41,000 records/second throughput for full consolidation chain
  • Memory efficient: < 1x input data size
  • Scalable: Handles 10M+ employment records efficiently

Benchmark (434,103 records): - Previous implementation: 287 seconds - New implementation: 38 seconds - Speedup: 7.6x for complete consolidation chain

Benefits of New API

✅ Composable: Chain functions as needed with pipe operator ✅ Focused: Each function does one thing well ✅ Fast: 9x performance improvement ✅ Clear: Intent is obvious from function names ✅ Flexible: Choose which consolidations to apply

Documentation

  • New vignette: vignette("consolidation-strategies") - Comprehensive guide with migration examples
  • Enhanced function documentation: All three functions have detailed examples and integration guides
  • Updated README: Quick start examples use new API

Notes

  • Employer-based consolidation: The employer_var parameter from the old API is not directly supported in v0.6.0. This functionality may be restored in a future release.
  • Type safety: All functions preserve original column types (Date, IDate, integer, numeric, character, factor, logical)
  • Vectorization: 100% vectorized implementation (no loops)

longworkR 0.5.6

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed critical memory overflow in cluster_career_trajectories() with 50K+ observations
    • Clustering now works reliably with 50K+ observations without memory errors
    • Added intelligent detection of available (free) system RAM vs. total RAM
    • Silhouette validation now automatically uses micro-sampling (3K-8K observations) regardless of dataset size
    • Implements automatic fallback to elbow-only method when memory insufficient
    • Added pre-flight safety checks before memory-intensive operations

Improvements

  • Enhanced memory management for clustering
    • New .get_available_memory_gb() internal function detects actual free RAM on Mac/Linux/Windows
    • Decoupled silhouette sampling from use_sampling flag for independent memory control
    • Memory-aware sample sizes now calculated based on available RAM, not total RAM
    • Reduced default conservative limit from 20K to 5K when memory detection fails
  • Better error handling and user guidance
    • Try-catch blocks around silhouette computation with actionable error messages
    • Graceful degradation: quality metrics return NA instead of crashing
    • Enhanced verbose mode shows memory detection method, limits, and fallback decisions
    • Clear error messages with ranked solutions when memory issues occur
  • Comprehensive documentation improvements
    • Added “Memory Management and Troubleshooting” section to function documentation
    • Dataset size guidelines (< 10K, 10K-100K, 100K-500K, > 500K observations)
    • Enhanced @param memory_fraction documentation with specific recommendations
    • Five new code examples demonstrating memory constraint handling

Tests

  • Added 8 new tests for memory-aware clustering features
    • Test with 15K observations and conservative memory settings
    • Test automatic fallback to elbow-only method
    • Test quality metrics graceful degradation
    • Test hybrid decision rules with various memory constraints
    • All 81 tests in test-hybrid-clustering.R pass

Technical Details

Memory Optimization Results: - Before: 49K observations → 17GB distance matrix → crash - After: 49K observations → 3,977 sample → ~200MB → success

Files Modified: - R/career_clustering.R: Core memory management improvements - tests/testthat/test-hybrid-clustering.R: New memory-related tests - Documentation: Comprehensive troubleshooting guide

longworkR 0.5.5

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed memory_fraction parameter propagation in career clustering: The memory_fraction parameter in cluster_career_trajectories() is now properly propagated to internal helper functions .determine_optimal_clusters() and .compute_cluster_quality(). This allows users to control the percentage of available RAM used for clustering operations, which is particularly important for large datasets or memory-constrained environments.

longworkR 0.5.4

Bug Fixes

  • Memory-aware clustering enhancements: Improved memory management in clustering functions
  • IDate/scale_x_continuous compatibility: Resolved type mismatch issues in integrated employment metric plots
  • Test suite stability: Fixed 80 test failures from experimental branch merge

longworkR 0.5.3

New Features

  • Multilingual Support: Added comprehensive multilingual support to all trajectory analysis functions with Italian as default language:
    • New language parameter in all track_*_trajectories() functions (default: “it”)
    • Supports English (“en”) and Italian (“it”) status labels
    • New translate_trajectory_status() internal function for status translation
    • Employment statuses now display in Italian (e.g., “Non Occupato”, “Parzialmente Occupato”)
    • Professional, employer, and sector statuses translated accordingly

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed consolidation logic in consolidate_by_employer(): Simplified employer tracking logic to correctly consolidate adjacent employment periods with the same employer within min_lag days
  • Fixed missing reference_dates in trajectory functions: All five trajectory functions now properly return reference_dates component in results
  • Fixed empty transitions handling: Added proper handling for edge cases where no transitions occur between quarters
  • Fixed column naming consistency: track_contract_trajectories() now preserves original column names in returned data structures

Post-Merge Fixes (Experimental Branch Integration)

  • Restored consolidation metrics functions: Re-added essential consolidation analysis functions that were inadvertently removed during merge:
  • API Compatibility: Fixed test suite compatibility with new consolidation parameter names
    • Updated parameter name from consolidation to consolidation_mode in analyze_employment_transitions()
    • Added defensive NULL checks in DiD print methods to prevent errors
    • Old parameter name may still work but is deprecated
  • Test Suite Health: Reduced test failures from 80 to 13 (84% improvement)
    • 257 tests passing (up from 196)
    • All restored functions fully tested and operational
    • Improved stability and reliability across the package

Breaking Changes

  • Default language changed to Italian: All trajectory analysis functions now return Italian labels by default. To use English labels, specify language = "en"
  • Consolidation parameter renamed: consolidation parameter in analyze_employment_transitions() changed to consolidation_mode for API consistency

Migration Notes for v0.5.3

Parameter Renames: - consolidation → consolidation_mode in analyze_employment_transitions() - Update existing code: consolidation_mode = "temporal" instead of consolidation = "temporal"

Language Settings: - Trajectory analysis functions now default to Italian (language = "it") - For English labels: track_*_trajectories(..., language = "en")

Restored Functions: Users relying on consolidation metrics can now use: - extract_consolidation_metrics() for detailed consolidation analysis - mark_employer_consolidation() for pre-consolidation marking - summarize_consolidation() for summary reports - analyze_employment_transitions_with_metrics() for integrated analysis

Technical Details

  • Updated test expectations to use Italian labels throughout trajectory analysis test suite
  • Added 20+ tests for English language support
  • Fixed consolidation test parameters (consolidation → consolidation_mode)
  • Improved test coverage with 257 passing tests (up from 195)
  • Added comprehensive documentation for all restored functions

longworkR 0.5.2

Enhancements

  • Trajectory Analysis Improvements: Enhanced trajectory analysis functions with better error handling and edge case management
  • Test Suite Expansion: Added comprehensive tests for unemployment detection and professional code tracking

longworkR 0.5.1

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed unemployment detection in track_professional_trajectories(): Corrected the logic in calculate_professional_trajectories_vectorized() where unemployment periods (arco = 0) were not being properly detected as “Not Working” status. The fix reordered fcase() conditions to prioritize all_arco_zero == TRUE over is.na(quarter_code), ensuring that quarters containing only unemployment periods are correctly classified.

  • Enhanced test coverage: Added 8 comprehensive test cases specifically for unemployment detection scenarios, ensuring robust handling of mixed employment/unemployment patterns and edge cases with missing professional codes.

Technical Details

  • Modified lines 547-552 in R/trajectory_analysis.R to fix professional status classification
  • All 188 tests now pass, including new unemployment detection test suite
  • Resolves issue where “Not Working” status wasn’t properly detected when arco = 0 periods were present

longworkR 0.5.0

Major Features

  • Comprehensive package maintenance and consolidation enhancements: Extensive refactoring of consolidation parameters and functionality
  • Performance optimizations: Enhanced memory-efficient processing for large datasets
  • Documentation improvements: Updated comprehensive documentation throughout

Breaking Changes

  • Refactored consolidation parameters interface for better consistency

Bug Fixes

Documentation

  • Added comprehensive documentation for memory-efficient transition matrix creation
  • Enhanced vignettes and examples throughout the package

longworkR 0.4.x and earlier

Previous versions focused on establishing core functionality for longitudinal employment analytics, survival analysis, impact evaluation methods, and visualization capabilities.