The database

It is highly recommended to use a spreadsheet software (under Linux, StarOffice seems a good choice) to create a space or tab separated columns file.

It is essential that you respect the following format:

• The first row should contain labels for the different variables, the target and the reference. (e.g. Fe Cr Ni YS Ref). The labels should not contain spaces or tabulation, if they do, there is a probability that you will get absurd results without error messages.

• The last column should contain references. A good practice is to give, as reference, the line number (in the format "linex"). This is easily done with a spreadsheet software such as StarOffice or Excel, and makes it easy to identify lines giving problem in your initial database.
  The reference can not be only a number or errors will occur

• The second last column should be the target.