Computes local polynomial estimators for 
  the regression and also density. It comprises several 
  different utilities to handle kernel estimators.

Fast implementations to compute the genetic covariance matrix, the Jaccard similarity matrix, the s-matrix (the weighted Jaccard similarity matrix), and the (classic or robust) genomic relationship matrix of a (dense or sparse) input matrix (see Hahn, Lutz, Hecker, Prokopenko, Cho, Silverman, Weiss, and Lange (2020) <doi:10.1002/gepi.22356>). Full support for sparse matrices from the R-package 'Matrix'. Additionally, an implementation of the power method (von Mises iteration) to compute the largest eigenvector of a matrix is included, a function to perform an automated full run of global and local correlations in population stratification data, a function to compute sliding windows, and a function to invert minor alleles and to select those variants/loci exceeding a minimal cutoff value. New functionality in locStra allows one to extract the k leading eigenvectors of the genetic covariance matrix, Jaccard similarity matrix, s-matrix, and genomic relationship matrix via fast PCA without actually computing the similarity matrices. The fast PCA to compute the k leading eigenvectors can now also be run directly from 'bed'+'bim'+'fam' files.

To decompose symmetric matrices such as brain connectivity matrices so that one can extract sparse latent component matrices and also estimate mixing coefficients, a blind source separation (BSS) method named LOCUS was proposed in Wang and Guo (2023) <arXiv:2008.08915>. For brain connectivity matrices, the outputs correspond to sparse latent connectivity traits and individual-level trait loadings.

Publication-ready regional gene locus plots similar to those produced by the web interface 'LocusZoom' <https://my.locuszoom.org>, but running locally in R. Genetic or genomic data with gene annotation tracks are plotted via R base graphics, 'ggplot2' or 'plotly', allowing flexibility and easy customisation including laying out multiple locus plots on the same page. It uses the 'LDlink' API <https://ldlink.nih.gov/?tab=apiaccess> to query linkage disequilibrium data from the 1000 Genomes Project and can overlay this on plots <doi:10.1093/bioadv/vbaf006>.