Modern physics is confronted with a large variety of complex spatial patterns. Although both spatial statisticians and statistical physicists study random geometrical structures, there has been only little interaction between the two up to now because of different traditions and languages. This volume aims to change this situation by presenting in a clear way fundamental concepts of spatial statistics which are of great potential value for condensed matter physics and materials sciences in general, and for porous media, percolation and Gibbs processes in particular. Geometric aspects, in particular ideas of stochastic and integral geometry, play a central role throughout. With nonspecialist researchers and graduate students also in mind, prominent physicists give an excellent introduction here to modern ideas of statistical physics pertinent to this exciting field of research.

The morphology of spatially stuctured materials is a rapidly growing field of research at the interface of statistical physics, applied mathematics and materials science. A wide spectrum of applications encompasses the flow through porous and composite materials as well as microemulsions and foams. Written as a set of lectures and tutorial reviews leading up to the forefront of research, this book will be both a compendium for the experienced researcher as well as a high level introductory text for postgraduate students and nonspecialist researchers working in related areas.

Modern physics is confronted with a large variety of complex spatial patterns. Although both spatial statisticians and statistical physicists study random geometrical structures, there has been only little interaction between the two up to now because of different traditions and languages.
This volume aims to change this situation by presenting in a clear way fundamental concepts of spatial statistics which are of great potential value for condensed matter physics and materials sciences in general, and for porous media, percolation and Gibbs processes in particular. Geometric aspects, in particular ideas of stochastic and integral geometry, play a central role throughout. With nonspecialist researchers and graduate students also in mind, prominent physicists give an excellent introduction here to modern ideas of statistical physics pertinent to this exciting field of research.

Point process statistics is successfully used in fields such as material science, human epidemiology, social sciences, animal epidemiology, biology, and seismology. Its further application depends greatly on good software and instructive case studies that show the way to successful work. This book satisfies this need by a presentation of the spatstat package and many statistical examples.

Researchers, spatial statisticians and scientists from biology, geosciences, materials sciences and other fields will use this book as a helpful guide to the application of point process statistics. No other book presents so many well-founded point process case studies.

From the reviews:

"For those interested in analyzing their spatial data, the wide variatey of examples and approaches here give a good idea of the possibilities and suggest reasonable paths to explore." Michael Sherman for the Journal of the American Statistical Association, December 2006

Die Statistik ist ein unentbehrliches Hilfsmittel der Umweltforschung. Sie wird benutzt, urn die massenhaft anfallenden, oft stark schwankenden, heterogenen und problembeladenen Daten aus der Umwelt zu analysieren und zu interpre- tieren. Viele wichtige Aussagen iiber die Umwelt wurden und werden auf sta- tistischem Wege erhalten. Das sind zum Beispiel diejenigen iiber eventuelle Kli- maveriinderungen, aber die Statistik ermoglicht auch zahlreiche weniger spekta- kuliire (und weniger umstrittene) Erkenntnisse. Das gilt besonders fUr Situatio- nen, in denen das Verhalten zahlreicher Menschen eine Rolle spielt oder wo den eigentlichen Zusammenhiingen erhebliche "zufiillige" Schwankungen iiberlagert sind, die auf vielen verschiedenen und uniibersichtlichen Einfliissen beruhen. Auch im Rahmen der Uberwachung der Umwelt (des "Umweltmonitoring") ist die Statistik ein wichtiges Element. SchlieBlich sind statistische Methoden fiir die Planung und Auswertung von Experimenten in der Umweltforschung erfor- derlich. Natiirlich gibt es keine eigentliche wissenschaftliche Disziplin "Umweltsta- tistik". Tatsache ist aber, dass fUr die U ntersuchung der U mwelt bestimmte statistische Verfahren besonders wichtig sind, und zwar wegen der dabei auf- tretenden speziellen Fragestellungen. Dabei miissen insbesondere riiumliche und zeitliche Aspekte beriicksichtigt werden, oder es sind die Einfliisse verschiedener, gleichzeitig wirkender Grofien simultan zu untersuchen. Verschiedene Verfahren, die das leisten, werden in diesem Buch behandelt, das natiirlich auch den Titel "Ausgewiihlte Kapitel der Statistik, dargestellt an Beispielen aus der Umwelt- forschung" hiitte haben konnen. Insbesondere geht es in dies em Buch urn multivariate Statistik, Zeitreihenanalyse, Geostatistik und zufiillige Punktfolgen.