This book arose out of a number of different contexts, and numerous persons have contributed to its conception and development. It had its origin in a project initiated jointly with the IBM Cambridge Scien tific Center, particularly with Dr. Rhett Tsao, then of that Center. We are grateful to Mr. Norman Rasmussen, Manager of the IBM Scientific Center Complex, for his initial support. The work is being carried on at Brown University with generous support from the Office of Computing Activities of the National Science Foundation (grants GJ-174 and GJ-7l0); we are grateful to Dr. John Lehmann of this Office for his interest and encouragement. Professors Donald McClure and Richard Vitale of the Division of Applied Mathematics at Brown University contributed greatly to the project and taught courses in its spirit. We are indebted to them and to Dr. Tore Dalenius of the University of Stockholm for helpful criticisms of the manuscript. The final stimulus to the book's completion came from an invLtation to teach a course at the IBM European Systems Research Institute at Geneva. We are grateful to Dr. J.F. Blackburn, Director of the Institute, for his invitation, and to him and his wife Beverley for their hospitality. We are greatly indebted to Mrs. Katrina Avery for her splendid secretarial and editorial work on the manuscript.

Student-Friendly Coverage of Probability, Statistical Methods, Simulation, and Modeling Tools Incorporating feedback from instructors and researchers who used the previous edition, Probability and Statistics for Computer Scientists, Second Edition helps students understand general methods of stochastic modeling, simulation, and data analysis; make optimal decisions under uncertainty; model and evaluate computer systems and networks; and prepare for advanced probability-based courses. Written in a lively style with simple language, this classroom-tested book can now be used in both one- and two-semester courses. New to the Second Edition Axiomatic introduction of probability Expanded coverage of statistical inference, including standard errors of estimates and their estimation, inference about variances, chi-square tests for independence and goodness of fit, nonparametric statistics, and bootstrap More exercises at the end of each chapter Additional MATLAB® codes, particularly new commands of the Statistics Toolbox In-Depth yet Accessible Treatment of Computer Science-Related Topics Starting with the fundamentals of probability, the text takes students through topics heavily featured in modern computer science, computer engineering, software engineering, and associated fields, such as computer simulations, Monte Carlo methods, stochastic processes, Markov chains, queuing theory, statistical inference, and regression. It also meets the requirements of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). Encourages Practical Implementation of Skills Using simple MATLAB commands (easily translatable to other computer languages), the book provides short programs for implementing the methods of probability and statistics as well as for visualizing randomness, the behavior of random variables and stochastic processes, convergence results, and Monte Carlo simulations. Preliminary knowledge of MATLAB is not required. Along with numerous computer science applications and worked examples, the text presents interesting facts and paradoxical statements. Each chapter concludes with a short summary and many exercises.

This new edition continues to serve as a comprehensive guide to modern and classical methods of statistical computing. The book is comprised of four main parts spanning the field: Optimization Integration and Simulation Bootstrapping Density Estimation and Smoothing Within these sections,each chapter includes a comprehensive introduction and step-by-step implementation summaries to accompany the explanations of key methods. The new edition includes updated coverage and existing topics as well as new topics such as adaptive MCMC and bootstrapping for correlated data. The book website now includes comprehensive R code for the entire book. There are extensive exercises, real examples, and helpful insights about how to use the methods in practice.

As with the bestselling first edition, Computational Statistics Handbook with MATLAB, Second Edition covers some of the most commonly used contemporary techniques in computational statistics. With a strong, practical focus on implementing the methods, the authors include algorithmic descriptions of the procedures as well as

Suitable for self study Use real examples and real data sets that will be familiar to the audience Introduction to the bootstrap is included – this is a modern method missing in many other books

Great advances have been made in recent years in the field of computational probability. In particular, the state of the art - as it relates to queuing systems, stochastic Petri-nets and systems dealing with reliability - has benefited significantly from these advances. The objective of this book is to make these topics accessible to researchers, graduate students, and practitioners. Great care was taken to make the exposition as clear as possible. Every line in the book has been evaluated, and changes have been made whenever it was felt that the initial exposition was not clear enough for the intended readership. The work of major research scholars in this field comprises the individual chapters of Computational Probability. The first chapter describes, in nonmathematical terms, the challenges in computational probability. Chapter 2 describes the methodologies available for obtaining the transition matrices for Markov chains, with particular emphasis on stochastic Petri-nets. Chapter 3 discusses how to find transient probabilities and transient rewards for these Markov chains. The next two chapters indicate how to find steady-state probabilities for Markov chains with a finite number of states. Both direct and iterative methods are described in Chapter 4. Details of these methods are given in Chapter 5. Chapters 6 and 7 deal with infinite-state Markov chains, which occur frequently in queueing, because there are times one does not want to set a bound for all queues. Chapter 8 deals with transforms, in particular Laplace transforms. The work of Ward Whitt and his collaborators, who have recently developed a number of numerical methods for Laplace transform inversions, is emphasized in this chapter. Finally, if one wants to optimize a system, one way to do the optimization is through Markov decision making, described in Chapter 9. Markov modeling has found applications in many areas, three of which are described in detail: Chapter 10 analyzes discrete-time queues, Chapter 11 describes networks of queues, and Chapter 12 deals with reliability theory.

Will provide a more elementary introduction to these topics than other books available; Gentle is the author of two other Springer books