[manual0]     OpenBUGS User Manual

                   Version 3.0.2, September 2007



   David Spiegelhalter 1    Andrew Thomas 2
   Nicky Best
3    Dave Lunn 1

   
1 MRC Biostatistics Unit,
      Institute of Public Health,
      Robinson Way,
      Cambridge CB2 2SR, UK

      

   
2 Dept of Mathematics & Statistics,      
      University of Helsinki
      Helsinki
      Finland

      
   
3 Department of Epidemiology & Public Health,
      Imperial College School of Medicine,
      Norfolk Place,
      London W2 1PG, UK

   e-mail:
      bugs@mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk   [general]
      ant@rni.helsinki.fi   [technical]

   internet:   http://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/bugs



This manual describes how to use the OpenBUGS software. It starts with general sections on setting up statistical models in OpenBUGS and using Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling for statistical inference. Then the idea of compound documents and the many menu options of the Windows interface to OpenBUGS are described in detail.


The OpenBUGS software is Open Source


please click here to read the legal bit

Potential users are reminded to be extremely careful if using this program for serious statistical analysis. We have tested the program on quite a wide set of examples, but be particularly careful with types of model that are currently not featured. If there is a problem,
WinBUGS might just crash, which is not very good, but it might well carry on and produce answers that are wrong, which is even worse. Please let us know of any successes or failures.

Beware: MCMC sampling can be dangerous!