This book presents a unique real-world-centred approach to economic life from a phenomenological approach. It offers a much-needed alternative to conventional economic thinking, giving a transdisciplinary depiction of the economic process’s social, cultural, technological, political, and ecological dimensions. Doing so appeals to students and researchers in economics aiming to get an alternative to the reductionist model-based approach. Written in a jargon-free and non-technical way, it appeals to non-economists alike and those seeking a more profound and living understanding of the economic process. What is the role of nature in the economic process? Is there more to economics than we have been told? Do we have infinite needs? What are these needs? Can we keep on growing forever? Does economic growth improve our wellbeing? Why is the income gap widening? What is the role of financial capital in our current world? Are there other forms of producing, distributing, and consuming wealth beyond markets? What are the functions of markets, and how do they work in the real world? These and many other aspects are discussed in living and holistic ways in this book. It is a must-read for all those interested in gaining a more profound and genuine understanding of our current reality and those looking for ways out of our current crises.

Statistics is strongly tied to applications in different scientific disciplines, and the most challenging statistical problems arise from problems in the sciences. In fact, the most innovative statistical research flows from the needs of applications in diverse settings. This volume is a testimony to the crucial role that statistics plays in scientific disciplines such as genetics and environmental sciences, among others. The articles in this volume range from human and agricultural genetic DNA research to carcinogens and chemical concentrations in the environment and to space debris and atmospheric chemistry. Also included are some articles on statistical methods which are sufficiently general and flexible to be applied to many practical situations. The papers were refereed by a panel of experts and the editors of the volume. The contributions are based on the talks presented at the Workshop on Statistics and the Sciences, held at the Centro Stefano Franscini in Ascona, Switzerland, during the week of May 23 to 28, 1999. The meeting was jointly organized by the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology in Lausanne and Zurich, with the financial support of the Minerva Research Foundation. As the presentations at the workshop helped the participants recognize the po tential role that statistics can play in the sciences, we hope that this volume will help the reader to focus on the central role of statistics in the specific areas presented here and to extrapolate the results to further applications."

This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications DIRECTIONS IN ROBUST STATISTICS AND DIAGNOSTICS is based on the proceedings of the first four weeks of the six week IMA 1989 summer program "Robustness, Diagnostics, Computing and Graphics in Statistics." An important objective of the organizers was to draw a broad set of statisticians working in robustness or diagnostics into collaboration on the challenging problems in these areas, particularly on the interface between them. We thank the organizers of the robustness and diagnostics program Noel Cressie, Thomas P. Hettmansperger, Peter J. Huber, R. Douglas Martin, and especially Werner Stahel and Sanford Weisberg who edited the proceedings. A vner Friedman Willard Miller, Jr. PREFACE Central themes of all statistics are estimation, prediction, and making decisions under uncertainty. A standard approach to these goals is through parametric mod elling. Parametric models can give a problem sufficient structure to allow standard, well understood paradigms to be applied to make the required inferences. If, how ever, the parametric model is not completely correct, then the standard inferential methods may not give reasonable answers. In the last quarter century, particularly with the advent of readily available computing, more attention has been paid to the problem of inference when the parametric model used is not correctly specified."

This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications DIRECTIONS IN ROBUST STATISTICS AND DIAGNOSTICS is based on the proceedings of the first four weeks of the six week IMA 1989 summer program "Robustness, Diagnostics, Computing and Graphics in Statistics." An important objective of the organizers was to draw a broad set of statisticians working in robustness or diagnostics into collaboration on the challenging problems in these areas, particularly on the interface between them. We thank the organizers of the robustness and diagnostics program Noel Cressie, Thomas P. Hettmansperger, Peter J. Huber, R. Douglas Martin, and especially Werner Stahel and Sanford Weisberg who edited the proceedings. A vner Friedman Willard Miller, Jr. PREFACE Central themes of all statistics are estimation, prediction, and making decisions under uncertainty. A standard approach to these goals is through parametric mod elling. Parametric models can give a problem sufficient structure to allow standard, well understood paradigms to be applied to make the required inferences. If, how ever, the parametric model is not completely correct, then the standard inferential methods may not give reasonable answers. In the last quarter century, particularly with the advent of readily available computing, more attention has been paid to the problem of inference when the parametric model used is not correctly specified."

Statistics is strongly tied to applications in different scientific disciplines, and the most challenging statistical problems arise from problems in the sciences. In fact, the most innovative statistical research flows from the needs of applications in diverse settings. This volume is a testimony to the crucial role that statistics plays in scientific disciplines such as genetics and environmental sciences, among others. The articles in this volume range from human and agricultural genetic DNA research to carcinogens and chemical concentrations in the environment and to space debris and atmospheric chemistry. Also included are some articles on statistical methods which are sufficiently general and flexible to be applied to many practical situations. The papers were refereed by a panel of experts and the editors of the volume. The contributions are based on the talks presented at the Workshop on Statistics and the Sciences, held at the Centro Stefano Franscini in Ascona, Switzerland, during the week of May 23 to 28, 1999. The meeting was jointly organized by the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology in Lausanne and Zurich, with the financial support of the Minerva Research Foundation. As the presentations at the workshop helped the participants recognize the po tential role that statistics can play in the sciences, we hope that this volume will help the reader to focus on the central role of statistics in the specific areas presented here and to extrapolate the results to further applications."

This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications DIRECTIONS IN ROBUST STATISTICS AND DIAGNOSTICS is based on the proceedings of the first four weeks of the six week IMA 1989 summer program "Robustness, Diagnostics, Computing and Graphics in Statistics." An important objective of the organizers was to draw a broad set of statisticians working in robustness or diagnostics into collaboration on the challenging problems in these areas, particularly on the interface between them. We thank the organizers of the robustness and diagnostics program Noel Cressie, Thomas P. Hettmansperger, Peter J. Huber, R. Douglas Martin, and especially Werner Stahel and Sanford Weisberg who edited the proceedings. A vner Friedman Willard Miller, Jr. PREFACE Central themes of all statistics are estimation, prediction, and making decisions under uncertainty. A standard approach to these goals is through parametric mod elling. Parametric models can give a problem sufficient structure to allow standard, well understood paradigms to be applied to make the required inferences. If, how ever, the parametric model is not completely correct, then the standard inferential methods may not give reasonable answers. In the last quarter century, particularly with the advent of readily available computing, more attention has been paid to the problem of inference when the parametric model used is not correctly specified."

This book presents a unique real-world-centred approach to economic life from a phenomenological approach. It offers a much-needed alternative to conventional economic thinking, giving a transdisciplinary depiction of the economic process's social, cultural, technological, political, and ecological dimensions. Doing so appeals to students and researchers in economics aiming to get an alternative to the reductionist model-based approach. Written in a jargon-free and non-technical way, it appeals to non-economists alike and those seeking a more profound and living understanding of the economic process. What is the role of nature in the economic process? Is there more to economics than we have been told? Do we have infinite needs? What are these needs? Can we keep on growing forever? Does economic growth improve our wellbeing? Why is the income gap widening? What is the role of financial capital in our current world? Are there other forms of producing, distributing, and consuming wealth beyond markets? What are the functions of markets, and how do they work in the real world? These and many other aspects are discussed in living and holistic ways in this book. It is a must-read for all those interested in gaining a more profound and genuine understanding of our current reality and those looking for ways out of our current crises.

Diese Einfuhrung in die statistische Datenanalyse ist fur Studierende gedacht, die sich ein vertieftes Verstandnis fur statistische Problemstellungen erarbeiten wollen, ohne tief in die Mathematik einsteigen zu mussen. Dazu bilden zahlreiche Beispiele aus allen Teilen der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik die Grundlage. Die 5. Auflage wurde an einigen Stellen uberarbeitet und das Layout wurde verbessert.