NEWS

netboost 2.21.5 (2026-06-29)

nb_consensus()/nb_consensus_transfer() reworked. The module_retention criterion ("all"/"any"/"median"), the new min_pc1_cor threshold and robust_PCs are now included.
Added network_type="signed" (keep only positively co-directional pairs) and consensus_method="median" for both adjacency and TOM aggregation.
Filter-mask cache keys now include a data fingerprint, so caches are no longer reused across different datasets that share the same dimensions.

The bundled MC-UPGMA clustering suite (external C++/Perl/GNU-make tool) has been replaced by a portable in-package C++ reimplementation. netboost no longer requires GNU make, Bash, Perl or Gzip and now builds on Windows in addition to unix/macOS. Sparse-clustering output is byte-identical to previous versions for the supported single-round regime (edge count up to the former 1e7 heap size); very large inputs that previously triggered the external tool's multi-round mode may yield identically-structured trees with differently-numbered cluster IDs.
SIMD (AVX) acceleration of the boosting step is now selected at runtime via the executing CPU's capabilities instead of being baked in at build time. The same binary runs correctly across heterogeneous CPU clusters (AVX and non-AVX nodes) and on non-x86 architectures; CPU-feature autodetection (autoconf) was removed.
Removed the exported helper mcupgma_exec(), which only operated on the now-removed external clustering binaries.

Fully rank based extension (netboost(...,robust_PCs=TRUE,filter_method="spearman",method="spearman")).
Full support of the non-parametric version.