Hi, I want to simulate from Markov Chain Discrete Algorithm and my transition matrix is: The probability transition matrix trans = matrix(c(0.8,0.05,0.05,0, 0.05,0.80,0.055, 0.05,0.05,0.81, 0, 0.05, 0.095, 0, 0.81), ncol=4, byrow=TRUE); The Initiate Values are based on some conditions: State 1 at time 0: >50 lb for women State 1 at time 0: >80 lb for men State 2 at time 0: <=50 lb for women State 2 at time 0: <=80 lb for men State 3 and 4 at the beginning are Zeros. There are two things that I'm not sure how to approach. 1. How to convert initiate values at state 1 and 2 to probability? 2.How to consider Gender into the chain? Thanks a lot. [[alternative HTML version deleted]]