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, 2 Dept of Mathematics & Statistics,
Institute of Public Health, University of Helsinki
Robinson Way, Helsinki
Cambridge CB2 2SR, UK 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!
Contents