Simulate exogenous actor covariates

Create simple exogenous covariate structures for senders and receivers. The function can return static values (one row per actor) or time-stamped processes (one row per actor and time point) that follow independent AR(1) dynamics.

Usage

simulate_actor_covariates(
  senders,
  receivers,
  covariate_names,
  time_points = NULL,
  sd = 1,
  rho = 0,
  seed = NULL
)

Arguments

senders

Character vector of sender actors.

receivers

Character vector of receiver actors.

covariate_names

Character vector naming the covariates to simulate.

time_points

Optional numeric vector of strictly increasing time stamps for time-varying covariates. When omitted, static covariates are returned.

sd

Standard deviation of the innovation noise.

rho

AR(1) coefficient used when time_points is supplied. Must be in (-1, 1).

seed

Optional integer to make the simulation reproducible.

Value

A list with two elements: sender_covariates and receiver_covariates. Each element is either a wide data.frame (static case) or a tidy data.frame with columns actor, time, covariate, and value (dynamic case).

Examples

sender_cov <- simulate_actor_covariates(
  senders = letters[1:3],
  receivers = LETTERS[1:2],
  covariate_names = c("activity", "recency"),
  time_points = seq(0, 4),
  rho = 0.6,
  sd = 0.2,
  seed = 123
)
str(sender_cov)
#> List of 2
#>  $ sender_covariates  :'data.frame':	30 obs. of  4 variables:
#>   ..$ actor    : chr [1:30] "a" "a" "a" "a" ...
#>   ..$ time     : int [1:30] 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 ...
#>   ..$ covariate: chr [1:30] "activity" "activity" "activity" "activity" ...
#>   ..$ value    : num [1:30] -0.1401 0.2277 0.1625 0.1897 -0.0236 ...
#>  $ receiver_covariates:'data.frame':	20 obs. of  4 variables:
#>   ..$ actor    : chr [1:20] "A" "A" "A" "A" ...
#>   ..$ time     : int [1:20] 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 ...
#>   ..$ covariate: chr [1:20] "activity" "activity" "activity" "activity" ...
#>   ..$ value    : num [1:20] 0.107 0.243 0.31 0.297 0.117 ...