Great! This book contains all the most important statistical methods that any quality professional might use in maintaining and improving their quality management system. All of the methods are listed in alphabetical order for quick and easy reference. Each method is thoroughly explained and the examples are a great way to familiarize yourself with each method. This book should be on every quality professionals bookshelf! I know I will be referencing it practically everyday.

If you actually want to learn how to apply SPC and other Quality Methods, this is the book for you. What makes this book great is its ability to bridges the concept to application gap that so many books do not. Mark Crossley breaks each tool down using easy-to-follow steps and illustrations that guide the reader through the use of each tool.

Although the aesthetics (print, figures etc) of the book leave something to be desired, this is definitely a book one can get a lot out of. Gallager's treatment of the subject matter favors simplicity and his thought process is usually easy to follow. Occasionally one finds less than water tight proofs but all in all this is a great addition to the bookshelf.

A great book to have. The book gives you real deep insight into the theorems of probability, queing systems and discrete stochastic processes. What most advanced level books on stochastic processes dont have is the explaination of the theorems because authors assume the audiance to be mathematicians. Gallegers book is more for engineers and less for mathematicicans.

It has become increasingly evident that the social science fields need to evaluate theories and their underlying constructs empirically. If you are similar to myself as a graduate student, you needed to overcome your fears of using factor analysis in your research. This text is excellent for clarifying issues glossed-over in your basic statistics courses, without being too "techie" in its approach. This is a great startup book on factor analysis for fledgling researchers.

A very good book, I now actually understand the subject! It even goes on to explain about LISRELL

Dear Sir.
can you supply an e-edition of this book for me? i like it and want to read it.

A good and concise introduction to basic statistics. A good book for non-mathematican.

. . .by authors who remember that they are writing for persons who are NOT professional mathematicians.

In today's world, frequently persons enter the business profession from a background in something other than what in the past might have been considered traditional avenues. Not all business textbooks recognize this (see my review for "Mathematical Applications")! However, this book seems to be an exception.

The material is presented in a logical format; key formulae are highlighted and set off from the rest of the text; and in-depth business examples are given in each chapter, demonstrating the particular statistical tools to be taught.

A useful and recommended volume.

The information in this book is clear-cut, concise, and easy to read. Easily understandable examples are given for the various statistical formulas, and extras like z-score value charts and the like help a lot. If you have a talented instructor leading your Stats class (like I did) in addition to this text, you will be sure to ace this course (like I did)!

P.S.: If you happen to be an Information Systems/Information Technology major (such as myself) DO NOT RE-SELL THIS BOOK! You will need the information in this book in your future Info Systems courses, and you will definitely realize the TRUE value of this text!

Extreme value theory is very important in the analysis of floods, air pollution, reliability and many other data sources where the maximum or minimum of a sequence of observations is considered. The original development for independent observations goes back to R. A. Fisher and L. Tippetts in the 1920s. After their work Gnedenko (1930s) proved the three types theorem which completed the asymptotic theory for independent and identically distributed random variables. Gumbel wrote the first text on the subject which made it accessible to practitioners. Extensions of the asymptotic theory to correlated sequences were later developed by Berman for Gaussian sequences and Loynes, O'Brien, Leadbetter and others in the more general context of stationary sequences satisfying mixing conditions. My Ph.D. dissertation covered an aspect of the stationary case. Good theoretic treatment can be found in a book by Resnick, one by Galambos and one by Leadbetter, Lindgren and Rootzen. Castillo has collaborated with Galambos in research on extremes. Here he makes the theory and applications accessible to engineers. Even some of my contributions are referenced.

This is one of the best books that I have every read in engineering. Castillo and a few others like Galambos were some of the first people to realize the importance of extreme values. A maximum is an example of an extreme value, because it is the top or highest value. Likewise for a minimum. These extremes behave quite differently from most ordinary things and have a mathematics and engineering all of their own. They have been applied also to other fields where "extremes" in an intuitive sense exist, such as extreme accidents in car insurance (long chain collisions of cars in the fog, heights of waves in the ocean, etc.). They are also closely related to one of the most important new research areas in mathematics: large deviations or rare events theory (see my reviews of Dembo and others). The Gumbel, Weibull, and Frechet probability distributions are important in this area. Those readers who are not specialists should buy the book anyway and hire a consultant or tutor to translate the mathematics into closer to ordinary English, because extreme as well as rare events occur almost everywhere.

Reviewed by:
Timothy E. McMahon, M.S.
Electronic Publishing Specialist
American Mathematical Society

A researcher approaches the reference desk and asks how she can find the latest figures on terrorist incidents in the United States. Another approaches asking to learn how much money was spent to make the movie "Independence Day." Can you answer these questions using online resources that are available from your library? Possibly. However, if you have read Berinstein's book, that answer quickly becomes Probably.

Paula Berinstein has put together a comprehensive work that covers the Internet as well as other fee based online services. The author leads off her work with a detailed Table of Contents and Table of Figures. These are complimented by a pointer to the Directory of Online Statistical Sources locate on the Berinstein Research Web Site. This site is a companion to the book and attempts to keep users up-to-date on trends effecting the discovery and use of online statistical sources. The book contains nineteen chapters, four appendices and a solid forty-three page index. Throughout the book, the author uses a conversational tone with her readers that serves to ease the user into the complexities of statistics discovery and retrieval.

The first chapter of the book is a Quick Start designed for those familiar with online searching and statistics. This chapter contains brief abstracts as well as general and specific online services that are commonly available. The reader is presented sections dealing with availability, costs, features and benefits as well as drawbacks of these sites. The chapter also includes several comparison charts and tips on search strategy.

Chapter two is a primer on statistics. Here the reader will receive a brief overview of the types of statistics one might find online. Concepts such as raw numbers, percentages, averages and standard deviation are clearly defined on a low level so as to make these abstractions available to the broadest audience. The author also discusses methodologies of data collection and analysis that are common in statistical reporting.

Chapter three concentrates on giving the reader an understanding of who generates and publishes statistics. These providers are broken out into fifteen broad categories that range from government agencies to individual researchers. The author takes a brief look at each of these categories with much of the text devoted to the federal government. This chapter provides easy to read bulleted lists that point to sites where the user will find statistical information and screen captures that allow the reader to see what he or she should be looking at when using the links provided by the author.

The fourth chapter provides the reader with general search tips. In this chapter, the author presents the reader with tips for choosing statistical sources and combines these with advice on formulating search strategies. The core of this chapter is the author's construction of figures and word lists that cause the reader to think not only of where to find statistics but how statistics might be presented on any site or service. Also provided in this chapter are tips on searching specific services such as DIALOG, STN, DataStar and others.

Chapters five through eighteen are "subject-specific" and deal with finding statistics in particular subject areas. These subject areas range from demographics and population to transportation statistics. Each of these chapters details common types of data to be found, key producers of this data, best places to find these data and an extremely useful case study. These case studies present the reader with a reference question and methodically steps through the process involved in the discovery of a correct answer. Users will see the purpose of the exercise, reference question, likely sources to use, access points used to find the data and the system where the searcher discovered the answer. The author then reviews the search methodology and presents figures captured from the search service to augment the discussion.

Following her summary, Berinstein presents the reader with four appendices designed to round-out the content of the book. Appendix A provides contact information for a set of information providers, many of which were mentioned throughout the book. Appendix B lists the case studies presented in this book while Appendix C presents a useful glossary of statistical terms. The final appendix contains a bibliography of works useful to the author in construct of the book. This is also to be seen as a "further reading" section. As mentioned earlier, the index is comprehensive and easy to use.

In this information age we are all experiencing information overload in two aspects: 1. Searching for information takes longer using the new internet technologies vs. the traditional online systems, and 2. We get too much recall with too little precision. A handy tool to overcome these problems is Paula Berinstein's book "Finding Statistics Online". This well-organized reference is a true problem-solver for information seekers who value their time and need to find statistical data for marketing or research purposes. Finding Statistics Online starts with three very important chapters that explain how data is gathered, the various sources of statistical data and a comparison of online vendors including excellent search tips. All other 16 chapters of the book are arranged by topic such as business, health, education etc. and consist of a description of the typical data, key producers and resources, best places to look and a case study. This book gives the information searcher various options for each subject matter including free internet resources as well as commercial vendors. Finding Statistics Online is a highly recommended reference for every searcher.

Markov chains, a sequence of actions with a random element, can be applied to nearly any process that is composed of discrete steps. Such processes include manufacturing operations, building large structures and even visiting web sites on the Internet. This book is a set of lecture notes for a course for advanced undergraduates offered by the author.
It begins with a basic introduction to probability theory and covers some applications of Markov chains that I had never thought about, such as surfing the Internet. There are exercises at the end of each section although solutions are not included. With a section on computer simulation of Markov chains, the book could also be used in a special topics course in computer science, where the emphasis is on optimization.
Markov chains are a valuable tool that should receive more emphasis in the education of math and computer science students. This book can serve as a basic text for classes aimed at both types of student.

This is a very clearly written, succinct introduction to Markov Chains (it does not aim to be exhaustive).
I think this book offers one of the most accessible and efficient routes to learning the basics about markov chain monte carlo, perfect simulation,sandwiching and simulated annealing.

I enjoyed this book a lot.Better to read this a few times and do the questions, and then if you must, tackle one of the more bloated expositions.

This review book is formated in such a way that I can actually help my child with homework. I go directly to the section she's learning, and can quickly review the section that's current to her learning needs. She and I can do the reviews together and this wouldn't be possible without this book. I especaily like that I don't have to refer to hundreds of pages before being able to help my child.

This is an excellent refresher for Statistics, laid out logically and with ideas clearly illustrated graphically. Published by Barron's, these "Forgotten" books are nicely oriented toward the professional who needs to brush up on a subject in order to make competent decisions and communicate intelligently.

"Statistics and Probability" is one of those amazing sciences that we take for granted from childhood, but the more we think about it (as we get older, regrettably), it begins to dawn on us that this is the catalyst of many mysterious processes, such as the forces of life overcoming entropy. Science has rather recently discovered that there is really no such thing as "randomness", with the advent of Chaos Theory bringing down the walls of the last bastion of that idea. Statistics and Probability then become the focus of means by which some form of Higher Intelligence manages to do its business under our noses without us having a clue as to its presence!

The author largely explores information from the vantagepoint of its relationship with statistics. Early on, the basic properties of information are discussed. Information is then illustrated and contextualized with respect to specific probability distributions.

This is a very well written text by Kullback. Kullback is well known for the famous Kullback-Liebler information measure of distance between distribution functions. This was the first statistics text to cover statistical methods from the information theory viewpoint and now stands as a classic. For more recent developments see the text by Cover and Thomas. Rissanen also has an interesting book that shows how he used information theory ideas in model selection problems. Information theory goes back to Claude Shannon and others who worked on problems of encoding information for efficient transmission (particularly early telephone applications). This has been very important in electronic communications and is growing in use with modern satellite transmissions and the growing use of computer networks.