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Annotation of imach/src/README.txt, revision 1.2

1.1       brouard     1: Interpolated Marlov Chain (IMaCh program)
                      2: 
                      3: This program is GPL licensed for the part the code that we wrote at
1.2     ! brouard     4: INED. But currently (version 0.98b January 2006) maximization routines use
1.1       brouard     5: a modified version of the patented routines from "Numerical Recipes in
                      6: C". If you have the right to use the sources of their software you can
                      7: get access to the source code and to the CVS tree of IMaCh.
                      8: 
                      9: The program estimates Health Expectancies from Cross-longitudinal
                     10: studies.
                     11: The main publication is Lievre, A. Brouard. N, Heathcote
1.2     ! brouard    12: Ch. Estimating Health Expectancies from Cross-longitudinal surveys,
1.1       brouard    13: Mathematical Population Studies, 10(1), 2003, pp. 1-52.
                     14: 
1.2     ! brouard    15: To be brief, for each people interviewed we need the age and health
        !            16: status at each interview. Also the month and year of death should be
        !            17: known as for birth.  We model the probability to be observed in any
        !            18: state at any age via a parametric model and estimate the parameters
        !            19: and their confidence interval by maximum likelihood. Many tables and
        !            20: graphs are output in HTML. Graphs are built using gnuplot.
        !            21: 
        !            22: In the Windows version, gnuplot is also distributed. Version 4 of
        !            23: gnuplot is out since early 2004 and is used by latest version of Imach
        !            24: (at least version 0.38i of gnuplot is required).  IMaCh is supposed to work on
        !            25: Linux, Unix, MacIntosh (Panther, Tiger) and Windows (9X or NT/XP).
1.1       brouard    26: 
                     27: WINDOWS
                     28: On Windows it is distributed via a setup file (no more a zip file). As
1.2     ! brouard    29: usual, you can put the 'imach' directory in Program Files or
1.1       brouard    30: wherever. The directory contains at least 2 directories, 'bin' for the
                     31: binaries which are imach.exe and gnuplot.exe, doc for some of the
                     32: documentation, and 'mytry' in order to test the program on a parameter
                     33: file name 'mypar.imach'.
                     34: 
                     35: You still can click on the imach.exe icon (which opens a DOS window)
                     36: and drag your parameter file into the DOS windows and enter
                     37: return. But with the newly installable version (>0.97) you can use the right
                     38: click (once your mouse cursor is on an foo.imach file) to either edit the
                     39: parameter file (with wordpad) or execute this parameter file via
                     40: imach.
                     41: If the program runs well you get a main foo.htm file which can be viewed
                     42: with your browser and which includes all the results.
                     43: 
                     44: As the program output a file named foo.gp which is executed by gnuplot
                     45: in order to draw all the graphs, you can edit it and customize it at
                     46: your will.
                     47: 
                     48: By default the file gnuplot.exe is located on the same directory as
                     49: imach and is used by imach with its absolute path. Thus if you have
                     50: another gnuplot program which is in your path it will not be used by
                     51: imach (we tried to simplify the installation process).
                     52: 
                     53: If you download a newer version of IMaCh you are supposed to Uninstall the
                     54: former version with the standard Install/Uninstall process of Windows.
                     55: 
                     56: The Windows version is compiled via cygwin (gcc -mno-cygwin -o imach
                     57: imach.c). It can be used on a command line with the command "imach
                     58: foo.imach". But then imach.exe must be in your path. 
                     59: The program can be used (with more comfort?) on Linux or on a
                     60: MacIntosh.
                     61: 
                     62: Enjoy (?) using IMaCh.
                     63: 
                     64: You may subscribe to imach-users@listes.ined.fr by sending a mail at
                     65: imach-users-subscribe@listes.ined.fr and you can unsubscribe with a
                     66: mail to imach-users-unsubscribe@listes.ined.fr .
                     67: 
1.2     ! brouard    68: Other comments are included on the Wiki server
        !            69: http://euroreves.ined.fr/imach/wiki, please use it ask questions too.
        !            70: 
1.1       brouard    71: Nicolas Brouard (brouard at ined point fr)
                     72: Agnès Lièvre (lievre chez ined dot fr)
                     73: Christopher Heathcote
                     74: 
                     75:  
                     76: