Decision::Markov - Markov models for decision analysis

    Copyright (c) 1998-2002 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
    0.02    Sept  2002 - Test script improvements
    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!

