Mathematics Research Center Symposium: Scientific Inference, Data Analysis, and Robustness focuses on the philosophy of statistical modeling, including model robust inference and analysis of data sets. The selection first elaborates on pivotal inference and the conditional view of robustness and some philosophies of inference and modeling, including ideas on modeling, significance testing, and scientific discovery. The book then ponders on parametric empirical Bayes confidence intervals, ecumenism in statistics, and frequency properties of Bayes rules. Discussions focus on consistency of Bayes rules, scientific method and the human brain, and statistical estimation and criticism. The book takes a look at the purposes and limitations of data analysis, likelihood, shape, and adaptive inference, statistical inference and measurement of entropy, and the robustness of a hierarchical model for multinomials and contingency tables. Topics include numerical results for contingency tables and robustness, multinomials, flattening constants, and mixed Dirichlet priors, entropy and likelihood, and test as measurement of entropy. The selection is a valuable reference for researchers interested in robust inference and analysis of data sets.

This book gathers invited presentations from the 2nd Symposium of the ICSA- CANADA Chapter held at the University of Calgary from August 4-6, 2015. The aim of this Symposium was to promote advanced statistical methods in big-data sciences and to allow researchers to exchange ideas on statistics and data science and to embraces the challenges and opportunities of statistics and data science in the modern world. It addresses diverse themes in advanced statistical analysis in big-data sciences, including methods for administrative data analysis, survival data analysis, missing data analysis, high-dimensional and genetic data analysis, longitudinal and functional data analysis, the design and analysis of studies with response-dependent and multi-phase designs, time series and robust statistics, statistical inference based on likelihood, empirical likelihood and estimating functions. The editorial group selected 14 high-quality presentations from this successful symposium and invited the presenters to prepare a full chapter for this book in order to disseminate the findings and promote further research collaborations in this area. This timely book offers new methods that impact advanced statistical model development in big-data sciences.

An introduction to robust estimation; The robustness of residual displays; Robust smoothing; Robust pitman-like estimators; Robust estimation in the presence of outliers; Study of robustness by simulation: particularly improvement by adjustment and combination; Robust techniques for the user; Application of robust regression to trajectory data reduction; Tests for censoring of extreme values (especially) when population distributions are incompletely defined; Robust estimation for time series autoregressions; Robust techniques in communication; Robustness in the strategy of scientific model building; A density-quantile function perspective on robust.

Within both the social and environmental sciences, much of the data collected is within a spatial context and requires statistical analysis for interpretation. The purpose of this book is to describe current methods for the analysis of spatial data. Methods described include data description, map interpolation, and exploratory and explanatory analyses. The book also examines spatial referencing, and methods for detecting problems, assessing their seriousness and taking appropriate action are discussed. This is an important text for any discipline requiring a broad overview of current theoretical and applied work for the analysis of spatial data sets. It will be of particular use to research workers and final year undergraduates in the fields of geography, environmental sciences and social sciences.