Spatial point processes play a fundamental role in spatial statistics and today they are a very active area of research with many new and emerging applications. Although published works address different aspects of spatial point processes, most of the classical literature deals only with nonparametric methods, and nowhere can one find a comprehensive treatment of the theory and applications of simulation-based inference. Written by researchers at the top of the field, this book collects and unifies recent theoretical advances and examples of applications. The authors examine Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms and explore one of the most important recent developments in MCMC-perfect simulation procedures.

Interpreting statistical data as evidence, Statistical Evidence: A Likelihood Paradigm focuses on the law of likelihood, fundamental to solving many of the problems associated with interpreting data in this way. Statistics has long neglected this principle, resulting in a seriously defective methodology. This book redresses the balance, explaining why science has clung to a defective methodology despite its well-known defects. After examining the strengths and weaknesses of the work of Neyman and Pearson and the Fisher paradigm, the author proposes an alternative paradigm which provides, in the law of likelihood, the explicit concept of evidence missing from the other paradigms. At the same time, this new paradigm retains the elements of objective measurement and control of the frequency of misleading results, features which made the old paradigms so important to science. The likelihood paradigm leads to statistical methods that have a compelling rationale and an elegant simplicity, no longer forcing the reader to choose between frequentist and Bayesian statistics.

Likelihood and its many associated concepts are of central importance in statistical theory and applications. The theory of likelihood and of likelihood-like objects (pseudo-likelihoods) has undergone extensive and important developments over the past 10 to 15 years, in particular as regards higher order asymptotics. This book provides an account of this field, which is still vigorously expanding. Conditioning and ancillarity underlie the p*-formula, a key formula for the conditional density of the maximum likelihood estimator, given an ancillary statistic. Various types of pseudo-likelihood are discussed, including profile and partial likelihoods. Special emphasis is given to modified profile likelihood and modified directed likelihood, and their intimate connection with the p*-formula. Among the other concepts and tools employed are sufficiency, parameter orthogonality, invariance, stochastic expansions and saddlepoint approximations. Brief reviews are given of the most important properties of exponential and transformation models and these types of model are used as test-beds for the general asymptotic theory. A final chapter briefly discusses a number of more general issues, including prediction and randomization theory. The emphasis is on ideas and methods, and detailed mathematical developments are largely omitted. There are numerous notes and exercises, many indicating substantial further results.

Statistics is a subject of many uses and surprisingly few effective practitioners. The traditional road to statistical knowledge is blocked, for most, by a formidable wall of mathematics. The approach in An Introduction to the Bootstrap avoids that wall. It arms scientists and engineers, as well as statisticians, with the computational techniques they need to analyze and understand complicated data sets.

Interpreting statistical data as evidence, Statistical Evidence: A Likelihood Paradigm focuses on the law of likelihood, fundamental to solving many of the problems associated with interpreting data in this way. Statistics has long neglected this principle, resulting in a seriously defective methodology. This book redresses the balance, explaining why science has clung to a defective methodology despite its well-known defects. After examining the strengths and weaknesses of the work of Neyman and Pearson and the Fisher paradigm, the author proposes an alternative paradigm which provides, in the law of likelihood, the explicit concept of evidence missing from the other paradigms. At the same time, this new paradigm retains the elements of objective measurement and control of the frequency of misleading results, features which made the old paradigms so important to science. The likelihood paradigm leads to statistical methods that have a compelling rationale and an elegant simplicity, no longer forcing the reader to choose between frequentist and Bayesian statistics.