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Summary:IMaCh-0.99r24

Version IMaCh 0.99

Interpolated Marlov Chain (IMaCh program)

This program is licensed under the GNU GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE.

The program estimates Life Expectancies from Cross-longitudinal
studies as well as age-specific forward and backward prevalences in each state.
The main publications are:
(1) Lièvre, A. Brouard. N, Heathcote Ch. Estimating Health
Expectancies from Cross-longitudinal surveys, Mathematical Population Studies, 10(1), 2003, pp. 1-52.
(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.
Integrated population biology and modeling, Part B, Elsevier, p. 435-486.
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12204/AWltfxMuXMQCvuZmm9UI

To be brief, for each people interviewed we need the age and 
state at each interview. Also the month and year of death should be
known as for birth.  We model the probability to be observed in any
state at any age via a parametric model and estimate the parameters
and their confidence interval by maximum likelihood. Many tables and
graphs are output in HTML. Graphs are built using gnuplot.

First versions appeared around year 2000. Currently (May 2019)
version 0.99r19 can run on any Unix, including OS/X and on Windows 10
(64bit) as well as Windows XP (32bit).

Binaries are usually provided for OS/X (DMG for 64bit), Linux (rpm)
and Windows installer (32 and 64bit).


STRUCTURE of the binary

IMaCh is a command line program (no time for a GUI) which means that
it can be run on a shell by "$ imach foo.imach" where foo.imach is your
'parameter' file which is a simple text file with a few lines that
your must edit in order to describe your data as well as your model
line. In this parameter file you give the name and path of your data
file which is also a text file.

Even if it is command line program, most operating systems offer
simplifications of use:

- On Windows, you can click on the imach.exe icon (which opens a DOS
window) and drag your parameter file into the DOS windows and enter
return. You can use the right click (once your mouse cursor is on an
foo.imach file) to either edit the parameter file (with notepad) or
execute this parameter file via imach. At the end of the run, your are
asked to enter a character and the terminal will not disappear.

- On OSX, you can click on the IMaCh application and a terminal window will be
  opened: either type in the name and path of your parameter file or
  drag it from the finder.

The output of your run consists in many text files which are grouped
into a sub-directory having the same name as of your parameter
filename 'foo'. In addition, you will find two other important files
on the same directory as your parameter file:

-1- a text file named 'foo.gp' which is a gnuplot file. This gnuplot
is automatically runned by imach in order to create the graphs from
the various result text files.

You can edit this gnuplot file, customize it at your will and run it
to get additional figures or modified figures to be published. Just
click on gnuplot executable and type "load foo.gp" for example.

Gnuplot is a well known grapher under the GPL license too. As it is
changing often, the OS/X and Windows installers are providing binaries
for gnuplot 2.6.5.

-2- a text file named 'foo.htm' which is an html file. It can be
opened by your browser and it will display various hyperlinks to most
of your results as well as your graphs.


Since the era of 64bit processors and their wide use on OS/X and
Windows 7, 8 or 10, we discovered that our usual GNU compiler were not
efficient on Windows 64 and current binaries are compiled with the
Intel C compiler.  On OS/X the native LLVM C compiler from Apple is
very efficient too.

Usually IMaCh binaries are distributed under two subdirectories, 'bin'
for the binaries which are imach.exe and gnuplot.exe and 'html' for
some of the documentation, and 'mytry' in order to test the program on
a parameter file named 'mypar.imach'. In order to use IMaCh, you need
two text files, one is called the parameter file with extension .imach
or .txt which contains few lines and the data file which can be juge
according to the number of people surveyed.  You can find in the
subdirectory doc of your installed package, some testing files like
biaspar.imach and mypar.imach . If you edit such a parameter file, you
will see a link to the data file, for exemple data1.txt . You can copy
both files, parameter and data file into a private directory. Then run
imach and drag the parameter file.

You can access to the main IMaCh server at
http://euroreves.ined.fr/imach but the main documentation is a wiki at
http://euroreves.ined.fr/imach/wiki .  You can download the latest versions
at http://euroreves.ined.fr/imach/Download .

By default the file 'gnuplot.exe' is located on the same directory as
imach and is used by imach with its absolute path. Thus, if you have
another gnuplot program which is already in your path it will not be used by
imach (we tried to simplify the installation process).

If you download a newer version of IMaCh, you are supposed to Uninstall the
former version with the standard Install/Uninstall process of Windows.

Enjoy (?) using IMaCh.

You may subscribe to imach-users@listes.ined.fr by sending a mail at
imach-users-subscribe@listes.ined.fr and you can unsubscribe with a
mail to imach-users-unsubscribe@listes.ined.fr .

Other comments are included on the Wiki server
http://euroreves.ined.fr/imach/wiki, please use it ask questions too.

Nicolas Brouard (brouard at ined point fr)
Institut national d'études démographiques
133 Boulevard Davout
75014 Paris

Earlier versions were also written by 
Agnès Lièvre (former PHD student at INED)
Christopher Heathcote (ANU)