This text is easy to understand and read. It goes about the topic of statistics in a different manner than other stat books do. Wardrop explains the topics in real life situations, applicable to what one may really encounter without being a statistics major. I am lucky in that I was able to take the course with Prof. Wardrop and use his book. I took a different stat course earlier but dropped it because the professor and the text in that course were both confusing and boring. Also the information and method of which we were learning was both impractical and frustrating. I would recommend Wardrop and his text over others.

This cutting-edge textbook on the Statistics of the Galaxy Distribution describes and predicts the pattern forming habits, distribution laws, and spatial resolutions of the large-scale cosmological structures in the universe. Galaxies, clusters, superclusters, walls of galaxies, filamentary regions, voids, and dark matter areas are discussed. Not only does the book detail the astrophysical natures of these physical structures but it also uses recent developments in statistics in order to predict that which cannot be known absolutely from mere astronomical observation. Cosmological point processes and continuous random fields are stochastic (random) processes outlined in the book. They describe the frequency of the originating matter in the universe that distributes itself in a mode that represents the harmonics of space. Some of the geometry used in the book is non-Euclidean because the large regions of space that are being assesed reside where space-time curvature is accounted for.

Periodic sollutions for cosmological fields, such as spectras for Gaussian random fields, are modelled with "gradient topographies", as waveforms, using Fourier transforms. The digital imaging of reallized spectra, the Boolean grain model for Poisson distribution, cosmological simulation for a percolating cluster, and the redshift survey for voids are pretty cool.

This book tackles a wide range of mathematical topics and applies areas of very pertinent, recent fields of scientific inquiry. The void probability function, fractal properties of the galaxy distribution, fractal models for the univesre, Hausdorff dimension (in relation to sets of fractioned dimension), correlation lenghth and fractal behaviour, multifractal measures (very interesting), the Voronoi model of tesselations (a crystalline structure of galaxy distribution composed of cellular geometry), Fourier analysis of clustering, random fields and point processes, redshift distortions, pencil-beams and slices, and an awesome section devoted to cosmography includes areas on time machines, gravitational lensing, cosmic shear etc. also topological measurements, Minkowski functionals, cluster and percolation analysis, spaning trees, wavelets, void statistics, supergalactic coordinate systems, it's a very versatile cosmology text.

The specificity of subject this book examines is a very fascinating and important one. The way the universe disperses matter and organizes itself spatially, on a large-scale, may soon give clues to the general unified theory of physical fields, as information correlations for small-scale distributions. Observing the surveys of the largest fields reveal that the patterns for galaxy distribution form a network resembling nothing else but the axonal webbing of the brain.

For any fascinated students, scientists or mathematicians, this book provides valuable knowledge about the universe. If this was all you understood about cosmology you would be closer to absolute cosmological knowledge than a cosmologist who knew nothing but general theory.

Other recommendations would be; Towards the Edge of the Universe by Stuart Clark, Galactic Astronomy by James Binney and Astrometry of Fundamental Catalogues by H.G. Walter

I bought this book because it was required reading for my second year statistics course (Michael Smithson is actually my stats lecturer at the moment!) but I was certainly not disappointed. The title "Statistics with Confidence" is true to its name - I am SO much better and more confidence with statistics now then I was at the beginning of the year and I am actually enjoying it!!!

His explanations are brilliant and easy to follow and understand and his examples and practice questions are never few, so there's always more to keep you busy and entertained!

His book also comes with a CD-Rom which incldues very easy to use programs and examples to help you practice.

Buy this book if you are looking for a great and easy to understand overview of Psychology related Statistics (or even statistics in general) as either a supplement to your current texts or alone - and at such a good price, you'd be mad not to!

Engagingly written, with clear (and usually relevant) anecdotes, the book succeeds in the attempt to present statistics as a subject available to the amateur. I especially enjoyed the examples at the end of the book, where I could check out how well I had grasped the concepts earlier presented. So many experts barrage us with statistics that attempt to influence our viewpoints, actions, activities and votes, that it is important to be able to know whether or not the information is valid and complete. With the analysis tools provided by the author, one can more effectively decide whether or not the facts presented are valid or accurate.

This is a very friendly statistics book. It is easy to read and understand. The authors also throw in some humorous comments now and then that is something you wouldn't expect to find in a statistics book and this seemed to help with the reading. Many real world business examples are used in the book. The example problems and the end of section or chapter problems are from different areas of study such as business, political, social sciences, and science. This is great for understanding how to apply statistics in real life. I would have to say that all the topics and formulas are explained very well. In some cases there are more then one way to write a formula and Sanders and Smidt makes a point of giving you both formulas. You can decide which formula works for you. The book comes with a CD loaded with the data files for all the problems so you don't have to spend time keying in data. There are copies of the data files come in a variety of formats such as Minitab, Excel Windows, and Macintosh. For most of the example problems the book takes you through the steps using Minitab Statistical software and the TI-83 graphing calculator. You are not only learning statistics, but you are also learning how to use Minitab and the TI-83 graphing calculator. In this day and age if you are going to do statistics you need to be able to do it with a computer. I wish they would have also included examples using Microsoft Excel, which more people are apt to have then Minitab. Personally I use both Minitab and Excel. I actually enjoyed reading this book and looked forward to studying. Even though my statistics class is over this book will not be collecting dust for a while as I plan on going back through it to reread or finish reading what I missed or skimmed over. There are still a lot of the problems that I want to do to reinforce what I have already learned. This is a great statistics book to keep as a reference. More then once I have found coworkers looking up stuff in my book.

I've used examples from this book in every research design, evaluation or statistics course I have ever taught. The essays are compelling -- how a statistician beats a parking ticket, how the whales are counted, the biggest health experiment ever conducted. I actually see students eyes light up and they catch the joy and excitement of detection, wit, thinking outside the box, the humility of guessing rather than knowing. The book is a sheer pleasure. Bravo to the authors.

I read this book before I puchased it. It's good for students who don't have the strong background in statistics because the authors used very clear words to explain the statistic formulas.
I love the summary of key concepts and formulas very much. I strongly recommend evryone to buy it because you will love it.

I was dreading my required graduate course in statistics, and worried about the entrance exam I would have to take to get into the class, when a friend loaned me this book. In just a few weeks I had read 300+ pages and taught myself enough to pass the test. I am still referring to the book frequently (so much, in fact, that I'm ordering my own copy from amazon). It is a great book because it is so much easier to understand than the textbooks my professor is using in the class. Each concept is thoroughly explained in plain language, with good examples and practice exercises. I don't know what I would have done without this resource!

This book covers the theory of spatial point processes at a level that is perfect for the practical scientist who needs to solve real-world problems or analyze data -- without details of measure theory and other abstractions.

This is an excellent book on stochastic convergence. The book is oriented toward advanced graduate students in economics and researchers that have to use econometrics in practice, and its main aim is to introduce this audience to advanced mathematical concepts that are needed in order to deal with stochastic convergence. The first part of this book (about 200 pages) is preliminaries from real analysis, measure and probability theory. Then it discusses theory of stochastic processes, introducing among others such concepts as martingales and mixingales, and then it moves to the main part - various limit results (about 300 pages). It discusses in great detail Laws of Large Numbers and Central Limit Theorems for various sequences of random variables: from simple iid cases to dependent non-identicali distributed. It concludes with the section on Functional Central Limit Theorems. This textbook is practically complete, it contains huge amount of material and almost all results are provided with proofs. It was recommended to as by prof. Phillips for his Time-Series Econometrics course ar Yale, but I find it very useful for other courses in statistics and finance too. It is just a great reference book and if you study econometrics at advanced level or you have to read modern econometrics literature you would appreciate it. It could be also a good idea to combine reading of this book with White's "Asymptotic Theory For Econometricians". The last one is very compact and it adapts results found in Davidson's book to the case of linear regression model.