Fix exception handling under MATLAB in unitary test infrastructure.

The getReport() function of MATLAB expects an exception coming from the "catch"
statement. It is not happy with the value returned by lasterror().

(cherry picked from commit 8daed40ab39d9a4ca01d280158539864a0197037)
Don't skip first observation when loading XLS(X) or CSV files.

(cherry picked from commit 7da5065db4f9d7ab60bdec9abbb54f41dab513c2)
Add option mh_conf_sig

Fixes #598

(manually cherry picked from commit 35795c3ba9fdc2f520e32f3a4b45d1a5fcffb42e)
fix bug when there is no parameter declared in the model

(cherry picked from commit fa7d123ea4ca5467e4c588046202eff280aa29c7)
Bugfix: M_.sigma_e_is_diagonal could be wrong if there were several shocks blocks.

(manually cherry picked from commit df0db38b3ca812dacd7d9c68b5abdc1fc5fa848c)
Add warning if conditional_variance_decomposition is requested with simulated moments

(cherry picked from commit 3afdbf8e4722c71c62d9d9b664f87f4420c87210)
Improve documentation on unconditional variance decomposition

(cherry picked from commit 4a8e737c7a2653ee4ba0cb599d668b4824916406)
Remove extra whitespace introduced in 4a8e737c.

(cherry picked from commit 52d4944c9cd45918d294e1b8d82ce76e5d560fbd)
Correctly set oo_.deterministic_simulation.status in sim1_purely_{backward,forward}.m.

(manually cherry picked from commits 0e204673 and 7b882b2f)
preprocessor: don't substitute 'dates' when preceded by an underscore

(cherry picked from commit aa135218a5b6901d31ad560f6f6b88911459fca7)
There is now an interface for option maxit.

(manually cherry picked from commit e2b42382ee95f8e25755e54ac4afbbdfee93cc7b)
Use correct texinfo commands for *_plan functions.

(cherry picked from commit 9a6ed32ff3e4c2212e4ebfaafd699708c5e9032a)
Octave testsuite: force gnuplot toolkit for text graphics.

This is necessary since FLTK is now the default toolkit in octave 3.8.

(cherry picked from commit c4a4e6eeb3a443d19a2045e31e82796b6f9ba1b1)
Ref. manual: fix default number of periods of forecast command.

(cherry picked from commit c768ff239b50e5ead38368424ced013f57d2be18)
trust_region/dogleg: fixing sign error

(cherry picked from commit 58ba964bb7e286e2fbf679eb39168e1c4e281b4b)
Revert "trust_region/dogleg: fixing sign error"

This reverts commit 0ef6c9e9643dabd644a6fe9beac355ece2672954.
fixed expectation model test cases. They had a crazy steady state
revealed by the now more accurate nonlinear solver.

(cherry picked from commit 8bf484a140f8a1d31f474c93e4201740444dcc5c)
Forbid model local variables in planner_objective.

Otherwise the preprocessor crashes.

(cherry picked from commit c45f45f58ed144ede58211614101ba763fdbf785)
doc: add default values for baxter_king_filter

(cherry picked from commit f21bed4f1f12a3fbd06841aee50d90aa751171f7)