Difference between revisions of "Analytica User FAQs"

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-= [[/Training and Consulting Help]] =
+[[Category: FAQ]]
-= [[/Reference Materials and Additional Reading]] =
+* [[/Training and Consulting Help]]
-= [[/Sharing Models]] =
+* [[/Reference Materials and Additional Reading]]
-= [[/Application Integration]] =
+* [[/Sharing Models]]
-= [[/ADE]] =
+* [[/Application Integration]]
-= Installer Issues =
+* [[/ADE]]
-== Analytica 4.x installers ==
+* [[/Application Issues]]
-=== After installing Trial, first run of Analytica says Administrator privledges required ===
+* [[/User interface questions]]
-(Rare) If you experience this, right click on the "Analytica.exe" shortcut and select "Run as administrator".  You only need to do this once -- future runs don't require this.
+* [[/Expressions - How to]]
-== Analytica 3.x installers ==
+* [[/Modeling issues]]
-=== Error 1607: Unable to install InstallShield Scripting Runtime. ===
-If you experience this error during the installation of Analytica, please visit [http://consumer.installshield.com/kb.asp?id=Q108340 this InstallShield Page], which describes the steps for resolving the problem:
+* [[/Types of Inference]]
-=== Error 1608: Unable to create InstallDriver instance, Return code: -2147024894 ===
+* [[/Editions, licenses, and installation]]
-To resolve this problem, see [http://consumer.installshield.com/kb.asp?id=Q108440 this InstallShield page], which describes the possible causes and remedies.
+* [[/Editions]]
-= Memory Issues =
+* [[/Licenses]]
-See:
+* [[/Section 508 Compliance (VPAT)]]
-* [[How To Access More Memory]]
-* [[Managing Memory and CPU Time for large models]]
-* [[Profiling Time and Memory Usage]]
-= Basis Application Issues =
+* [[/Installer Issues]]
-== Windows in Analytica open slowly in Windows Vista ==
+* [[/Troubleshooting]]
-''Resolved in Analytica 4.1.0''
-When you open a window inside Analytica, such as an object window, diagram, etc., a small animation occurs that makes it appear that the window is expanding from a point.  Normally this animation flashes by in less than 1/10 of a second.  However, when you have the ''Windows Aero'' color scheme selected in Windows Vista, this small animation runs in slow motion and takes several seconds.
-Other aspects of Analytica's speed are not impacted.  For example, evaluation of models is not slower.
-To avoid this problem in Windows Vista, simply change the color scheme to any of the color schemes other than ''Windows Aero''.  To change the color scheme, follow these steps:
-* Right click on the desktop, select '''Personalize'''  (This jumps to the '''Control Panel &rarr; Personalization''' dialog).
-* Click on '''Window Color and Appearance'''
-* Select '''Open classic appearance properties for more color options'''
-* In the ''Color Scheme'' list, select anything other than ''Windows Aero''.
-= Analytica Expression FAQs =
-(In progress -- two things need to occur.  Common questions need to be collected here and organized, and then answers need to be added.  Feel free to contribute to either aspect)
-== Array Abstraction ==
-* How do I access a single row of an array?
-* How do I represent a square matrix?
-* How do I re-index an array, exchanging one index, I, for another of the same length, J?
-* How do I aggregate an array from a fine grain index (e.g., days) to a coarser index (e.g., months)?
-== Distributions ==
-* How do I generate independent distributions across an index, for example, so that Noise := Normal(0,1) is independent for each time point t?
-* How do I define a chance variable so that its uncertainty is correlated with an existing chance variable?
-* [[How to Fit a Distribution to Data|How do a fit a distribution to historical data?]]
-== User-Defined Functions ==
-* How do I create my own User-Defined function?
-* How do I create a custom distribution function?
-== How do I model X (Depreciation)? ==
-* Depreciation (offset in time)?
-To model depreciation, two inputs are required:
-) a schedule of spend to be depreciated
-) a depreciation schedule
-For this example, the index time is 10 year series with a constant startYear=2008
-time:=sequence (startYear,startYear+9,1)
-Example depreciation schedule is a 5yr MACRS depreciation schedule entered as a variable:
-Table(time)(.2,.32,.192,.1152,.1152,.0576,0,0,0,0)
-SpendOverTime is a variable indexed by time with the capital spend amounts as desired:
-table(time)(0,0,111,0,0,0,0,0,0,0)
-Create a user defined function:
-Function_Depreciation,
-'''Parameters''': (SpendOverTime,DepreciationSchedule),
-'''Definition''':
-index depr_years = copyindex(time);
-var deprStartyr:=time;
-sum(if time-depr_years+1<1 then 0 else
-slice(SpendOverTime,time,Depr_years-startYear+1)*slice(depreciationSchedule,time,time-depr_years+1),depr_years)
-Then create a depreciation test variable to check the result
-Variable: DepreciationTest  definition: function_Depreciation(spendOverTime,DepreciationSchedule)
-== What does Analytica use to represent missing values? ==
-Analytica has no special MissingValue constant.
-I would recommend using Null. However, because Analytica does not interpret this (or any other constant) as meaning a missing value, you will need to insert appropriate conditional logic to deal with the missing values in the appropriate fashion. For example:
-Sum( MaybeMissing(x), I )
-Product( MaybeMissing(x,1), I )
-where
-Function MaybeMissing( x ; defX : optional )
-Definition: if x=Null then if IsNotSpecified(defX) then 0 else defX else X