Step 4: Describe the Trajectories — step4

Produces tidy per-subject sequence indices and trajectory-level state, distribution, and transition summaries. Entropy is normalized Shannon entropy. Complexity is the geometric mean of entropy and transition rate, matching the common sequence complexity formulation. Integrative potential and negative exposure are time-weighted state proportions.

Usage

step4_describe(data, positive_states = NULL, negative_states = NULL, omega = 1)

Arguments

data: A vasstra_trajectories object.
positive_states: Optional states considered positive.
negative_states: Optional states considered negative.
omega: Positive exponent controlling how strongly later time points are weighted for integrative potential and negative exposure.

Value

A vasstra_description object with tidy indices, trajectory_summary, mean_time, distribution, and transitions.

Examples

long <- data.frame(
  id = rep(1:6, each = 3),
  time = rep(1:3, 6),
  state = c(
    "Low", "Low", "Low", "Low", "Low", "Average",
    "Average", "Average", "Average", "Average", "Average", "Low",
    "High", "High", "High", "High", "High", "Average"
  )
)
trajectories <- long |>
  step2_sequences(id = "id", time = "time", state = "state") |>
  step3_trajectories(n_trajectories = 3)
description <- step4_describe(
  trajectories,
  positive_states = "High",
  negative_states = "Low"
)
description
#> VaSSTra Step 4: Describe Trajectories
#>   6 subjects | 3 trajectories | 3 states