Return to README.txt CVS log

Up to [Local Repository] / imach / src

Summary: Some updates

    1: Interpolated Marlov Chain (IMaCh program)
    2: 
    3: This program will be licensed under the GNU GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE.
    4: 
    5: The program estimates Health Expectancies from Cross-longitudinal
    6: studies.
    7: The main publication is Lievre, A. Brouard. N, Heathcote
    8: Ch. Estimating Health Expectancies from Cross-longitudinal surveys,
    9: Mathematical Population Studies, 10(1), 2003, pp. 1-52.
   10: 
   11: To be brief, for each people interviewed we need the age and health
   12: status at each interview. Also the month and year of death should be
   13: known as for birth.  We model the probability to be observed in any
   14: state at any age via a parametric model and estimate the parameters
   15: and their confidence interval by maximum likelihood. Many tables and
   16: graphs are output in HTML. Graphs are built using gnuplot.
   17: 
   18: First versions appeared around year 2000. Currently (September 2015)
   19: version 0.98q5 can run on any Unix, including OS/X and on Windows 10
   20: (64bit) as well as Windows XP (32bit).
   21: 
   22: Binaries are usually provided for OS/X (DMG for 64bit), Linux (rpm)
   23: and Windows installer (32 and 64bit).
   24: 
   25: 
   26: STRUCTURE of the binary
   27: 
   28: IMaCh is a command line program (no time for a GUI) which means that
   29: it can be run on a shell by $ imach foo.imach where foo.imach is your
   30: 'parameter' file which is a simple text file with a few lines that
   31: your must edit in order to describe your data as well as your model
   32: line. In this parameter file you give the name and path of your data
   33: file which is also a text file.
   34: 
   35: Even if it is command line program, most operating systems offer
   36: simplifications of use:
   37: 
   38: - On Windows, you can click on the imach.exe
   39: icon (which opens a DOS window) and drag your parameter file into the
   40: DOS windows and enter return. But with the newly installable version
   41: (>0.97) you can use the right click (once your mouse cursor is on an
   42: foo.imach file) to either edit the parameter file (with wordpad) or
   43: execute this parameter file via imach. At the end of the run, your are
   44: asked to enter a character and the terminal will not disappear.
   45: 
   46: - On OSX, you can click on the IMaCh application and terminal will be
   47:   open: either type in the name and path of your parameter file or
   48:   drag it from the finder.
   49: 
   50: The output of you run is a lot of text files which are grouped into a
   51: sub-directory having the name of your parameter file as well as an
   52: other text file foo.gp which is a gnuplot file. This gnuplot is run by
   53: imach and creates a lot of graphs from the various results text files.
   54: An other important file named foo.htm can be opened by your browser
   55: and it will display various hyperlinks to most of your results as well
   56: as your graphs.
   57: 
   58: You can edit this file, customize it at your will and run it to get
   59: additional figures or modified figures to be published. Just click on
   60: gnuplot.exe and type "load foo.gp" for example.
   61: 
   62: Gnuplot is a well known grapher under the GPL license too. As it is
   63: changing often, the OS/X and Windows installers are providing binaries
   64: for gnuplot 2.6.5.
   65: 
   66: Since the era of 64bit processors and their wide use on OS/X and
   67: Windows 7, 8 or 10, we discovered that our usual GNU compiler were not
   68: efficient on Windows 64 and current binaries are compiled with the
   69: Intel C compiler.  On OS/X the native LLVM C compiler from Apple is
   70: very efficient too.
   71: 
   72: Usually IMaCh binaries are distributed under two subdirectories, 'bin' for the
   73: binaries which are imach.exe and gnuplot.exe and 'html' for some of the
   74: documentation, and 'mytry' in order to test the program on a parameter
   75: file named 'mypar.imach'.
   76: 
   77: By default the file 'gnuplot.exe' is located on the same directory as
   78: imach and is used by imach with its absolute path. Thus, if you have
   79: another gnuplot program which is already in your path it will not be used by
   80: imach (we tried to simplify the installation process).
   81: 
   82: If you download a newer version of IMaCh, you are supposed to Uninstall the
   83: former version with the standard Install/Uninstall process of Windows.
   84: 
   85: Enjoy (?) using IMaCh.
   86: 
   87: You may subscribe to imach-users@listes.ined.fr by sending a mail at
   88: imach-users-subscribe@listes.ined.fr and you can unsubscribe with a
   89: mail to imach-users-unsubscribe@listes.ined.fr .
   90: 
   91: Other comments are included on the Wiki server
   92: http://euroreves.ined.fr/imach/wiki, please use it ask questions too.
   93: 
   94: Nicolas Brouard (brouard at ined point fr)
   95: Institut national d'études démographiques
   96: 133 Boulevard Davout
   97: 75014 Paris
   98: 
   99: Earlier versions were also written by 
  100: Agnès Lièvre (former PHD student at INED)
  101: Christopher Heathcote (ANU)
  102: 
  103:  
  104: