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Past Changelog

What's new in Past 4.02

Apr 13, 2020
  • Google Maps replaced with Open Street Maps (because free limit on Google Maps calls was exceeded).
  • Added compositional data transforms (ALR, CLR, ILR).
  • Changed the color selector for rows.
  • Confidence interval for forecast added to bivariate regression.
  • Past can now be started by clicking on a data file, if you set the association manually (“Open with”).
  • Help texts added to 20 modules
  • Bug fix: Save as type other than Past did not work (this is not an option on Mac)
  • Bug fix: Dragging (moving) columns in the spreadsheet possibly fixed
  • Bug fix: Smoothing spline: Copy-paste of the “Given points” table did not work

New in Past 4.01 (Apr 13, 2020)

  • Scripting re-introduced
  • Google Maps re-introduced
  • Bubble plot and bar chart options added to Google Maps
  • Help text added to 42 modules
  • 3D surface and parametric surface background changed to white
  • Bug fix: Nonlinear fitting: Zero-constant option did not work for power and exponential functions
  • Bug fix: Pie chart crashed for all-zero columns
  • Bug fix: Occasional crash in Short-time Fourier Transform
  • Bug fix: SVG export of matrix plot gave interpolated image even with interpolation turned off
  • Bug fix: “Replace” function very slow for big data sets
  • Bug fix: “Model->Species packing” crashed for all-zero and singleton columns
  • Bug fix: “Model->Bivariate” crashed when restarting without first closing window

New in Past 4.0 (Apr 13, 2020)

  • The first 64-bit version of Past, allowing even larger data volumes
  • Google Maps and scripting disabled, hopefully to return in next version
  • Polar plot
  • Bug fix: XY graph crashed for non-numerical data values
  • Bug fix: Labels shifted vertical position when rotated
  • Bug fix: Mann-Whitney test failed for very large N (>45,000).
  • Bug fix: Normal probability plot correlation coefficient incorrect for very large N (>45,000).
  • Bug fix: Individual rarefaction crashed when restarting with window open. in Google Maps polygons (bug recently introduced)
  • Better centering of group labels
  • Bar chart (Graph module) now shows the row colours
  • Help text added to 11 modules

New in Past 3.26 (Apr 13, 2020)

  • Bug fix: Polyserial correlation did not do anything
  • Bug fix: Correlation matrix ellipses had wrong orientation for r

New in Past 3.25 (Apr 13, 2020)

  • Change point analysis for univariate and multivariate time series
  • Non-local means denoising added to “Simple smoothers”
  • Bihistogram option added to Histogram module
  • SVG export now supports “foreign” characters (e.g. Ø, ü, ô)
  • Google Maps: Quality improvement in plotting of points (symbols).
  • When plotting several bivariate regressions, the points now get distinct colors
  • CCA: Option for estimating site scores of “mystery rows” without environmental data
  • Bug fix: Column type ‘Nominal’ not read when opening a Past file
  • Bug fix, Correlation: Correlation ellipses not rendered properly in SVG for R=1 and R=-1
  • Help texts added to 12 modules

New in Past 3.24 (Apr 1, 2019)

  • Histogram: Confidence intervals (Clopper-Pearson), and numerical output.
  • Graph and XY graph: Silhouette plot option
  • Pie chart: Support for multiple pies (columns)
  • Discriminant analysis: New option for showing matrix C or WcovC in the loadings table
  • Stratigraphic chart: Numerous improvements and bug fixes
  • Bug fix: Range of grid made more robust in Thin Plate Spline Deformation module.
  • Bug fix: Matrix plot and similar plots could get white spots after opening and closing the graph settings window
  • Help texts added to 12 modules

New in Past 3.23 (Apr 1, 2019)

  • Network plotting
  • Common Allometric Components analysis for 3D landmarks
  • WA-PLS added to calibration methods
  • Lilliefors test added to tests for normal distribution (although inferior to Shapiro-Wilk and Anderson-Darling)
  • Confidence interval for ratios of counts (as used in some faunal indices)
  • Improved handling of missing values in Simple periodogram; FIR filter; Short time Fourier analysis; wavelet analysis.
  • Help texts added to 11 modules (to be continued in future versions)
  • Bug fix: Google Maps was not working anymore after a version compatibility problem
  • Bug fix: Highpass option in FIR filtering was not operational
  • Bug fix: Some modules crashed the program if only group columns were selected
  • Bug fix: Axis labels sometimes had excessive trailing zeroes

New in Past 3.22 (Dec 19, 2018)

  • New option in cluster analysis: Constrain clustering to given groups, and collapse clusters to the groups.
  • Common Allometric Components analysis for 2D landmarks
  • Function to fill cells with value (useful for several things)
  • Symbol size can now be set to 0, allowing only convex hulls or concentration ellipses to be plotted, not the individual points
  • Graph plot now allows plotting also by rows, not only columns
  • Pie chart, stacked chart, radar chart: Treatment of missing values improved.
  • Column widths, if changed by user, are now saved with the Past file.
  • Text export of concentration ellipse parameters
  • Bug fix: Standard error on the intercept in RMA and MA bivariate regression was incorrect
  • Bug fix: Excessive line width of concentration ellipses in exported PDF
  • Bug fix: Export of degenerate (zero-size) concentration ellipses to PDF gave warning message in Acrobat Reader
  • Bug fix: Summary statistics, calculation of 25th and 75th percentiles failed for N

New in Past 3.21 (Oct 16, 2018)

  • Plotting of user-defined lines and polygons (links) in 2D and 3D landmark PCA, landmark linear regression and thin-plate splines
  • Radar (spider) plot
  • Analytical rarefaction of Shannon’s H and Simpson’s D (no confidence intervals yet)
  • 3D scatter plot now supports the different symbols, not only dots
  • Bug fix, contingency tables; limit on table size for Fisher’s exact test was too strict
  • Bug fix: Plotting of data with extremely small maximum values (20,000)
  • Bug fix: Copy graphic button did not work in the Diversity menu
  • Bug fix: No colour legend displayed for bivariate linear regression on multiple columns

New in Past 3.20 (Oct 16, 2018)

  • Wavelet analysis for time series with unequal spacing (Weighted Wavelet Z-transform)
  • CABFAC factor analysis of ecological data, with calibration (environmental reconstruction)
  • Correlation length analysis for point patterns (alternative to Ripley’s K)
  • Minimal Spanning Tree analysis for point patterns (alternative to Nearest Neighbours)
  • Linear regression of 3D landmarks, with 3D visualization
  • Ctrl-key shortcuts changed to Cmd-key on Mac
  • Option for colour coding of third variate in bubble plot
  • Option to set number of displayed decimals in the spreadsheet
  • Improved clipping of plots to graphics window
  • Improved XY plot for multiple XY graphs (pairs of columns can be given colours and symbols)
  • Numerical output added to normal probability plot
  • Bug fix: Incorrect scaling of Moran’s I (spatial autocorrelation)
  • Bug fix: Anderson-Darling two-sample test was incorrect for N>650
  • Bug fix: Kruskal-Wallis test did not handle missing data correctly
  • Bug fix: Export of 95% ellipses to PDF was inaccurate

New in Past 3.19 (Oct 16, 2018)

  • Random-effects ANOVA, one-way and two-way, with variance components
  • Prais-Winsten linear regression for data with serially correlated residuals
  • Violin plot (in box plot module)
  • Box plot: Option for “notches” (confidence interval for median)
  • Box plot: Default quartile method changed to “Interpolation”
  • Nonlinear fit: Option for forcing the constant term to zero.
  • t test and F test: Reporting of critical value of the test statistic
  • Diversity indices: Option for “unbiased” versions of Simpson and Shannon-Wiener
  • New “Recover windows” button for those disappearing windows (old bug)
  • Rose plot: Visual improvements
  • Mosaic plot: Option to hide zero cells
  • Observed S added to Quadrat richness
  • Normal probability plot now accepts several samples (columns)
  • Bug fix: Formatting of individual rarefaction table when error bar bars not included
  • Bug fix: Copy button in Anderson-Darling test did not work
  • Bug fix: y=0 values were not accepted for several functions in nonlinear fit
  • Small quality improvements in SVG and PDF export

New in Past 3.18 (Mar 1, 2018)

  • Anderson-Darling test for equal distributions
  • Density plot in ternary diagram
  • Row normalize length (Transform menu)
  • Permutation tests for covariances in PLS
  • Savitzky-Golay method added to Simple smoothers
  • RASC: Added variance analysis (deviation from line of correlation)
  • Transform landmarks: Rotate point cloud by arbitrary angle
  • Bug fix: Paste caused freezing (bug introduced in 3.17)
  • Bug fix: Occasional freeze in contingency table analysys
  • Bug fix: Ternary diagram gridded map (4th column plot) clipped at bottom
  • Bug fix: Moran’s I table did not update when changing bin number

New in Past 3.17 (Mar 1, 2018)

  • Epps-Singleton test for equal distribution in two samples (alternative to Kolmogorov-Smirnov)
  • New plotting functions for correlation matrix
  • Option for Bonferroni correction in correlation table
  • Bingham test for spherical (axial) data
  • Plotting of planes as great circles in stereonet (spherical data)
  • Binomial proportion added to single-sample tests
  • van Krevelen diagram option added to XY Graph (it’s a geochemistry thing)
  • Search-replace can now search for empty cells (use search string ‘empty’)
  • Tukey’s post-hoc test for one-way ANOVA, repeated-measures ANOVA and two-way ANOVA now use a slightly more accurate approximation for the p value (Copenhaver & Holland 1988)
  • Row labels option in matrix plot
  • Bug fix: Slightly imprecise Tukey’s post-hoc Q and p values for one-way ANOVA with unequal sample sizes
  • Bug fix: Setting Row colors/symbols now honours the previous colors/symbols for the groups
  • Bug fix: PCO with degenerate data did not terminate (rare occurrence)
  • Bug fix: Slow paste of large data sets
  • Bug fix: Sorting only worked for all-numeric data
  • Bug fix: “Rearrange -> Observations to contingency table” did not delete missing values
  • Bug fix: Slightly inaccurate placement of labels in neighbour joining clustering

New in Past 3.16 (Jan 17, 2018)

  • Package for stratigraphic charts/well plots with multiple panels and plot types
  • Hill’s equation added to Nonlinear Fitting
  • Logarithmic axes options in Graph preferences
  • Mean-and-errors plot added to Bar chart-Box plot module*
  • 3D line plot
  • 3D parametric surface plot
  • Wavelets: Option for linear scale axis. New function showing wavelet-filtered time series.
  • Paired univariate tests: Max N for exact test reduced from 25 to 22.
  • Scripting: Added functions cov, eig, linfit
  • Bug fix: Bivariate linear regression, plot of residuals did not handle missing values
  • Bug fix: 3D surface plot, vertical exaggeration did not work
  • Bug fix: Spherical data, stereoplot, density map was not quite centred on the data

New in Past 3.15 (Jan 17, 2018)

  • Tukey’s post-hoc tests for two-way ANOVA
  • Permutation test for correlation and one-way ANOVA
  • Mosaic plot for 2-way and 3-way contingency tables
  • Stem plot
  • Distribution-free confidence intervals for stratigraphic ranges
  • Max N for wavelets increased to 130,000
  • Improved histogram plots
  • Univariate summary statistics now supports groups
  • New in Regular interpolation: Option for antialiasing (sinc) interpolation
  • Sorting now supports both types of decimal separator
  • Remove uninformative rows/columns: New option to remove constant-valued rows/columns
  • Bug fix, Ward’s method clustering: Missing data not handled properly
  • Bug fix: Setting row colors/symbols required user to select some data in addition to a group column
  • Bug fix: Scatter plot labels sometimes disappeared at edges of plot
  • Bug fix, CCA: Table of scores did not update when changing the scaling type

New in Past 3.14 (Jan 17, 2018)

  • New: Point pattern statistics for counts in quadrats (Morisita’s index etc.)
  • New: Dunn’s post hoc test for Kruskal-Wallis (in addition to pairwise Mann-Whitney)
  • Bug fix: Export graphic file type selection did not work on Mac OSX
  • Bug fix: Search and replace stopped after first hit
  • Bug fix: Group labels not shown for small groups (n

New in Past 3.13 (Jan 17, 2018)

  • Graphics can now be exported also in the PDF format
  • Bug fix: Excessive computation time for two-sample tests on Mac OSX
  • Bug fix: Mann-Kendall test, incorrect p values for negative trend and n

New in Past 3.12 (Jan 17, 2018)

  • New “detach tab” button allows viewing several tabs (subwindows) at the same time
  • PCA of 3D landmarks, with 3D plotting
  • Use your own images as symbols in plots
  • Arrow plot, alternative to rose plot in circular analysis
  • Plotting of residuals in bivariate linear regression
  • Combined box and jitter plot
  • Plotting of displacement vectors in thin-plate spline deformation module
  • Contingency table analysis now includes table of residuals etc.
  • Z and t tests for probability of a single observation taken from a given sample
  • Scripting: New functions
  • Bug fix: Wrong labels on points in ternary bubble plot
  • Bug fix: Occasional error message when exiting program on Mac
  • Numerous small improvements in user interface

New in Past 3.11 (Jan 17, 2018)

  • New: Interface to Google Maps, with plotting of points, polygons and lines (Windows only)
  • New: “Graphics basket” for managing and combining plots
  • Bug fix: Copy-paste from Excel broken under Mac OSX
  • New: Nested ANOVA
  • Improved: Selection of file format for graphics export
  • New: Support for reading RASC files
  • Small fixes in Unitary Associations
  • New: Pooled and unpooled z ratio for risk difference
  • Replace now only operates in selected cells
  • Omega2 in ANOVA set to zero if negative
  • User-defined N for Monte Carlo normality tests
  • Sinusoidal fit: Frequency resolution increased from 1/1000 to 1/500,000 of Nyquist frequency
  • Thin-plate spline deformation grid can now be extended in x and y directions
  • Scripting: New functions
  • Beta diversity now takes samples in columns, not rows, to be consistent with other modules
  • Bug fix: Bivariate linear regression: Slope was not shown in the Statistics tab for RMA or MA.
  • Bug fix: Save data in other than the Past format broken in some recent version
  • Bug fix: 3D scatter plot crashed when axis ranges were very different

New in Past 3.10 (Nov 17, 2015)

  • Circular spectral analysis for point events
  • Equal axes button in graph preferences
  • Linear regression now reports standard error of estimate
  • Scripting: New functions, including user-defined windows (forms) with labels, buttons, edits, check boxes.
  • Increased max number of items in clustering from 900 to 3500
  • Improved algorithm for single linkage clustering of large data sets
  • Drag-drop files onto spreadsheet
  • Bug fix: Remove column or row did not work after moving it
  • Bug fix: Freeze after error condition in Evaluate expression
  • Bug fix for Mac OSX: Copy-paste into spreadsheet did not work properly
  • Minor algorithm improvement in Unitary Associations
  • New application icon

New in Past 3.09 (Oct 21, 2015)

  • ARMA and intervention analysis for time series
  • Tests for equality of regression slopes in bivariate fitting (OLS, MA and RMA)
  • Insolation model, 250 Ma to Recent (La2004)
  • Copy-paste now works also on graphics, but only bitmap format (you must still export to SVG for publication quality)
  • New in Transform menu: Convert to ranks
  • Many new functions in the scripting language
  • Bug fix Unitary Associations: Copy-paste did not work for some output
  • Bug fix Moran’s I: Incorrect significance line for very large sample sizes
  • Bug fix: Hidden windows now pop to front when selected again from menu