Changes in version 2.0 (2019-08-20)
+ spreadplot function added
+ removed ready made themes from functions
+ Added is.compositional
+ Fixed a bug in core_members (also non-compositional detection now allowed)
+ removed rm.na option from aggregate_taxa
+ Deprecating noncore_* functions (replacing with rare_* functions everywhere)
+ Removed variable_members function
+ Support removed from R-3.3.3 and lower

Changes in version 1.5.4 (2018-11-20)
+ Removed theme() commands from functions to give the choice to user
+ Fixed bug in merge_taxa2
+ Fixed bug in Pielou's evenness
+ New functions: readcount, bfratio, aggregate_top_taxa
+ rewritten aggregate_taxa and moved the top argument in the new function aggregate_top_taxa 
+ plot_composition function: new options for sample.sort and otu.sort
+ Added Phylum level to taxonomy tables in example data sets 
* New function: dominant
+ The diversities function is now replaces by alpha function. The alpha is more
  generic and can return also other alpha diversity indices.
+ plot_frequencies function now only returns the ggplot object
+ Renamed the global function into alpha
+ Renamed arguments rarity.detection and rarity.prevalence into
  detection and prevalence in the rarity function
+ Added Chao1 index in richness function
+ In atlas1006 data set, pseudocount of +1 in otu table has been
  removed to facilitate comparison with sequencing data sets and to
  avoid confusion
+ In atlas1006 data set, only a single replicate per subject-time
  combination is chosen (at random)
+ New function collapse_replicates has been added
+ Abundance matrices (otu tables) for all example data sets now
  starting from 0 without pseudocount
+ Changed the default for the detection argument in the richness function to
  detection=0
+ removed rarity.threshold and rarity.prevalence options from the alpha function
+ Various minor fixes; see github commits for many more details
  o Color order in plot_landscape legend now follows the factor levels
    of the col argument
  o Fixed example in remove_samples

CHANGES IN VERSION 1.1.2 

# New features
  o Added plot_abundances function
  o Added Chao1 index in richness function
  o In atlas1006 data set, pseudocount of +1 in otu table has been
    removed to facilitate comparison with sequencing data sets and to
    avoid confusion
  o In atlas1006 data set, only a single replicate per subject-time
    combination is chosen (at random)
  o New function collapse_replicates has been added

# Major changes
  o Abundance matrices (otu tables) for all example data sets now
    starting from 0 without pseudocount

# Minor changes
  o Changed the default for the detection argument in the richness function to
    detection=0
  o Color order in plot_landscape legend now follows the factor levels
    of the col argument
  o Various minor fixes; see github commits for many more details

CHANGES IN VERSION 1.1.1 (2017-30-11)
  o Added index "observed" in function global
  o New options added to transform: scale, log10p
  o New bioc devel version  

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.99.8 (2017-08-21)
  o Added new function merge_taxa2
  o Added sample names in divergence output
  o coreset option added in divergence
  o plot_taxa_prevalence argument "detection" added
  o transform argument removed from plot_composition for simplicity
  o data/DynamicsIBD data set and associated documentation removed to shrink the package
  o inst/extdata/qiita data sets and associated documentation removed to shrink the package
  o Baxter data removed to save space
  o Utilities that do not belong to the package moved to maintenance branch

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.99.6 (2017-07-21)
  o Fixed bug in transform option "clr"
  o "lineplot" option added in plot_composition

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.99.5 (2017-07-07)
  o fixed vignette headers
  o heat function now takes also labels as input for order.rows and order.cols
  o added age_group and bmi_group for easy access to standard groupings of these variables
  o package homepage host location changed to master:docs/

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.99.3 (2017-06-05)
  o Reduced the number of dependencies
  o Removed marginal functionality

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.99.1 (2017-05-15)
  o Major rewrite of the package
  o Switched to support the phyloseq class
  o HTML vignette added
  o A separate online tutorial added
  o Removed less essential functionality and dependencies
  
CHANGES IN VERSION 0.99.0 (2014-09-14)
  o First draft of the BioC release version

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.3.63 (2012-12-24)
  o separated MySQL/preprocessing functions into a distinct package,
    HITChipDB

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.3.43 (2012-09-28)
  o added relative.abundance function
  o polished estimate.diversity function
  o added functions: richness, evenness, diversity

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.3.15 (2012-08-31)
  o FetchHITChipAtlas and run.profiling.script validated against each other
  o default imputation removed from run.profiling.script; this had considerable effect on normalized data

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.3.13 (2012-08-30)
  o standardized the pipeline; output validated against previous atlas version

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.3.05 (2012-08-22)
  o added MDS.classical and MDS.isometric to project.data

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.3.02 (2012-06-20)

  o calculate.stability function added
  o added L2->species option to levelmap function
  o estimate.diversity function updated. Detection thresholds applied with
    richness and evenness
  o estimate.min.threshold mode detection improved
  o cross.correlate function added

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.3.01 (2012-06-19)

  o draft version for GitHub

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.2.04 (2012-06-15)
  o RMySQL removed from explicit dependencies

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.2.03 (2012-06-06)

  o hitchip.phylodistance added 
  o cross-hyb control functions added

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.2.02 (2012-06-03)

  o annotation functions added

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.2.01 (2012-05-31)

  o removed absolute scale matrices from run.profiling.script
    output. The idea is that just one log10 file for each phylogenetic
    level is outputted, and the user can then use other reading/analysis
    routines to read the data, convert to original non-log domain if
    necessary, etc. This is to provide a unique output format to avoid mistakes.
  o save.data and tree.display removed from run.profiling.script arguments
  o combined get.phylogeny and get.phylogeny.MITChip
  o moved plotting functions from run.profiling.script into a separate
    function profiling.hclust; 
  o removed the option to read profiling parameters from R file in ReadParameters function
  o output file name phylogenyinfo.tab changed into phylogenyinfo-nspecies.tab 
  o made run.profiling.script modular with respect to preprocessing, plotting, data storage, and logging
  o added instructions in the vignette on reading the final data

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.12.14 (2012-05-10)

  o added pitchipdb in PITChip array name list in profiling.R

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.12.12 (2012-05-02)

  o added MITChip level 0
  o added separate get.phylogeny.MITChip function to include level 0 for MITChip

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.12.10 (2012-04-17)

  o automatized the levels and methods output within run.profiling.script
  o now providing also non-logarithmized data matrices in the run.profiling.script output
  o added in run.profiling.script save.image(paste(params$wdir,
    "/tmp.RData", sep = "")) to enable the use of data from the current
    workspace during a session
  o multcomp replaced by parallel in dependencies
  o Removed "Use existing data from the workspace" (useDB) option. Problems when called from within a function. More clear and modular when
    the run.profiling.script is used for preprocessing, and any new plots are performed as separate steps based on the profiling output files if needed.
  o Moved run.profiling.script plots to their own functions and added usage examples to vignette.

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.12.08 (2012-04-05)

  o detailed protocol added to the vignette 
  o hierarchical clustering method moved from complete to ward in profiling script
    as it was in some of the previous versions
  o 'level 0' added in MITChip profiling
  o removed featureprofile from output files to save disk space, typically not needed
  o added remove.nonspecific.oligos option to run.profiling.script and FetchHITChipAtlas functions (through get.phylogeny)
  o summarize.probesets modified to include levels both in the form of "level.1" and "level 1" 

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.12.06 (2012-04-04)

  o fixed PITChip-specific issues
  o removed parallel from dependencies to allow compatibility with R-2.12.2

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.12.05 (2012-03-29)

  o removed background correction from profiling script (run.profiling.script)
  o kept standard normalizations: none, minmax, quantile - others removed
  o now using 16S phylogeny in profiling script. Other option removed
  o polishing of the functions
  o merged funcions from the phyloarray package
  o removed minmax, quantnorm from profiling.R functions
    
CHANGES IN VERSION 0.12.04 (2012-03-28)

  o removed the additional background correction step which resulted in
    considerable information loss based on external validations

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.12.01 (2012-03-23)

  o PlotMatrix updates

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.0.12 (2012-03-15)

  o multicore removed from dependencies
  o vignette updated
  o R-2.12.1 required 

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.0.10 (2012-03-06)

  o standard profiling script included
  o added selected.samples in fetch.sample.info

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.0.08 (2012-02-25)
  
  o Atlas preprocessing finalized. For usage examples, see vignette.

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.0.05 (2012-02-22)

  o atlas functions added and polished

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.0.02 (2012-02-06)

  o profiling_010.r script functions and dependencies added

CHANGES IN VERSION 0.0.01 (2012-01-12)

  o First version based on profiling script version 010


