FDRestimation: Flexible False Discovery Rate Computation in R [version 2; peer review: 2 approved]

Abstract

False discovery rates (FDR) are an essential component of statistical inference, representing the propensity for an observed result to be mistaken. FDR estimates should accompany observed results to help the user contextualize the relevance and potential impact of findings. This paper introduces a new user-friendly R pack-age for estimating FDRs and computing adjusted p-values for FDR control. The roles of these two quantities are often confused in practice and some software packages even report the adjusted p-values as the estimated FDRs. A key contribution of this package is that it distinguishes between these two quantities while also offering a broad array of refined algorithms for estimating them. For example, included are newly augmented methods for estimating the null proportion of findings - an important part of the FDR estimation procedure. The package is broad, encompassing a variety of adjustment methods for FDR estimation and FDR control, and includes plotting functions for easy display of results. Through extensive illustrations, we strongly encourage wider reporting of false discovery rates for observed findings.

Keywords

• false discovery rate
• multiple comparisons
• adjusted p-value
• null proportion estimation
• R Package
• eng