"This book focuses on the practical aspects of modern and robust statistical methods. The increased accuracy and power of modern methods, versus conventional approaches to the analysis of variance (ANOVA) and regression, is remarkable. Through a combination of theoretical developments, improved and more flexible statistical methods, and the power of the computer, it is now possible to address problems with standard methods that seemed insurmountable only a few years ago"--

In statistical theory and practice, a certain distribution is usually assumed and then optimal solutions sought. Since deviations from an assumed distribution are very common, one cannot feel comfortable with assuming a particular distribution and believing it to be exactly correct. That brings the robustness issue in focus. In this book, we have given statistical procedures which are robust to plausible deviations from an assumed mode. The method of modified maximum likelihood estimation is used in formulating these procedures. The modified maximum likelihood estimators are explicit functions of sample observations and are easy to compute. They are asymptotically fully efficient and are as efficient as the maximum likelihood estimators for small sample sizes. The maximum likelihood estimators have computational problems and are, therefore, elusive. A broad range of topics are covered in this book. Solutions are given which are easy to implement and are efficient. The solutions are also robust to data anomalies: outliers, inliers, mixtures and data contaminations. Numerous real life applications of the methodology are given.

This authoritative new volume treats a wide class of distributions that constitute plausible alternatives to normality -- such as short- and long-tailed symmetric distributions and moderately skewed distributions -- all having finite mean and variance. Robust Inference illustrates the appropriateness of various robust methods for solving both one-sample and multisample statistical inference problems ... develops Laguerre series expansions for Student's t and variance-ratio F statistic distributions ... analyzes normal and nonnormal distribution efficiencies ... works out modified maximum likelihood (MML) estimators based on type II censored samples for log-normal, logistic, exponential, and Rayleigh distributions ... uses MML estimators in constructing robust hypothesis-testing procedures ... considers the specialized topics of regression, analysis of variance, classification, and sample survey ... discusses goodness-of-fit tests ... describes Q-Q plots in a special appendix ... and much more. An outstanding, time-saving reference for theoreticians and practitioners of statistics, Robust Inference is also an excellent auxiliary text for an undergraduate- or graduate-level course on robustness. Book jacket.

The Current Index to Statistics (CIS) is a bibliographic index of publications in statistics, probability, and related fields.

Probability theory has been the only well-founded theory of uncertainty for a long time. It was viewed either as a powerful tool for modelling random phenomena, or as a rational approach to the notion of degree of belief. During the last thirty years, in areas centered around decision theory, artificial intelligence and information processing, numerous approaches extending or orthogonal to the existing theory of probability and mathematical statistics have come to the front. The common feature of those attempts is to allow for softer or wider frameworks for taking into account the incompleteness or imprecision of information. Many of these approaches come down to blending interval or fuzzy interval analysis with probabilistic methods. This book gathers contributions to the 4th International Conference on Soft methods in Probability and Statistics. Its aim is to present recent results illustrating such new trends that enlarge the statistical and uncertainty modeling traditions, towards the handling of incomplete or subjective information. It covers a broad scope ranging from philosophical and mathematical underpinnings of new uncertainty theories, with a stress on their impact in the area of statistics and data analysis, to numerical methods and applications to environmental risk analysis and mechanical engineering. A unique feature of this collection is to establish a dialogue between fuzzy random variables and imprecise probability theories.

Basic distribution theory; Expected values and moments; Bounds and approximations for moments of order statistics; Further distribution theory; Order statistics in estimation and hypothesis testing; Short-cut procedures; The treatment of outliers; Asymptotic theory.