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From: Alan Schwartz <alansz@uic.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.announce,comp.lang.perl.modules
Subject: ANNOUNCE: Decision::Markov 0.01
Followup-To: comp.lang.perl.modules
Date: 26 Mar 1998 19:16:45 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
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I have just uploaded the Decision::Markov module, version 0.01 to
CPAN.

The suggested module list line is:
Name             DSLI  Description                                   Id
-------------    ----  --------------------------------------------  ------
Decision::Markov bdpO  Build/evaluate Markov models for decisions   ALANSZ

>From the README file:

Decision::Markov - Markov models for decision analysis

    Copyright (c) 1998 Alan Schwartz <alansz@uic.edu>. All rights reserved.
    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
    under the same terms as Perl itself.

DESCRIPTION
    This module provides functions used to built and evaluate Markov models
    for use in decision analysis. A Markov model consists of a set of
    states, each with an associated utility, and links between states
    representing the probability of moving from one node to the next. Nodes
    typically include links to themselves. Utilities and probabilities may
    be fixed or may be functions of the time in cycles since the model began
    running.

PREREQUISITES
    Decision::Markov expects to find some core perl modules, notably
    FileHandle and Carp.

INSTALLATION
    perl Makefile.PL
    make
    make test
    make install

REVISION HISTORY
    0.01    March 1988 - Initial concept.

FUTURE PLANS
    I'm planning to wire this up as the back end to CGI scripts for
    teaching Markov models using web-based simulations. Future revisions
    may include some other ways to display the model, and perhaps a
    Monte Carlo routine that will run the model X times and produce
    useful statistics (mean, variance, 95% CI, etc.)

    There may also be other Decision:: models in the future, such
    as Decision::Tree, Decision::Influence (influence diagrams), 
    Decision::Utility (utility assessment) and Decision::Bayes
    (Bayesian updating of priors based on diagnostic tests).
    But I may not get to them soon. Feel free to get there before me!

-- 
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                       Alan Schwartz <alansz@uic.edu>
Asst. Prof. of Clinical Decision Making | University of Illinois at Chicago
Adj. Asst. Prof. of Psychology          | Department of Medical Education
   "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans"
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