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Summary:IMaCh-0.99r24

    1: Version IMaCh 0.99
    2: 
    3: Interpolated Marlov Chain (IMaCh program)
    4: 
    5: This program is licensed under the GNU GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE.
    6: 
    7: The program estimates Life Expectancies from Cross-longitudinal
    8: studies as well as age-specific forward and backward prevalences in each state.
    9: The main publications are:
   10: (1) Lièvre, A. Brouard. N, Heathcote Ch. Estimating Health
   11: Expectancies from Cross-longitudinal surveys, Mathematical Population Studies, 10(1), 2003, pp. 1-52.
   12: (2) Nicolas Brouard, 2019, "Theory and applications of backward probabilities and prevalences in cross-longitudinal surveys". In: Arni S. R. Srinivasa Rao (Ed.) and C.R. Rao (Ed.), Handbook of Statistics.
   13: Integrated population biology and modeling, Part B, Elsevier, p. 435-486.
   14: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12204/AWltfxMuXMQCvuZmm9UI
   15: 
   16: To be brief, for each people interviewed we need the age and 
   17: state at each interview. Also the month and year of death should be
   18: known as for birth.  We model the probability to be observed in any
   19: state at any age via a parametric model and estimate the parameters
   20: and their confidence interval by maximum likelihood. Many tables and
   21: graphs are output in HTML. Graphs are built using gnuplot.
   22: 
   23: First versions appeared around year 2000. Currently (May 2019)
   24: version 0.99r19 can run on any Unix, including OS/X and on Windows 10
   25: (64bit) as well as Windows XP (32bit).
   26: 
   27: Binaries are usually provided for OS/X (DMG for 64bit), Linux (rpm)
   28: and Windows installer (32 and 64bit).
   29: 
   30: 
   31: STRUCTURE of the binary
   32: 
   33: IMaCh is a command line program (no time for a GUI) which means that
   34: it can be run on a shell by "$ imach foo.imach" where foo.imach is your
   35: 'parameter' file which is a simple text file with a few lines that
   36: your must edit in order to describe your data as well as your model
   37: line. In this parameter file you give the name and path of your data
   38: file which is also a text file.
   39: 
   40: Even if it is command line program, most operating systems offer
   41: simplifications of use:
   42: 
   43: - On Windows, you can click on the imach.exe icon (which opens a DOS
   44: window) and drag your parameter file into the DOS windows and enter
   45: return. You can use the right click (once your mouse cursor is on an
   46: foo.imach file) to either edit the parameter file (with notepad) or
   47: execute this parameter file via imach. At the end of the run, your are
   48: asked to enter a character and the terminal will not disappear.
   49: 
   50: - On OSX, you can click on the IMaCh application and a terminal window will be
   51:   opened: either type in the name and path of your parameter file or
   52:   drag it from the finder.
   53: 
   54: The output of your run consists in many text files which are grouped
   55: into a sub-directory having the same name as of your parameter
   56: filename 'foo'. In addition, you will find two other important files
   57: on the same directory as your parameter file:
   58: 
   59: -1- a text file named 'foo.gp' which is a gnuplot file. This gnuplot
   60: is automatically runned by imach in order to create the graphs from
   61: the various result text files.
   62: 
   63: You can edit this gnuplot file, customize it at your will and run it
   64: to get additional figures or modified figures to be published. Just
   65: click on gnuplot executable and type "load foo.gp" for example.
   66: 
   67: Gnuplot is a well known grapher under the GPL license too. As it is
   68: changing often, the OS/X and Windows installers are providing binaries
   69: for gnuplot 2.6.5.
   70: 
   71: -2- a text file named 'foo.htm' which is an html file. It can be
   72: opened by your browser and it will display various hyperlinks to most
   73: of your results as well as your graphs.
   74: 
   75: 
   76: Since the era of 64bit processors and their wide use on OS/X and
   77: Windows 7, 8 or 10, we discovered that our usual GNU compiler were not
   78: efficient on Windows 64 and current binaries are compiled with the
   79: Intel C compiler.  On OS/X the native LLVM C compiler from Apple is
   80: very efficient too.
   81: 
   82: Usually IMaCh binaries are distributed under two subdirectories, 'bin'
   83: for the binaries which are imach.exe and gnuplot.exe and 'html' for
   84: some of the documentation, and 'mytry' in order to test the program on
   85: a parameter file named 'mypar.imach'. In order to use IMaCh, you need
   86: two text files, one is called the parameter file with extension .imach
   87: or .txt which contains few lines and the data file which can be juge
   88: according to the number of people surveyed.  You can find in the
   89: subdirectory doc of your installed package, some testing files like
   90: biaspar.imach and mypar.imach . If you edit such a parameter file, you
   91: will see a link to the data file, for exemple data1.txt . You can copy
   92: both files, parameter and data file into a private directory. Then run
   93: imach and drag the parameter file.
   94: 
   95: You can access to the main IMaCh server at
   96: http://euroreves.ined.fr/imach but the main documentation is a wiki at
   97: http://euroreves.ined.fr/imach/wiki .  You can download the latest versions
   98: at http://euroreves.ined.fr/imach/Download .
   99: 
  100: By default the file 'gnuplot.exe' is located on the same directory as
  101: imach and is used by imach with its absolute path. Thus, if you have
  102: another gnuplot program which is already in your path it will not be used by
  103: imach (we tried to simplify the installation process).
  104: 
  105: If you download a newer version of IMaCh, you are supposed to Uninstall the
  106: former version with the standard Install/Uninstall process of Windows.
  107: 
  108: Enjoy (?) using IMaCh.
  109: 
  110: You may subscribe to imach-users@listes.ined.fr by sending a mail at
  111: imach-users-subscribe@listes.ined.fr and you can unsubscribe with a
  112: mail to imach-users-unsubscribe@listes.ined.fr .
  113: 
  114: Other comments are included on the Wiki server
  115: http://euroreves.ined.fr/imach/wiki, please use it ask questions too.
  116: 
  117: Nicolas Brouard (brouard at ined point fr)
  118: Institut national d'études démographiques
  119: 133 Boulevard Davout
  120: 75014 Paris
  121: 
  122: Earlier versions were also written by 
  123: Agnès Lièvre (former PHD student at INED)
  124: Christopher Heathcote (ANU)
  125: 
  126:  
  127: