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This article was downloaded by: [Temple University Libraries] On: 16 November 2014, At: 17:22 Publisher: Taylor & Francis Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Technometrics Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/utch20 Spatial Statistics Through Applications Published online: 01 Jan 2012. To cite this article: (2004) Spatial Statistics Through Applications, Technometrics, 46:3, 370-371, DOI: 10.1198/ tech.2004.s211 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1198/tech.2004.s211 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http:// www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Spatial Statistics Through Applications

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Page 1: Spatial Statistics Through Applications

This article was downloaded by: [Temple University Libraries]On: 16 November 2014, At: 17:22Publisher: Taylor & FrancisInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

TechnometricsPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/utch20

Spatial Statistics Through ApplicationsPublished online: 01 Jan 2012.

To cite this article: (2004) Spatial Statistics Through Applications, Technometrics, 46:3, 370-371, DOI: 10.1198/tech.2004.s211

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1198/tech.2004.s211

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) containedin the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of theContent. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, andare not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon andshould be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable forany losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use ofthe Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematicreproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in anyform to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Page 2: Spatial Statistics Through Applications

370 BOOK REVIEWS

Although this book concentrates on classic parametric statistical tests, there is a50-page addition to the 3E on Bayesian statistics. Curiously, it has been placedas an addendum to test 9, the binomial sign test for a single sample. Becausethe author wrote this book to be “accessible to people who have little or noknowledge of statistics” (Nash 2001), the additions on experimental design andsampling are certainly appropriate. Nash (2001) commented that “the introduc-tion and decision tables are a perfect guide to understanding and choosing theappropriate statistical test.”

The review by Nash (2001) describes the 32 statistical tests by providingconsiderable commentary on the 7 sections into which the tests are grouped.Some quick arithmetic reveals that the description of a statistical test averages35 pages. Generally there are fewer pages for simpler tests and more pages forthe more complicated tests. The Preface (p. viii) describes in some detail theadditional material that has expanded the content for 13 of the 32 procedures.Nash (2001) actually did not completely describe the tests themselves, so hereare the major components for each one:

• The hypothesis evaluated• Example• Description of null versus alternative hypothesis• Computations• Interpretation of test results• Additional analytical procedures• Additional discussion of the test• Additional examples• Addendum on related tests• References• End notes.

Not all chapters have an addendum. The end notes can run several pagesand number as many as 40. The section on “Computations,” indicates that theauthor is not just directing the users to punch all of the relevant informationinto S–PLUS and get an answer. Instead, the user is expected to grind out all ofthe algebra and then use one of the 25 tables at the end of the book. I doubt thatmany statisticians would ever intend to use this method for obtaining results.Note that the book does not completely ignore the computer era. The 3E in-cludes an addition to the chapter on the Mann–Whitney test that gives an exten-sive description of randomization tests and the bootstrap.

Eric R. ZIEGEL

BP

REFERENCE

Nash, M. (2001), Review of Handbook of Parametric and Nonparametric Sta-tistical Procedures (2nd ed.), by D. Sheskin, Technometrics, 43, 374.

Statistical Methods (2nd ed.), by Rudolf J. FREUND andWilliam J. WILSON, San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 2003,ISBN 0-12-267651-3, xx + 673 pp., $84.95.

The reviewer for the first edition (1E) began his review (Wong 1994) by de-scribing the book as “not for the Technometrics audience.” He consigned it to“social science and business-community students,” because the authors’ Prefacehad targeted the book to students who would do “little of the actual mechanicsof statistical analyses they will encounter in their careers.” For this second edi-tion (2E), the authors have written a new Preface. Now their target audiencesare people seeking “undergraduate degrees in disciplines emphasizing quanti-tative skills” or “graduate degrees in disciplines where statistics is an importantresearch tool” (p. xviii).

The authors list “friendlier exposition,” “greater emphasis on graphics,” and“examples of contemporary (statistical) topics” as the primary attributes forthe improvements to the 2E. Although I concur that Technometrics readers aregenerally not the audience for this book, I think the book would work fine asa reference book or a short-course textbook in an industrial setting. I ratherliked the book. It is a suitably modern book. It has a nice layout, and it reallydoes utilize graphics very effectively. There are a certain number of formulas,but almost all of the computations are illustrated with outputs from SAS. Eachchapter begins with an example. Considerable discussion is devoted to the un-derstanding of the SAS outputs. There are sections on using the computer, andthere are nice chapter summaries.

The topics of the first seven chapters are the stuff of a classic basic statisticstextbook: statistics, distributions, principles of inference, inference for a single

population, inferences for two or more means, and linear regression. The secondhalf has a nice selection of intermediate topics in statistics: multiple regression,factorial experiments, design of experiments, other linear models, categoricaldata, and nonparametric methods. Perhaps the book’s extensive emphasis on“inference” is too traditional. Nonetheless, I would certainly be happy if the en-gineers, scientists, and business folks in my company had a basic understandingof the material that is presented in this book.

Eric R. ZIEGEL

BP

REFERENCE

Wong, A. (1994), Review of Statistical Methods, by R. Freund and W. Wilson,Technometrics, 36, 222.

Spatial Statistics Through Applications, edited byJ. MATEU and F. MONTES, Billerica, MA: ComputationalMechanics, 2002, ISBN 1-85312-649-7, xxii + 346 pp.,$185.00.

This book is a volume in the International Series on Advances in the Eco-logical Sciences from a rather obscure publisher. The two editors are from twouniversities in Spain. Authors for all 13 chapters likewise come from universi-ties, 6 from Spain, and 5 from the U.K. There is a single contributor from theUnited States. With the inevitable initial part of the book (three chapters) on“methodological issues,” this did not seem to be a very useful book.

Part II, “Environmental Applications and Climate Issues,” would appear atfirst glance to at least offer more hope for some practical content. The firstthree chapters, covering spatial interpolation, nonparametric variogram estima-tion, and space-time process prediction, all present a description and derivationof methods with an application at the end. The last three chapters in the section,on extreme value analysis, modeling extreme rainfall events, and methods forfield analysis in climatology, all do a nice job integrating the methods with thestated application. In all six chapters, there is much methodology development.

The four chapters in Part III, “Epidemiology and Point Processes,” cover avariety of applications, including the relationship between road traffic pollutionand asthma among children, analysis of cancer mortality, extraction of linearnetworks from images, and tools for spatial economics. These chapters all haverelatively much more focus on the applications.

If any of the topics match your interests, you might want to track down thebook. However, it carries a rather hefty price tag for a modest-sized book. Therecent series of Statistics for the Environment from Wiley, most recently thetext by Barnett, Stein, and Turkman (1999), reported by Ziegel (2000), presentsmuch more practical sets of papers at much lower prices.

Eric R. ZIEGEL

BP

REFERENCES

Barnett, V., Stein, A., and Turkman, K. (eds.) (1999), Statistical Aspects ofHealth and the Environment, New York: Wiley.

Ziegel, E. (2000), Editor’s Report on Statistical Aspects of Health and the En-vironment, edited by V. Barnett, A. Stein, and K. Turkman, Technometrics,42, 443.

Regression Using JMP, by Rudolf FREUND,Ramon LITTELL, and Lee CREIGHTON, Cary, NC: SASInstitute (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley), ISBN 1-59047-160-1,(0-471-48307-9), 2003, x + 258 pp., $49.95.

Coincidentally, this book arrived within hours of my sending a note to mySAS representative telling him that I was finally ready to purchase a copyof JMP. On opening the book to Chapter 1, page 1, I discovered that it lookedjust like the text of Freund and Littell (2000), a book that I certainly like a lot.(The recent revision was reported in Ziegel 2001.) Indeed, in many ways this isjust the “light” version of that text. The capability of JMP is considerably lessthan the capability of SAS, and this is reflected in the book’s content.

Though there is an introductory chapter on regression concepts, here andthroughout the remainder of the book there is minimal actual explanation of

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