//
// MCMCpack, Version 0.4-8
//

Release Date: February 15, 2004

This package contains functions for posterior simulation for a number of
statistical models. All simulation is done in compiled C++ written in
the Scythe Statistical Library Version 0.4. All models return coda mcmc
objects that can then be summarized using coda functions or the coda
menu interface.  The package also contains some useful utility
functions, including some additional PDFs and pseudo-random number
generators for statistical distributions.

//
// Authors
//

Andrew D. Martin <admartin@wustl.edu>
Kevin M. Quinn <kquinn@latte.harvard.edu>

//
// Changes and Bug Fixes
//

NOTE: We are still working on implementing a NAMESPACE for this package. We
plant to do so in our next major release.


0.4-7 to 0.4-8
   * Repaired Scythe_Simulate.*, for which an outdated version was included
     in the last release.

0.4-6 to 0.4-7
   * Fixed some Scythe bugs, including a problem with memory allocation for
     matrix multiplication.  See http://sourceforge.net/projects/scythestat/
     for the latest version of Scythe, which is now distributed with MCMCpack.
     The Scythe code differs slightly in the paths ../include and ../src are
     replace with the current path, and in pnorm2 the isnan() function is
     commented out to allow for cross-compilation.
   * Rolled out http://mcmcpack.wustl.edu website.
   * Mixed response factor code.
   * Fixed factanal.
   * Fixed irtKd.
   
0.4-5 to 0.4-6
   * Fixed a bug in rnoncenhypergeom() [thanks to Tom LaFramboise]
   * Patched Scythe0.3 to fix an error in inv() [thanks to Donour Sizemore].  
     Note that this function is not called in MCMCpack, so was causing no
     explicit errors.

0.4-3 to 0.4-5
   * Fixed a bug in xpnd() [thanks to Michael Man]
   * Fixed some inconsistencies in documentation [thanks to Kurt Hornik]

0.4-2 to 0.4-3
   * Fixed bug in Scythe truncated Normal generators (which had been
     fixed before but sneaked into the last release) -- this fixes 
     a problem with MCMCirt1d
   * Cleaned up MCMCbaselineDA.cc (eliminated unused arguments)
   * Cleaned up MCMCbaseline.R (tuning argument)
   * Set seed in MCMClogit.cc fixed
   * Set seed in MCMCpoisson.cc fixed   
   * Fixed all examples such that they work out of the box

0.4-1 to 0.4-2
   * Optimized some of the Scythe 0.4 code, which provides faster
     computation for most models.
   * Corrected a permissions problem on cleanup [thanks to Kurt Hornik] 
   * Added explicit licensing information and a text echo when loading
     MCMCpack.

0.3-11 to 0.4-1
   * Ported to Scythe Version 0.4 (which will soon be publicly available)
   * Cleaned up the codebase and documentation (changes will 
     soon be part of the specification)
   * Added vech() and xpnd() utility functions
   * Included data file of 106th Senate roll call votes for the
     MCMCirt1d() and MCMCirtKd() models
   * Added Dirichlet, Noncentral Hypergeometric, and Inverse Gamma
     generators and densities [with contributions from Kevin Rompala]
   * Added read.Scythe() function to read matrices written by Scythe
     [contributed by Kevin Rompala]
   * Added helper functions to make coding easier [contributed by
     Kevin Rompala]
   * Added three models: a K-dimensional item response theory
     model (MCMCirtKd), a linear factor model (MCMCfactanal), and
     an ordinal item response theory model (MCMCordfactanal)
   * Added a pre-processor command to handle ininf() compilation
     issues on SGI [thanks to Dave Henderson]
   * All MCMC* functions now only allow starting values for the
     first simulated block of parameters and use check.parameters()
     function.
   * Range checking is turned off in the compiled C++ code, yielding
     significant speed gains for most models.

0.3-10 to 0.3-11
   * Fixed a bug in MCMCpoisson() re: non-negative counts
   * Included a data file of Supreme Court votes for the
     MCMCirt1d() model [thanks to Simon Jackman for the suggestion]
   * Fixed memory leak caused by Scythe_Matrix.cc [thanks to Dan Pemstein]

//
// Compilation
//

This package (along with Scythe) uses C++ and the Standard Template
Library (STL).  It requires use of the GCC compiler 3.0 or greater.  It
has been tested on GCC 3.1, and 3.2 on Linux and MacOS X.

We have also successfully compiled this package for Windows using
a MinGW cross-compiler using binutils 2.13, gcc 3.2, mingw
runtime 2.2, and w32api 2.0.  This is essentially the same setup
described by Yan and Rossini (2002), except for more recent
versions of the compiler to successfully handle the C++ issues
noted above. Many thanks to Dan Pemstein for helping with the
cross-compilation, and to Kurt Hornik and Fritz Leisch for their
help with debugging and service to the R community.

Please contact Andrew D. Martin <admartin@wustl.edu> if
you have any problems or questions.

--
Andrew D. Martin, Ph.D.
Department of Political Science
Washington University
Campus Box 1063
One Brookings Drive
St. Louis, MO 63130
(314) 935-5863 (Office)
(314) 753-8377 (Cell)
(314) 935-5856 (Fax)

Office: Eliot Hall 326
Email: admartin@wustl.edu
WWW:   http://adm.wustl.edu
