Thank you for your interest in our program for analyzing serial-time
bioassay data. This program is used to analyze bioassay data when
multiple observations over time were made on the same groups of
organisms at one dose of a stimulus. If you have multiple observations
over time and more than one dose in a data set, don't use this program
to analyze that data set. Use the program by Preisler and Robertson
(1989.  Journal of Economic Entomology 82:  1534-1542.).

I have included six programs in this zip file. I would suggest that
the first thing that you do is to make a backup copy of the zip file,
so that you will always have an original copy of the programs. The
PROBIT program is used to analyze serial-time bioassay data. All
information for complete reporting of probit analyses is provided by the
program, including: the slopes and intercepts, with their variances and
covariance; the chi-square for goodness-of-fit of the regression line;
and lethal time values, with confidence limits. PROBIT2 does the same 
thing, but will calculate all possible transformations at one time 
(probit, logit, CLL, log-probit, log-logit, log-CLL).

The remaining four programs use output from the PROBIT program, or from
any other probit analysis program. The BACKTRAN program can be used to
transform probit-, logit-, or complementary log-log-transformed data
back to the original units (proportion organisms responding to the
stimulus) to help assess goodness of fit. The program will also
calculate residuals and standardized residuals of proportion organisms
responding to the stimulus. The program outputs time or dose, the
observed and predicted proportion organisms responding at each time or
dose, and the residual and standardized residual corresponding to each
time or dose. The program also outputs the observed and predicted
probit-transformed data corresponding to each time or dose. These data
can be used to plot observed vs.  predicted proportion organisms
responding to the stimulus, or the corresponding probits, to assess
goodness-of-fit. These graphs are also automatically generated by the 
BACKTRAN program. BACKTRAN should be used only for data that are 
correlated. I.e., you looked at the same insects over several time 
periods. If your data consist of independent observations - i.e., a 
different batch of bugs for every observation time or for each dose - 
use BACKTRN2.

The SLOPE program is used to calculate whether slopes and intercepts
from two regression lines differ. The RELPOT program is used to
calculate relative potency of two stimuli, including confidence limits
on relative potency.

Instructions for running the programs:
1.	To run any of the six programs (PROBIT.nb, PROBIT2.nb, BACKTRAN.nb, 
BACKTRN2.nb, RELPOT.nb, SLOPE.nb), you first need to edit the 
appropriate input file (PRinput, PR2input, BTinput, BT2input, RPinput, 
SLinput, respectively) using a text editor such as Notepad (don’t save 
the input files as Word Processor files), and then save the input file 
using the original name for the input file. The files PRinput.txt, 
PR2input.txt, BTinput.txt, BT2input.txt, RPinput.txt, and SLinput.txt 
describe the input data required to run the programs, and can be viewed 
in Notepad. No changes should be made to the Mathematica notebook files 
(.nb files).

2.	To run one of the programs, ensure that both the modified input file 
and the notebook file are both in the Documents directory using Windows 
Explorer. Then double-click the notebook file to open the notebook in 
Mathematica or Player Pro automatically. Then select “Evaluation”, 
“Evaluate Notebook” from the toolbar to run the program. If you are 
running one of the programs that produces graphs, the graphs will be 
shown at the bottom of the program window. You can click on a graph to 
select it and then print or save it, or right-click on the selected 
graph to copy it to the clipboard and then paste the graph into Word, 
PowerPoint, or another program. The last line of the program window 
shows the file where output was written. You can open the output file 
with Notepad to view your output.

I have also enclosed pdf versions of a manual describing the probit 
analysis and backtransformation techniques, which provide a description 
of the numerical techniques used.

The programs will run in Wolfram Mathematica or Wolfram PlayerPro which 
can be purchased from:

http://wolfram.com/

Papers describing the techniques used are:

Throne, J.E., D.K. Weaver, and J.E. Baker.  1995.  Probit analysis:
assessing goodness-of-fit based on backtransformation and residuals.    
Journal of Economic Entomology 88: 1513-1516.

Throne, J.E., D.K. Weaver, V. Chew, and J.E. Baker.  1995.  Probit
analysis of correlated data: multiple observations over time at one
concentration.  Journal of Economic Entomology 88: 1510-1512.

If you have any questions about using the programs, or suggestions for
improving the programs or instructions, please contact me.

If you received these programs from someone other than my web site, I'd
suggest that you download the current versions of the programs for free
from my web site to ensure that you have current, working copies
of the programs:

http://www.ars.usda.gov/npa/cgahr/spiru/throne

Jim Throne
USDA-ARS CGAHR
1515 College Avenue
Manhattan  KS  66502
(785) 776-2796
james.throne@ars.usda.gov

Mention of a proprietary product does not constitute an endorsement or a
recommendation for its use by USDA.