Van Kampen's book is a must-have for anyone interested in stochastic processes. The presentation is masterful and there are numerous thought-provoking examples and exercises. The author's remarks on "abuse" of methods (such as the Langevin technique) are well worth understanding, even if one does not agree with him in all cases. The price is a bit steep which is unfortunate since this book is really ideal for advanced undergraduates and graduate students.

Offer different softwares(LISREL8, PRELIS2,SIMPLIS) and cover single, multiple groups analyses and provide MTMM model, I thought Dr. Byrne's book one of the most useful resource to apply structural equation model for social science research.

I bought this book (at Amazon.com) to get a better understanding on the basic principles of structural reliability assessment (I 'm concerned with the probabilistic estimation of the remaining life of pressurized pipelines containing active corrosion defects in oil and gas distribution pipeline networks in Mexico). This thorough, well organized, volume is in my opinion the most comprehensive treatment available nowadays. It is mainly devoted to the probabilistic structural safety analysis and includes both theoretical foundations and practical examples in a coherent and logical presentation. It follows a clear step by step scheme (a quite useful feature for newcomers) covering basic issues such as measures of structural reliability and more complex and advanced topics including time dependent reliability and resistance and load modeling. The book also contains a brief on probabilistic theory which I've found very useful as a quick (and refreshing) guide. For newcomers, the first two chapters are essential to understand the subject. The author devotes the core of the book to a rigorous, detailed discussion of methods to compute probability of failure in engineering structures with simple and complex (multiple) limit state functions (and their evolution with time). The Monte Carlo integration approach, the first order methods FOM and the first order second moment methods FOSM are reviewed in detail and practical aspects of their computational implementations are given. It is to underline the excellent discussions given of limit state functions in load-resistance space which allow to clearly understand the procedures and strategies used by the above mentioned reliability methods to compute checking points, safety index and probability of failure. The last part of the book is devoted to load and resistance modeling, codes of structural reliability and probabilistic evaluation of existing structures. Civil engineers will profit this part as I did because of the lack of reliable data on load and resistance structural parameters variability (in many fields, plausible probabilistic methods can be only achieved by judiciously assuming or modeling load and resistance fluctuations, so that these chapter are welcome). This book cover this subject in some detail, emphasizing in steel and concrete members. The probabilistic reliability assessment of existing structures, the latest subject covered by the book is useful in pointing out the necessity of appropriate repairs actions on such structures, how to estimate deterioration and which actions have to be carried out in order to reduce risk levels. Some drawbacks have to be mentioned: (i) practical examples are scarce in key sections such as 1.5.3 (generalized reliability problem formulation), 1.5.4 (conditional reliability problems) and 6.6.3 (FOSM/FOR methods for unconditional failure probability), (ii) the level of abstract thinking required to understand many aspects covered by the book could result quite demanding for newcomers or readers that do not master probabilistic theory, (iii) mathematical details given for the FOSM algorithm are rather cumbersome and only two references to practical computational implementations of this method are given. As a matter of fact, I've preferred and used a practical implementation of this method published by M. Ahammed and R. E. Melchers (the author) in Engineering Structures(Vol. 17, No. 2, page. 74), and (v) I've noted some typographical errors (for example, constant b4 used in expression A.59 must be negative valued -see the book by Abramowitz, pag. 239 ). In spite of these drawbacks, I strongly recommend this book for those people concerned with the subject, especially newcomers, I repeat, this is the best available textbook in the market

This package gives a readable introduction to the basic Matlab language. The value is in the CD-Rom: Version 5). Included are the basic Matlab language (limited to 16000 matrix elements), control and signal analysis extensions, and a large portion of the symbolic extension based on Maple (this provides symbolic algebra and calculus). The on-line documentation has been improved and extended. A large amount of additional Matlab documentation is on the CD including more than 20 additional volumes.

Matlab is easier to use than most computer languages, and many useful functions are included making Matlab an effective way to undertake many calculations, particularly in mathematical, scientific and engineering applications.

Matlab 5 includes cell arrays, data structures and an elementary but usable object oriented extension, making it noticably more powerful than previous versions. As in the previous versions a good range of graphing functions are provided.

Warnings:
Version 5 is not compatible with Simulink 1 ( Simulink 2 is coming Sept 97).
Installer clashes with some extensions (disable extensions during installation).
Upper case letters in file names and class names causes problems (Version 5.0).
Insure you get the Macintosh (or PC version) that includes the disk.

Conclusion:
Requires some elementary programming and then is excellent value for students involves in a wide range of technical applications. Some knowledge of matrices will help get the most from the package. Suitable for upper level high school (years 11 & 12 from start of schooling) to PhD and beyond.

As someone who has read many books covering this topic (e.g., Neter et al., Kirk) I strongly recommend reading this book! This book is particularly useful if you are taking or have had courses covering analysis of variance (ANOVA). Even for the mathematically sophisticated reader it is easy to walk away with a fuzzy, unclear understanding of the uses of ANOVA techniques (sad but true). This book explains how to use these by parsimoniously explaining the conceptual foundations of ANOVA. The books links statistical concepts to the variety of formulas and inferential techniques one encounters, such as two-way and mult-way ANOVAs, interaction, testing of simple effects.

I was deterred from buying this book because of its high price, but finally did so, and, after reading it, recommended to our university library that they do so too. The book has a lot of unusual insights, for example, a theory of hope, and of gamblers perceptions of luck.

A hearty, hearty "thank you" is in order for author, Fred Pyrczak. I can't say enough about Success at Statistics! I am in a graduate program for management and one of the program requirements is the often dreaded Stats class. It seems like so many students who take a statistics class using the traditional, academic tomb hates it! A look at Pyrczak's workbook will make any neophyte stats student breathe a sign of relief as well as have some fun! Educators take note: the very short chapter length and the riddles make getting to the answers an adventure! And before you know it, you've gained a very important skill set.

This book have a very good balance between theory and real world cases. Is good for Engineers that want to go deeper in the telecommunications and for all those guys that are not Engineers and want to get in the digital communications. Personally I use it as text book with a very good result
enjoy it

The Educational Testing Service and other institutions have for over 50 years done important research in testing methods,designs and analyses for a variety of purposes including (1) determining eligibility for university enrollment (2) competency for specific jobs and (3) trend information for public policy. Many of the advances have been described in the psychometric literature and the techniques described in this book are used to compare scores on different tests such as SAT tests taken at different times.

On an elementary level most university professors have done a form of test equating with their own exams since the appropriate difficulty is sometimes hard to gauge. So-called curving a test is a form of adjusting scores by transforming to the standard normal curve.

Unfortunately there are many better techniques that have been ignored and many psychometricians are not properly trained. These authors are among teh leaders in the field and have taught test equating. They found a need for a book of this type and they filled it.

Many prominent statisticians have contributed to this research including Paul Holland, Don Rubin and Henry Braun. Much of this work was done by statisticians during their tenure at ETS and research continues at the ETS and at academic institutions.

The authors provide a thorough treatment of the methods and the literature. This is good for a graduate level course, for a reference guide for practitioners and researchers in test equating.

One important aspect of the problem is estimating the standard error of the test equating estimates. The delta method and parametric and nonparametric bootstrap methods are all described.

An entire chapter is devote to item response theory and its application to test equating. The final chapter provides a very practical discussion of issues in the implementation of test equating methods and includes discussion of the choice of statistical procedures, determining the sample size, data collection, test specification and design, quality control and calibration.

This easy-to-read booklet is a great intoduction to the field of psychometric bias. A little dated now, it still covers a good gament of methods and theories.