EUGene Frequently Asked Questions

and Add-ons

 These are some common questions and answers about EUGene that may help you in getting started.  If you have additional questions, please check the manual that comes with EUGene, or check the online documentation.  If you are still having trouble, send us email.  We will add to this list as questions come up.  

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How do I install EUGene?
2. When I double-click the "setup.exe", Windows pops up an error message about disk space. I have plenty of disk space. What's going on?
3. Can I install EUGene on a network/to a server?
4. Can I install and run EUGene from a CD?
5. I'm having trouble running EUGene from a server. The program won't run, (or) users are having trouble accessing certain variables from the server. What's wrong?
6. I want expected utility or risk data!  How do I get it?
7. How do I create a new data set  with variables of my choice?
8. How do I merge in data that is not included in EUGene?
9. Help, I'm losing cases!  How do I create a data set just with all dyads and years?
10. How do I compute expected utility values using my specifications or data?
11. How do I uninstall EUGene?
12. Can I create a non-directed dyad data set using EUGene? 

 
EUGene Add-ons

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I install EUGene?

• First, go to the download page and click on the appropriate link to download the setup file.
• After you successfully download the file to a directory on your PC, locate the downloaded file using the Windows Explorer and double click on it.
• You will be prompted for installation options.  You should normally just accept the defaults.  You may install EUGene to any directory of your choice;  if necessary this directory will be created automatically.  The setup program will extract the program and data files, and create a new group in Windows under "Start – Programs".
• To run EUGene, double click the icon labeled "EUGENE" in the EUGENE program group, or double click the EUGENE32.EXE icon in the Windows Explorer in the "C:\EUGENE" directory (or whatever directory you chose to install the program in).
• Program documentation is automatically installed on your PC in the "C:\EUGENE\DOCS" directory, and is included as 1) an MS-Word document titled "EUGeneDocumentation.doc", 2) a rich-text-format file titled "EUGeneDocumentation.rtf," and a flat text file titled "EUGeneDocumentation.txt".

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When I double-click the "setup.exe", Windows pops up an error message about disk space. I have plenty of disk space. What's going on?

• The EUGene setup program requires temporary disk space on drive C: where it can expand its files before moving them to a final location. You must temporarily free up approximately 250-300 Megabytes of space on drive C: in order to install EUGene. Once EUGene is installed, you may move files back to C: without affecting the installed program.
• This error will occur even if you have placed the EUGene setup.exe file on a drive with plenty of space (e.g. it will occur if you have too little space on drive C:, even if drive D: has 300+ megabytes of free space).

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Can I install EUGene on a network/to a server?

Yes! Please follow the directions on the download page about installing to a server.

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Can I install EUGene to a CD?

Yes! Please follow the directions on the download page about installing to a CD.

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I'm having trouble running EUGene from a server. The program won't run, (or) users are having trouble accessing certain variables from the server. What's wrong?

More than likely, the server is not set to give write access to the "intermediate files directory." Please follow the directions on the download page about installing to a server.

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I just want a complete expected utility or risk data set!  How do I get it?

The expected utility data that we have computed is stored in a special binary file format.  You will have to run EUGene and use it to create a new data set.

• First, install EUGene onto your PC, following the directions on the download page.
• Second, run the program and select the appropriate unit of analysis under the "Create Data Set" menu.  If you want a data set of risk attitude scores, you would normally select the country-year, while if you want expected utility data (utility scores or International Interaction game equilibria), you would normally select the directed dyad-year.
• Third, make appropriate selections on the output options pages.
  • On the "Files" tab, select an output file to save your data set.
  • Choose what cases you want on the "population" tab (all country-years or all dyad-years).
  • To ensure that you do get all dyads or all countries, be sure that sampling is set to "no sampling" on the "sampling" tab.
  • Under the "inclusions" tab be sure the options are set to "Include all dyads with an ongoing MID," "Keep Target vs. Initiator Dyads if no new MID," and "Include all Joiner Dyads."
  • On the variables page, be sure to check "ccodes" "year" and also "Risk Attitude -- EUGene" (for risk scores), or "Utility -- War and Reason" and "Equilibria -- War and Reason" (for expected utility data).
• Choose "OK" at the bottom of the output options window.  If you have selected the right options, your data set will now be generated.

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How do I create a new data set with variables of my choice?

Creating a new data set with EUGene is easy. 

• First, install EUGene onto your PC, following the directions on the download page.
• Second, run the program and select the appropriate unit of analysis under the "Create Data Set" menu for the analysis you want.
• Third, make appropriate selections on the output options pages.
  • On the "Files" tab, select an output file to save your data set, or select the printer or screen.
  • Choose what cases you want on the "population" tab (choose what years and subset of countries you want).
  • If you want a random sample of dyad-years, set options on the "sampling" tab.
  • Under the "inclusions" tab be sure to set options to include or exclude cases in the data file as you wish.
  • If you are outputting dyadic data and are interested in MID codings, then be sure to set the identity of the initiator under the "Dispute Initiator" tab.
  • On the variables page, check the variables that you wish to be included in the final data sets.
• Choose "OK" at the bottom of the output options window.  Your data set will now be written to the output file.  Note that creating an output file, even of only one or two variables, will take significant time because the program is checking for whether each dyad year should be included or excluded, depending on your selections in the output menus.

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How do I merge in data that is not included in EUGene?

For merging in other data that is not part of the base EUGene package, and which is not available from our server (under the “User Data” menu), you may do one of two things. 

1. First, if you just want to create a data set for your personal use and you have relatively simple files to merge in, then you might want to use EUGene to create a "base" file, and then add to that outside EUGene. 
   1. Create a “base” file from EUGene with the appropriate cases, and which has as many variables as you need from within EUGene. 
   2. Prepare your other data set.  Format it to match with the base data from EUGene (make sure it is the appropriate unit of analysis as your base data, e.g. directed or non-directed as appropriate, dyad-year, etc.).  Ensure the “merge” data set has identically named key variables to match the cases in EUGene (e.g. “ccode1 ccode2 year”).  Sort the data.  If you will be using Stata for your merge, save as a Stata file.
   3. Load your base file into Stata (or other software) and merge your additional data in.  This is easy in Stata (procedures are similar in other programs).  For instance, if you've loaded the data set created by EUGene into Stata, and it has key identifier variables “ccode1 ccode2 year”, and your second dyadic set has variables “ccode1 ccode2 year”, then the Stata command to merge the files will be along the lines of the following (possibly with the “nokeep” option):
      >> merge ccode1 ccode2 year, using "other_data_file.dta"
2. Second, you may prepare your own user data file.  EUGene has specific requirements for reading user data sets (you must create an appropriate configuration file, a documentation file is required, and the data must be appropriately structured in one of the units of analysis handled by EUGene).  Procedures for creating user data sets are detailed in the document "EUGene user dataset procedures.doc" in the "docs" subdirectory (normally “c:\program files\eugene\docs”). 
   • If you then upload the data to the EUGene server, then once the data set is approved (which requires permission of the original data owner if you are using data assembled by others), it will become publicly available to anyone using EUGene.
   • If you only want to use this data yourself, you may just put the user data file, configuration file, and documentation you created into your local "user data sets" subdirectory (normally “c:\program files\eugene\ user data sets”).  When you start EUGene, the program should recognize it.

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Help, I'm losing cases!  How do I create a data set just with all dyads and years?

• EUGene was designed primarily with the objective of outputting data while using the COW MIDs as the dependent variable.  For this reason, in versions 1.12 and 1.13 the default settings are to drop cases (dyad-years) where a dispute is ongoing at the beginning of the year, to drop the reverse direction of directed dyadic dispute initiations, and so on (as detailed in the documentation).  To keep all dyad-years in v1.12 and v1.13, you must check the options "Include All Dyads with an Ongoing MID" and "Keep Target vs. Initiator Directed Dyads if no new MID" on the "Exclusions" tab of the main output page.  Cases were dropped based on the criteria in the "Exclusions" tab even if the user did not request MID data in the output.
• v1.14 changes the default for exclusion of cases.  From version 1.14 forward, NO cases will be dropped based on MID-based exclusions unless the user chooses MIDs on the variables page.  If MIDs are not selected, an additional notice is now given on the "Dispute Initiator" and "Exclusions" tabs that those criteria for case selection are unavailable.

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How do I compute expected utility values using my specifications or data?

• Under the "Recompute Data" menu, choose the variable that you wish to recompute.  [Note:  because of the time involved, we do NOT recommend recomputing risk scores.  Initial generation of these data from 1816-1984 took approximately 6 computer-months of processing time on two Pentium Pro 200 MHz PC.]
• You will be presented with options that must be selected for that variable.  Select the appropriate options and then choose "OK."  The variable will be recomputed under those specifications.
• If you wish to use different values for particular input data sets (for example, changing particular capability or alliance values), you will need to edit raw data files in the "INPUTDAT" subdirectory, or replace them with your own.  See the full documentation for details on file formatting.  If the format of the data files is accidentally changed, EUGene will not run properly.
• Then, after the data has finished being computed, go to the "generate output data" menu and make the appropriate selections.  Since you have now recomputed capabilities, tau, expected utility, or risk data, when you choose to include those variables in an output data set, the newly computed values will be used.

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How do I uninstall EUGene?

• To uninstall EUGene, double-click "Add/Remove Programs" in the Windows 95/98/NT/2000 Control Panel  [select Start - Settings - Control Panel].  You will see an entry for EUGene.  Select it, and click "Remove."  EUGene's files will be removed from your system.  If you have created data sets using EUGene, or modified the input files, you will have to delete those files (and the C:\EUGENE" directory) manually.

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Can I create a non-directed dyad data set using EUGene?

• Version 1.94 of EUGene adds the option to create a non-directed dyad data set.     

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Add-Ons

Now that non-directed dyads are available as a selection within EUGene, no add-on programs are currently available. 

EUGene Copyright © 1997-2007, D. Scott Bennett and Allan C. Stam.  All Rights Reserved