ABSTRACT
BugsXLA is an Excel Add-In that provides a graphical user interface for the Bayesian software package WinBUGS; Woodward (2005) describes an earlier version of the program discussed in this book. It allows the user to ˜t a wide class of generalized linear mixed models, as well as other more complex models, without the user needing to know how to program or otherwise interact with the WinBUGS program. BugsXLA has been designed to be easily learnt by anyone familiar with using Microsoft Windows style interfaces, and the speci˜cation of statistical models via one of the common statistical packages such as SAS, S-PLUS, R, or Genstat. The main purpose of this chapter is to explain how to obtain this freely available software, and then describe each of the program’s features. This chapter should be seen as a reference manual where speci˜c details can be looked up when they are needed, rather than guidance to be read through in the order it is written. It is recommended that once the software has been loaded, the user learns how to use it by working through relevant examples in later chapters, referring back to this chapter when more details on a speci˜c feature are required. In particular, Case Study 3.1 illustrates most of the frequently used features of BugsXLA and should be followed carefully before moving on to the more complex analyses later in the book.
