This directory contains programs written in Fortran 90 by Ignacy 
Misztal and collaborators.  These programs are focused on simplicity of
programming, wide range of supported models and dynamic memory allocation. A
general philosophy of developing these programs is described at
http://www.csc.fi/ttn/ccb99/articles/IMisztal.pdf.


SPARSEM is a collection of sparse matrix classes that makes programming 
with sparse matrices (and large problems) almost as easy as in the matrix 
language. BLUPF90 is a BLUP program written using SPARSEM.  REMLF90 is a 
REML version of BLUPF90 that uses accelerated EM algorithm. Other programs 
included are dense matrix module DENSEOP, Gibbs sampling program GIBBS90, and 
several versions of linear-threshold models.


The programs are available as Fortran 90 sources with Makefiles.  No
executables are available.  To compile, a Fortran 90 compiler is necessary, at
best under Unix.

The programs are still in preliminary phases and therefore errors may 
still be present and diagnostics are not as good as they should be. 

Ignacy Misztal
ignacy@uga.edu
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30605, USA




List of contents

PROGS           directory containing a compressed tar file. File Readme in 
                the main directory contains directions how to compile the 
                programs. 

LINUXBIN        binaries for Linux under ReadHat 2.1; may be out of date.

WINBIN          selected binaries for Windows; may be out of date; also 
                contains tar.exe, a program to uncompress tar file under 
                Microsoft Windows.

DOCS            directory containing manuals in PDF format

COMMCHAR        Information on requested contributions for commercial 
                applications of FSPAK, which is part of FSPAK90 in SPARSEM;
                in Word Perfect 6.0 (wp6) or Ascii (txt).

Changes         List of bug fixes or modifications; may not be up to date;
                the up-to-date list is available in PROGRAMS. Please check 
                this file to see whether a problem/bug that you experience
                has been fixed.

The programs are copyrighted but are free for research use. Commercial users 
are asked for a small contribution to support development of these 
programs.


Compilers for Fortran 90 still have many bugs. Therefore problems on some 
platforms can be expected.  At one point the programs have worked on Sun, DOS 
using Lahey or Absoft compiler, on Linux using Absoft compiler, on SGI, RS6000
and DEC. 

Currently, the main development is under Absoft/Linux. For information on the 
Absoft Fortran 90 compiler, visit www.absoft.com.