[Population Modeling] Book Chapter on Software

[Stefan Scholz]

Dear all,

I would like to put together a book chapter about the software tools 
used (by our group) for population modeling. If it is okay with you, I 
would like to do this in 2 steps:
1. Find software characteristics to categorize the software in a short 
(!) "questionnaire"
2. Ask you to fill out the "questionnaire"

So far I thought of the following characteristics:

- Name of the software (including name of 
toolbox(es)/package(s)/module(s), e.g. R-packages)
- Is it open source?
- Is it freely available for students/academia?
- Does it have a graphical user interface (GUI)? Exclusively?
- For which platforms is it available  (Windows/Linux/Mac)?
- Does it make use of parallel computing? For CPUs/GPUs/Computing clusters?
- Is random number generation incorporated / stochastic modeling possible?
- On which programming language does it rely?
- Is there sufficient documentation/user support available?
- Your experiences (positive and negative) with the software (optional)

I very much appreciate any comment or supplement to this list! I would 
wait until the 6th of March to complete the questionnaire and send it to 
you afterwards. I hope the collection and overview of software tools is 
of general interest or use for everyone on the mailinglist.

Thank you very much in advance!

Best regards,
Stefan

-- 
Stefan Scholz

University of Bielefeld
Faculty of Public Health
Department of Health Economics and Health Management
P.O. Box 10 01 31
D-33501 Bielefeld, Germany

Phone: +49 0521 | 106-2648
Mail: stefan.scholz at uni-bielefeld.de