In many statistical applications, scientists have to analyze the occurrence of observed clusters of events in time or space. Scientists are especially interested in determining whether an observed cluster of events has occurred by chance if it is assumed that the events are distributed independently and uniformly over time or space. Scan statistics have relevant applications in many areas of science and technology including geology, geography, medicine, minefield detection, molecular biology, photography, quality control and reliability theory and radio-optics.

The study of scan statistics and their applications to many different scientific and engineering problems have received considerable attention in the literature recently. In addition to challenging theoretical problems, the area of scan statis tics has also found exciting applications in diverse disciplines such as archaeol ogy, astronomy, epidemiology, geography, material science, molecular biology, reconnaissance, reliability and quality control, sociology, and telecommunica tion. This will be clearly evident when one goes through this volume. In this volume, we have brought together a collection of experts working in this area of research in order to review some of the developments that have taken place over the years and also to present their new works and point out some open problems. With this in mind, we selected authors for this volume with some having theoretical interests and others being primarily concerned with applications of scan statistics. Our sincere hope is that this volume will thus provide a comprehensive survey of all the developments in this area of research and hence will serve as a valuable source as well as reference for theoreticians and applied researchers. Graduate students interested in this area will find this volume to be particularly useful as it points out many open challenging problems that they could pursue. This volume will also be appropriate for teaching a graduate-level special course on this topic.

While mapped data provide a common ground for discussions between the public, the media, regulatory agencies, and public health researchers, the analysis of spatially referenced data has experienced a phenomenal growth over the last two decades, thanks in part to the development of geographical information systems (GISs). This is the first thorough overview to integrate spatial statistics with data management and the display capabilities of GIS. It describes methods for assessing the likelihood of observed patterns and quantifying the link between exposures and outcomes in spatially correlated data. This introductory text is designed to serve as both an introduction for the novice and a reference for practitioners in the field Requires only minimal background in public health and only some knowledge of statistics through multiple regression Touches upon some advanced topics, such as random effects, hierarchical models and spatial point processes, but does not require prior exposure Includes lavish use of figures/illustrations throughout the volume as well as analyses of several data sets (in the form of "data breaks") Exercises based on data analyses reinforce concepts

Inspired by the Encyclopedia of Statistical Sciences, Second Edition, this volume outlines the statistical tools for successfully working with modern life and health sciences research Data collection holds an essential part in dictating the future of health sciences and public health, as the compilation of statistics allows researchers and medical practitioners to monitor trends in health status, identify health problems, and evaluate the impact of health policies and programs. Methods and Applications of Statistics in the Life and Health Sciences serves as a single, one-of-a-kind resource on the wide range of statistical methods, techniques, and applications that are applied in modern life and health sciences in research. Specially designed to present encyclopedic content in an accessible and self-contained format, this book outlines thorough coverage of the underlying theory and standard applications to research in related disciplines such as biology, epidemiology, clinical trials, and public health. Uniquely combining established literature with cutting-edge research, this book contains classical works and more than twenty-five new articles and completely revised contributions from the acclaimed Encyclopedia of Statistical Sciences, Second Edition. The result is a compilation of more than eighty articles that explores classic methodology and new topics, including: Sequential methods in biomedical research Statistical measures of human quality of life Change-point methods in genetics Sample size determination for clinical trials Mixed-effects regression models for predicting pre-clinical disease Probabilistic and statistical models for conception Statistical methods are explored and applied to population growth, disease detection and treatment, genetic and genomic research, drug development, clinical trials, screening and prevention, and the assessment of rehabilitation, recovery, and quality of life. These topics are explored in contributions written by more than 100 leading academics, researchers, and practitioners who utilize various statistical practices, such as election bias, survival analysis, missing data techniques, and cluster analysis for handling the wide array of modern issues in the life and health sciences. With its combination of traditional methodology and newly developed research, Methods and Applications of Statistics in the Life and Health Sciences has everything students, academics, and researchers in the life and health sciences need to build and apply their knowledge of statistical methods and applications.

In today’s global and highly competitive environment, continuous improvement in the processes and products of any field of engineering is essential for survival. This book gathers together the full range of statistical techniques required by engineers from all fields. It will assist them to gain sensible statistical feedback on how their processes or products are functioning and to give them realistic predictions of how these could be improved. The handbook will be essential reading for all engineers and engineering-connected managers who are serious about keeping their methods and products at the cutting edge of quality and competitiveness.

Publisher Description

Applied probability is a broad research area that is of interest to scientists in diverse disciplines in science and technology, including: anthropology, biology, communication theory, economics, epidemiology, finance, geography, linguistics, medicine, meteorology, operations research, psychology, quality control, sociology, and statistics. Recent Advances in Applied Probability is a collection of survey articles that bring together the work of leading researchers in applied probability to present current research advances in this important area. This volume will be of interest to graduate students and researchers whose research is closely connected to probability modelling and their applications. It is suitable for one semester graduate level research seminar in applied probability.