Forecasting the number of parties to the TPNW/Simulate number of parties to the TPNW

The statistical computations to produce the figure in the Wikiversity article on "Forecasting the number of parties to the TPNW" are documented and explained and can be replicated by "knitting" the R Markdown code below in.

Process

 * 1) Open an instance of .  If you don't already have it installed, you can go to "RStudio Cloud" and click "get started for free" (at least as of 2020-10-24).  Or you can download and install free and open-source versions of it and R on your local computer.  R is available from The Comprehensive R Archive Network.  For RStudio, go to its website > Products (top center) > RStudio > "RStudio Desktop" > "Open Source Edition" > "Download RStudio Desktop".
 * 2) Start RStudio.  Then File > "New File" > "R Markdown..." > Title:  "Simulate number of parties to the TPNW" > PDF > OK.
 * 3) Replace the default code in this new RMarkdown vignette on "Simulate number of parties to the TPNW" with the text from the section below entitled, 'RMarkdown vignette to "Simulate number of parties to the TPNW"'.
 * 4) Save.
 * 5) Click the "Knit" icon;  see the companion image.  Or read the text and run the code chunks one at a time manually.  The latter makes it relatively easy to look at intermediate computations carefully and experiment with changing things in different ways.

Development of this vignette
This vignette was produced as a modification of an earlier vignette used to predict the date that the fiftieth country officially became a party to the TPNW. After that happened, that vignette was modified to Monte Carlo the plausible range of the number of new parties by a given date in the future, which is what this vignette does.