Parametric and semiparametric models are tools with a wide range of applications to reliability, survival analysis, and quality of life. This self-contained volume examines these tools in survey articles written by experts currently working on the development and evaluation of models and methods. While a number of chapters deal with general theory, several explore more specific connections and recent results in "real-world" reliability theory, survival analysis and related fields.

Specific topics covered include:

* non-parametric estimation of lifetimes of...

S. Panchapakesan has made significant contributions to ranking and selection and has published in many other areas of statistics, including order statistics, reliability theory, stochastic inequalities, and inference. Written in his honor, the twenty invited articles in this volume reflect recent advances in these areas and form a tribute to Panchapakesan's influence and impact on these areas.

Featuring theory, methods, applications, and extensive bibliographies with special emphasis on recent literature, this comprehensive reference work will serve researchers,...

Sri Gopal Mohanty has made pioneering contributions to lattice path counting and its applications to probability and statistics. This is clearly evident from his lifetime publications list and the numerous citations his publications have received over the past three decades. My association with him began in 1982 when I came to McMaster Univer- sity. Since then, I have been associated with him on many different issues at professional as well as cultural levels; I have benefited greatly from him on both these grounds. I have enjoyed very much being his colleague in the statistics group here at...

Censored sampling arises in a life-testing experiment whenever the experimenter does not observe (either intentionally or unintentionally) the failure times of all units placed on a life-test. Inference based on censored sampling has been studied during the past 50 years by numerous authors for a wide range of lifetime distributions such as normal, exponential, gamma, Rayleigh, Weibull, extreme value, log-normal, inverse Gaussian, logistic, Laplace, and Pareto. Naturally, there are many different forms of censoring that have been discussed in the literature. In this book, we consider a...

The present book is based on a course developed as partofthe large NSF-funded GatewayCoalitionInitiativeinEngineeringEducationwhichincludedCaseWest ern Reserve University, Columbia University, Cooper Union, Drexel University, Florida International University, New Jersey Institute ofTechnology, Ohio State University, University ofPennsylvania, Polytechnic University, and Universityof South Carolina. The Coalition aimed to restructure the engineering curriculum by incorporating the latest technological innovations and tried to attract more and betterstudents to engineering and science....

This book is based on the papers presented at the International Conference 'Quality Improvement through Statistical Methods' in Cochin, India during December 28-31, 1996. The Conference was hosted by the Cochin University of Science and Technology, Cochin, India; and sponsored by the Institute for Improvement in Quality and Productivity (IIQP) at the University of Waterloo, Canada, the Statistics in Industry Committee of the International Statistical Institute (lSI) and by the Indian Statistical Institute. There has been an increased interest in Quality Improvement (QI) activities in many...

This volume consists of twenty-four papers selected by the editors from the sixty-one papers presented at the 1st International Conference on Mathemati- cal Methods in Reliability held at the Politehnica University of Bucharest from 16 to 19 September 1997. The papers have been divided into three sections: statistical methods, probabilistic methods, and special techniques and appli- cations. Of course, as with any classification, some papers could be as well assigned to other sections. Problems in reliability are encountered in items in everyday usage. Relia- bility is an important feature of...

This is a volume consisting of selected papers that were presented at the 3rd St. Petersburg Workshop on Simulation held at St. Petersburg, Russia, during June 28-July 3, 1998. The Workshop is a regular international event devoted to mathematical problems of simulation and applied statistics organized by the Department of Stochastic Simulation at St. Petersburg State University in cooperation with INFORMS College on Simulation (USA). Its main purpose is to exchange ideas between researchers from Russia and from the West as well as from other coun- tries throughout the World. The 1st Workshop...

This work presents 31 edited chapters providing an up-to-date survey of models and methods for reliability analysis and applications in science, engineering and technology. It covers topics such as probability models and related issues, statistical inference and data analysis.

At first there was the Markov property. The theory of stochastic processes, which can be considered as an exten- sion of probability theory, allows the modeling of the evolution of systems through the time. It cannot be properly understood just as pure mathemat- ics, separated from the body of experience and examples that have brought it to life. The theory of stochastic processes entered a period of intensive develop- ment, which is not finished yet, when the idea of the Markov property was brought in. Not even a serious study of the renewal processes is possible without using the strong...