Book Description

The most important techniques available for longitudinal data analysis are discussed in this book. The discussion includes simple techniques such as the paired t-test and summary statistics, but also more sophisticated techniques such as generalized estimating equations and random coefficient analysis. A distinction is made between longitudinal analysis with continuous, dichotomous, and categorical outcome variables. This practical guide is especially suitable for non-statisticians and all those undertaking medical research or epidemiological studies. ... Read more

Book Description

Guidebook to Better Medical Writing is the how-to book for those who want practical advice on writing journal articles, case reports, book chapters, books and scientific poster exhibits.

It stems from the author's more than 30 years of writing and teaching others how to write these materials.The content is presented in a quick-to-grasp, logical progression with step-by-step directions, examples, checklists, tips and techniques. Topics included range from the basics of how to choose better words and how to write better sentences and paragraphs through how to choose the right journal, how to get more writing done and how to work successfully with journal editors and reviewers. The revised 2003 edition follows the 1997 first edition that has been used by biomedical scientists around the globe and has also been issued in a Japanese-language edition (12 Steps to Better Medical Papers, Medical View Publishers, Tokyo). ... Read more

Reviews (4)

excellnet
I must agree with all the three prior reviews. The author has an easygoing style that I greatly enjoyed learning from. The pages are small in size and the font is rather big; which allows to finish this guidebook in few hours, and repeated.

There are twelve chapters. The firsts provide sensible advices about choosing "better" words, sentences, tables, graphs. I found chapter six about Spelling and Grammar, Punctuation rich with great advices. Other chapters advice about how to choose the right journal. The author was straightforward in the chapters about clinical report, review article, letters to the editor etc and ethics. Really, I was impressed by the eighth chapter " how to get more writing done".

Briefly I learned a lot from this concise guidebook.

Excellent Guidelines
Great guidelines, easy to follow and good explanations & examples. Also, debunks some of the grammatical rules that we were taught... "ending sentences w/ prepositions". Recommended reading for both writers, ghost writers, and medical practicioners who outsource some of their writing.

Excellent summary of Medical Writing
I recently purchased Robert Ile's Guidebook to Better Medical Writing and was very pleasantly surprised. He takes a concise, nononsense approach to the subject and provides readers with a series of excellent tips. He covers the basics of writing very well but also includes info on how to write case reports, clinical results, review papers, etc. I have found his book to be helpful in my own medical writing and editing consulting service. Review@lifescipub.com

Best medical writing text I've seen in 30 years of teaching!
At first glance, you might find the textbook by Robert Iles, Guidebook to Better Medical Writing, deceptively simple. However, this authoritative handbook tells you in straightforward language everything you need to know about developing a clear, persuasive paper that stands a good chance of publication by a peer-reviewed medical journal. Mr. Iles also takes you through the process of manuscript submission, outlining strategies for acceptance. This is the best basic manual on medical writing I have seen in over thirty years as a medical writer and teacher. I plan to use this excellent guidebook in my seminars and courses on medical writing from now on. ... Read more

Book Description

A comprehensive guide for physicians conducting clinical research, this second edition addresses a broader research perspective. It includes information on the implications of the ICH Guidelines, current FDA regulations, and an Internet address directory. Everything the clinical trial manager, planner, monitor, and investigator need to know about the design, establishment, monitoring, and close-out of a trial is in this book. The chapters address the elements of clinical research, professional interactions, FDA regulations and good clinical practices guidelines, investigational agent management, designing a study and protocol development, conducting the study, and more. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A must-buy for physicians interested in clinical trials!
The Physician Investigator Handbook, by Deborah Rosenbaum and Fred O. Smith, is an excellent book for every physician who conducts, or who has ever considered conducting, clinical trials.The book contains practicaland useful information about the conduct of clinical trials from thephysician's perspective.Physicians will learn, in a clear and conciseformat, about the facilities and staff required, the investigator's role,compliance with regulations, and how to prepare study budgets and work withthe study sponsor and its representatives. This book is an excellent guideto help physicians decide whether to enter the lucrative world of clinicaltrials.Furthermore, it can save time and money for novice and experiencedinvestigators alike.I highly recommend this book for all physicianinvestigators involved in the conduct of clinical trials. The authors writefrom experience and pack the book with useful information.What a greatinvestment! ... Read more

Book Description

All investigators funded by the National Institutes of Health are now required to receive training about the ethics of clinical research. Based on a course taught by the editors at NIH, Ethical and Regulatory Aspects of Clinical Research is the first book designed to help investigators meet this new requirement. The book begins with the history of human subjects research and guidelines instituted since World War II. It then covers various stages and components of the clinical trial process: designing the trial, recruiting participants, ensuring informed consent, studying special populations, and conducting international research. Concluding chapters address conflicts of interest, scientific misconduct, and challenges to the IRB system. The appendix provides sample informed consent forms.

This book will be used in undergraduate courses on research ethics and in schools of medicine and public health by students who are or will be carrying out clinical research. Professionals in need of such training and bioethicists also will be interested. ... Read more

Book Description

This is the second edition of this text on logistic regression methods. As in the first edition, each chapter contains a presentation of its topic in "lecture-book" format together with objectives, an outline, key formulae, practice exercises, and a test. The "lecture-book" has a sequence of illustrations and formulae in the left column of each page and a script (i.e., text) in the right column. This format allows you to read the script in conjunction with the illustrations and formulae that highlight the main points, formulae, or examples being presented. This second edition includes five new chapters and an appendix. The new chapters are: Chapter 9. Polytomous Logistic Regression Chapter 10. Ordinal Logistic Regression Chapter 11. Logistic Regression for Correlated Data Chapter 12. GEE Examples Chapter 13. Other Approaches for Analysis of Correlated Data Chapters 9 and 10 extend logistic regression to response variables that have more than two categories. Chapters 11-13 extend logistic regression to generalized estimating equations (GEE) and other methods for analyzing correlated response data.

The appendix "Computer Programs for Logistic Regression" provides descriptions and examples of computer programs for carrying out the variety of logistic regression procedures described in the main text. The software packages considered are SAS Version 8.0, SPSS Version 10.0 and STATA Version 7.0. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Good for what it is
This book has a specific goal. It's aim is to give a basic competence in the use of logistic regression, related techniques, and the software that deal with them. This, it does very well. By intent, it leaves many other needs unmet.

The format is 13 chapters, possibly representing the 13 or 14 weeks in a typical school term. Each chapter has a specific statement of teaching goals at the front, a summary outline of the course to date in the back, and a few pages of questions or exercises with answers. There appear to be sample data sets available, formatted for popular stats packages, but I did not figure out how they are made available. Within the main text of each chapter, every page reads like a blackboard lecture: equations on the left and narration on the right. The presentation uses a minimum of math, just a little algebra and exponentials in a few specific forms.

For the aspiring tool-user, this book may be worth a semester's tuition. I can fault it only for an annoying habit of writing out in words equations that appear on the same page ("e raised to the power of the sum of products ... ").

This book is NOT meant for people truly interested in the theory or practice of the exact computations. For example, its use of probability scarely mentions joint or conditional distributions. As a result, some of its formulas (e.g. p.48) come across as rote memorization, instead of natural expressions of the laws of probability. Lacking joint probability, the covariance matrix can not have meaning. It is just something produced, somehow, by an oracular computer program.

The repeated phrase, "according to statisticians ..." makes it very clear that statisticians are a breed distinct from intended audience. What they do is quite alien, but somehow, sometimes leaves the student with formulas to grind through.

Before you buy this book, be very clear about what you expect from it. Beginning students may get a lot from it. Readers already familiar with probability and some stats are likely to be disappointed.

An excellent step-by-step text
When Kleinbaum entitles his book "a self-learning text", this is TRUE ! I'm sure anyone can learn logistic regression with this book. It is cristal-clear, very progressive, with real-data examples... If the best teachers are those who make you feel you're intelligent, certainly the author must be a good teacher... because his book is ! I do recommend it warmly to anyone who has to teach (like me) or learn logistic regression. ... Read more

Book Description

Hardbound. The potential adaptation of biomarkers as substitutes for clinical endpoints, or surrogate endpoints, in clinical trials has recently taken on new importance.

This volume summarizes the proceedings of the first international, multi-disciplinary conference held to discuss this important issue. A historical perspective is provided on the use of biomarkers in drug development, as diagnostic and clinical measuring tools, and in some cases their application as surrogate endpoints in diseases such as AIDS, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. Also included is a review of concepts, terminology, and examples which provide a background for those who are not familiar with the use of biomarkers in drug development and clinical trials.

There is presently no other publication which gives such a unique insight into the current state of understanding of biomarkers for specific disease areas, and the emerging tools and technologies that may be u ... Read more

Book Description

Accessible to medicine- and/or public policy-related audiences, as well as most statisticians.
* Emphasis on outliers is discussed by way of detection and treatment.
* Resampling statistics software is incorporated throughout.
* Motivating applications are presented in light of honest theory.
* Plentiful exercises are sprinkled throughout. ... Read more

Book Description

This is a textbook in medical statistics for medical students, doctors, medical researchers, and others concerned with medical data. It should also be of interest to students of statistics who wish to learn about the practical application of statistical methods. It contains all the material required for a medical degree and for most post-graduate qualifications. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Start Here for Medical Statistics
Clearly and logically set out starting with the reasons for medical statistics and how studies are designed and moving logically to the methods used. All practicing doctors need to know something about medical statistics. This is a very good place to start. It is written for non-mathematicians but has enough mathematics to justify the information presented and stimulate further interest. It is a relatively short book with clear logical explanations rather than flashy illustrations and computer graphics. Also provides exercises, essential in all mathematical subjects.

another fine statistics text for medical students
This is the second edition of an excellent introductory text for medical students similar to Doug Altman's. Bland covers the basics: designing clinical trials and epidemiological studies, data collection, summarizing data, basic probability, standard errors and confidence intervals along with tests of significance (both parametric and nonparametric). Various types of regression methods are covered and this edition adds Cox proportional hazards models and meta-analysis. Many exercises and examples are taken from Bland's 20 years of experience as a medical statistician. It is noteworthy for dealing with sample size issues in Chapter 18. Mortality statistics and life tables are covered in Chapter 16.

The book is not quite as advanced as Altman's. ... Read more

Book Description

Wise, light-hearted, but thoroughly practical, Dr. Barker offers advice, moral support, social etiquette, and professional reassurance along with assume-nothing, step-by-step instructions for those basic but vital laboratory procedures that experienced investigators know—but may not realize novices don’t.If you are a graduate student, a physician with research intentions, or a laboratory technician, this book is indispensable. If you have to manage or mentor such people, giving a copy to each of them will greatly improve your life, and theirs. ... Read more

Reviews (6)

Don't Waste Your Money
As a 5th year graduate student with extensive lab research experience at a well known reputatable school in New York City, I would not recommend in purchasing this book. It was in fact being given out for free to new incoming graduate students a few years ago at my school, a practice which since has been terminated due to a general consensus from the student body revealing a lack utility in the book. I actually told one of my colleges to "burn this book" because I felt that much of the information was actually detrimental to one's graduate school career. A main concern about the book was that many of the so-called standard protocols were outdated and eclipsed by the fact that in terms of practice, many research labs have their own adaptations of protocols (for good reason) which are proven better than the generic protocols listed in the book. You see...it is not good in science to hold steadfast to rigid ways, and in contrast one needs to adapt to the new social and academic climate. It is a time of flexibility and novel creative thinking. The face of science is finally changing, and it should rightly do so. This leads me to my second beef about this book. The introduction focuses mainly on "lab etiquette". I find that the ideals brought fourth by the book come from out-of-date "old school" principles and functions to brainwash the naive young researcher into life-long scientific servitude. This book only serves to perpectuate negative stereotypes of scientists in society as lacklustre dorks who do nothing but devote their life to research. Many scientists are like this...and you wonder why. The bottomn line is that I would not recommend this book to a graduate student, and not even to an undergraduate science student, unless you can find it used...and perhaps slightly singed around the edges.

lab skills, and people skills too
As other reviewers have already said, this is a wonderful book for navigating the laboratory, especially if you are like me, and have only a little lab experience. It covers everything from basic sterile technique and media-making to working with antibodies and radioactive materials.

At least as helpful as the introduction to lab skills is the introduction to people skills and proper lab etiquette. This book contains some invaluable resources for getting good work done, working well with others, and not stepping on anyone's toes in the process. Given how opaque lab society can sometimes be for newcomers, this is a wonderful resource.

While this book may a bit on the pricey side, it makes a great reference, and is sturdy enough to be lent out to colleagues, assistants, stuedents and new hires time and time again.

Must get
Describes in detail the world of a life science researcher. This is a book you'll want to buy in order to read, and re-read again. Many of the pages are of reference quality such that you'll want to consult again and again. Especially useful for students with little or no prior experience in a life science research lab.

indispensable lab resource
This is a wonderful resource for any lab that has rotating personnel. Often, experienced researchers don't have the time or interest to orient new people but it's all here, and I would be surprised if even an experienced scientist could read through this whole manual without finding useful information.

The author uses common sense and a casual style, and assumes that the reader knows nothing. Early chapters explore BASIC basics, like getting along with colleagues, getting started the first week, questions to ask, and safety procedures; lab setup and equipment; and organization. Later chapters discuss designing and setting up experiments, using a lab notebook, presenting data, making reagents, including storage and disposal, and working in a sterile environment. Final chapters detail work with eukaryotic cell cultures, bacteria, dna/rna/protein, radioactivity, centrifugation, electrophoresis and a light microscope. Along the way, the reader will learn how to format a journal article, work in a hood, or stay in touch with the PI. The only thing missing is library research, but since this is a bench guide that seems a forgivable omission.

Spiral bound and formatted for easy access and understandability, the volume concludes with a glossary and a good index. Black and white line drawings and pictures identify items found in labs and illustrate techniques from pipetting to making entries in a notebook.

This is not a textbook written by someone who's never worked in a laboratory; it is a sensible, intelligent guide -- the dream tour you'd like to have each of your technicians or students given if you only had the time! Also handy if a person is having problems and you want to refer them to written material. Any working lab could benefit from the addition of this volume. Fabulous.

Wow.
This collection of information is impressive. It guides the novice worker in the biosciences through basic protocols, explains the bits and pieces of the laboratory, and provides assistance on staying organized and publishing. Well done! ... Read more

Book Description

Advances in computers and biotechnology have had a profound impact on biomedical research, and as a result complex data sets can now be generated to address extremely complex biological questions. Correspondingly, advances in the statistical methods necessary to analyze such data are following closely behind the advances in data generation methods. The statistical methods required by bioinformatics present many new and difficult problems for the research community.

This book provides an introduction to some of these new methods.The main biological topics treated include sequence analysis, BLAST, microarray analysis, gene finding, and the analysis of evolutionary processes.The main statistical techniques covered include hypothesis testing and estimation, Poisson processes, Markov models and Hidden Markov models, and multiple testing methods.

The second edition features new chapters on microarray analysis and on statistical inference, including a discussion of ANOVA, and discussions of the statistical theory of motifs and methods based on the hypergeometric distribution. Much material has been clarified and reorganized.

The book is written so as to appeal to biologists and computer scientists who wish to know more about the statistical methods of the field, as well as to trained statisticians who wish to become involved with bioinformatics. The earlier chapters introduce the concepts of probability and statistics at an elementary level, but with an emphasis on material relevant to later chapters and often not covered in standard introductory texts. Later chapters should be immediately accessible to the trained statistician. Sufficient mathematical background consists of introductory courses in calculus and linear algebra. The basic biological concepts that are used are explained, or can be understood from the context, and standard mathematical concepts are summarized in an Appendix. Problems are provided at the end of each chapter allowing the reader to develop aspects of the theory outlined in the main text.

Warren J. Ewens holds the Christopher H. Brown Distinguished Professorship at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of two books, Population Genetics and Mathematical Population Genetics. He is a senior editor of Annals of Human Genetics and has served on the editorial boards of Theoretical Population Biology, GENETICS, Proceedings of the Royal Society B and SIAM Journal in Mathematical Biology. He is a fellow of the Royal Society and the Australian Academy of Science.

Gregory R. Grant is a senior bioinformatics researcher in the University of Pennsylvania Computational Biology and Informatics Laboratory. He obtained his Ph.D. in number theory from the University of Maryland in 1995 and his Masters in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1999.

Comments on the First Edition. "This book would be an ideal text for a postgraduate course…[and] is equally well suited to individual study…. I would recommend the book highly" (Biometrics). "Ewens and Grant have given us a very welcome introduction to what is behind those pretty [graphical user] interfaces" (Naturwissenschaften.). "The authors do an excellent job of presenting the essence of the material without getting bogged down in mathematical details" (Journal. American Staistical. Association). "The authors have restructured classical material to a great extent and the new organization of the different topics is one of the outstanding services of the book" (Metrika).

Book Description

Institutional Review Board Member Handbook is designed to give IRB members the information they need to protect the rights and welfare of research subjects in a way that is both effective and efficient. Chapters are short and to the point with the goal of presenting practical advice on what IRB members should do before and during full-committee meetings. A large portion of the book is devoted to topic-specific chapters that list the criteria IRB members should use to determine how to vote on specific kinds of studies.

This handbook is an excellent accompaniment to Institutional Review Board: Management and Function that IRB members can access and refer to quickly and easily. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

An old classic, but still useful.
This classic is getting old...
But you cand find some important informations inside, classic protocols and keys-data to the antibodies-world.
A must-have reference for any today-biologist working with antibodies (immunostaining, immunoprecipitation, Western-blot, antibodies production, etc...).

An excellent summary of immunological methods.
This book is indespensible for those wishing to set up any type of antibody related methodology. Gives excellent overviews of immunodiagnostic methods (ELISA,RIA,etc.), antibody production (polyclonal and monoclonal), and includes basic summaries on the nature of the immune sytem in vivo. Especially useful to researchers developing immuno-techniques as it gives detailed methodologies. ... Read more

Book Description

Good Clinical Practice Standard Operating Procedures for Clinical Researchers Edited by Josef Kolman MPRC - Medical Pharmaceutical Research Center Ltd. Vienna, Austria Paul Meng PMC - Dr Paul Meng Consultant, Vienna, Austria and Graeme Scott Professional Services in Clinical Research, Edinburgh, Scotland There is a growing trend for investigators to adopt a more formal approach to the procedures applied to various stages of clinical trials. Most environments employ some form of standard operating procedures which are designed to be used as 'working tools' within that particular field, e.g. standard operating procedures in hospitals for doctors and nurses. With rigorous standards of good clinical practice being applied to all areas, optimizing the design and use of standard operating procedures is more in demand every day. Topics covered include:
* A brief description of the history and development of clinical research and good clinical practice
* An explanation of what standard operating procedures are and how they work
* A selection of actual standard operating procedures and checklists
This well-constructed and timely work, set out in a logical, sequential order provides the necessary material needed to develop a useful set of investigator standard operating procedures. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A Must Have For Clinical Researchers
This book is the most informative resource for any one in clinical research. I recommend it for Investigators, clinical nurse coordinators, administrators and anyone else who deals with sponsor drug companies, IRB's and Human Subjects. I found this book to be full of every detail I needed to become a responsible and ethical clinical research nurse. It has helped me coordinate my staffs activities and resources by providing guidelines that are understandable and easily followed. With this book your research team is on the path to success! ... Read more

Book Description

The CRC’s Guide to Coordinating Clinical Research was designed as a training resource for investigative site staff. Written by Karen E. Woodin, Ph.D., this 400-page guidebook is filled with valuable information on the role and responsibilities of a clinical research coordinator (CRC) and explains in detail the research process from the site and CRC perspective. This training manual will teach readers to:

- Determine the role of the Clinical Research Coordinator (CRC) at a clinical study site by describing the general responsibilities associated with that role
- Identify the regulations governing clinical research
- Describe the drug development process
- Discuss Good Clinical Practices (GCPs) and how to apply them in clinical trials
- Organize a clinical practice to manage clinical trials successfully to their completion

Book features:

- CRC responsibilities, problems and opportunities
- Regulations and good clinical practices (GCPs)
- Writing and implementing standard operating procedures (SOPs)
- Preparing for a study, including case report forms (CRFs), site evaluations, investigator meetings, monitoring visits and more
- Adverse events and safety monitoring
- Sample forms, logs and checklists

Readers of The CRC’s Guide to Coordinating Clinical Research can take an exam to apply for approximately 10 nursing contact hours. The exam is taken online. To complete the activity, participants must earn a score of at least 70% on the online exam no later than August 1, 2007.

This continuing education offering is co-provided by Thomson American Health Consultants and Thomson CenterWatch. Thomson American Health Consultants is accredited as a provider of continuing education in nursing by the American Nurses Credentialing Center's Commission on Accreditation and by the California Board of Registered Nursing (provider number CEP #10864). Upon completion of the activity, participants may earn approximately 10 nursing contact hours. ... Read more

Book Description

Field epidemiology involves the application of epidemiologic methods to unexpected health problems when a rapid on-site investigation is necessary for timely intervention.Based on decades of experience in both infectious and non-infectious diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this book describes in simple and practical terms the distinct approach, tasks, and actions needed for successful field investigations. Guidance is given on such issues as how to perform surveillance, manage and execute field investigations, collect and analyze data, perform surveys, adapt a personal computer for field use, and communicate the findings.Specific advice is also given on such subjects as dealing with the media; investigations in healthcare, day-care, and international settings; and the legal aspects of field studies.An entire chapter covers the proper collection, handling, and testing of infectious and non-infectious agents in the field.In the Second Edition, four new chapters cover many unique aspects of field studies in the workplace, after natural disasters, in preparation for and response to possible bioterrorist attacks, and by state and local health departments. Finally, an appendix describes how to investigatea common source food-borne epidemic.This text gives public health professionals and students a practical and complete reference to use in virtually any field investigation setting. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Outstanding Resource for Epidemiologists & Researchers
"Field Epidemiology" by Gregg (editor) and colleagues from the U.S. federal government's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a vital resource for epidemiologists, health advocates, and public health researchers and specialists. The book is remarkable both for its content and the high quality of editorship, too rare a combination in biomedical texts.

The book's content addresses field epidemilogy, which is somewhat awkwardly defined as "..the application of epidemiology under the following set of general conditions: *The problem is unexpected. *An immediate response may be demanded. *Public health epidemiologists must travel to and work in the field to solve the problem. *The extent of the investigation is likely to be limited because of the imperative for timely intervention." Despite an awkward definition (i.e., defining field epidemiology by its antecedents), field epidemiology is the reality of responsive, responsible, comtemporary public health practice: A cluster of disease occurs of unknown origin, the public becomes concerned, public health agencies are expected to respond with compassion and utilitarian epidemiological methods. In this book's 18 chapters are described the hows, whys, and whats necessary to conduct field epidemiology. Each chapter is written by an expert in his or her area of epidemiology. A sample of chapter titles includes: Conducting a Field Investigation, Analyzing and Interpreting Data, Developing Interventions, Communicating Epidemiologic Findings, Dealing with the Public and Media, and Legal Considerations in a Field Investigation.

This book should also be savored for its clarity of expression, taut editorship, and integration of chapters. "Field Epidemiology" is an outstanding resource for any health professional's bookshelf. ... Read more

Book Description

The second edition of this book is unique in that it focuses on methods for making formal statistical inference from all the models in an a priori set (Multi-Model Inference). A philosophy is presented for model-based data analysis and a general strategy outlined for the analysis of empirical data. The book invites increased attention on a priori science hypotheses and modeling.

Kullback-Leibler Information represents a fundamental quantity in science and is Hirotugu Akaike's basis for model selection. The maximized log-likelihood function can be bias-corrected as an estimator of expected, relative Kullback-Leibler information. This leads to Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC) and various extensions. These methods are relatively simple and easy to use in practice, but based on deep statistical theory. The information theoretic approaches provide a unified and rigorous theory, an extension of likelihood theory, an important application of information theory, and are objective and practical to employ across a very wide class of empirical problems.

The book presents several new ways to incorporate model selection uncertainty into parameter estimates and estimates of precision. An array of challenging examples is given to illustrate various technical issues.

This is an applied book written primarily for biologists and statisticians wanting to make inferences from multiple models and is suitable as a graduate text or as a reference for professional analysts. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

authoritative and thorough treatment
Burnham and Anderson have put together a scholarly account of the developments in model selection techniques from the information theoretic viewpoint. This is an important practical subject. As computer algorithms become more and more available for fitting models and data mining and exploratory analysis become more popular and used more by novices, problems with overfitting models will again raise their ugly heads. This has been an issue for statisticians for decades. But the problems and the art of model selection has not been commonly covered in elementary courses on statistics and regression. George Box puts proper emphasis on the iterative nature of model selection and the importance of applying the principle of parismony in many of his books. Classic texts on regression like Draper and Smith point out the pitfalls of goodness of ift measures like R-square and explain Mallows Cp and adjusted R-square. There are now also a few good books devoted to model selection including the book by McQuarrie and Tsai (that I recently reviewed for Amazon) and the Chapman and Hall monograph by A. J. Miller.

Burnham and Anderson address all these issues and provide the best coverage to date on bootstrap and cross-validation approaches. They also are careful in their historical account and in putting together some coherence to the scattered literature. They are thorough in their references to the literature. Their theme is the information theoretic measures based on the Kullback-Liebler distance measure. The breakthrough in this theory came from Akaike in the 1970s and improvements and refinement came later. The authors provide the theory, but more importantly, they provide many real examples to illustrate the problems and show how the methods work.

They also refer to the recent work in Bayesian methods. Chapter 1 is a great introduction that everyone should read. Being a fan of the bootstrap I was interested in their coverage of it in chapters 4, 5 and 6 (much of which is the authors' own work).

Because the authors work in biological fields they cover survival models as well as the standard time series and regression models where most of the emphasis has been placed on model selection in the past.

It is a great reference source and an important book for learning about model selection as part of the inferential process. The pictures of the famous contributors inserted throughout the book is also nice to see. We have Akaike, Boltzmann, Shibata, Kullback, and Liebler brought to life in photographs or sketches.

A breakthrough book on statistical modeling building
Statistical data analysis usually goes through cycles of exploring and looking for patterns in data, often through model construction, analyzing residuals and modifying model fits, until all unusual features being explained. Though this practice has been going on for more than 100 years, it has not been closely examined to see whether the fact that your analysis based on the best fitted model using the same data set should be biased, or plainly you cheated by over-analyzing your data. This book by the two productive authors say yes, and you should rethink about what you have been doing. A highly applaudable and timely efforts on the part of the authors, considering that the trend of over-analyzing your data is increasing rapidly with recent explosion of data and intensive computer analysis in the data mining industry. It's not as hopeless or bad as you think, and there are ways to avoid pitfalls and there may exist ways of making some valid inference out of this model selection process. So enjoy reading this book and think! ... Read more

Book Description

Applied statisticians in many fields frequently analyze time-to-event data. While the statistical tools presented in this book are applicable to data from medicine, biology, public health, epidemiology, engineering, economics and demography, the focus here is on applications of the techniques to biology and medicine.

The analysis of survival experiments is complicated by issues of censoring and truncation. The use of counting process methodology has allowed for substantial advances in the statistical theory to account for censoring and truncation in survival experiments. This book makes these complex techniques accessible to applied researchers without the advanced mathematical background. The authors present the essentials of these techniques, as well as classical techniques not based on counting processes, and apply them to data.

The second edition contains some new material as well as solutions to the odd-numbered revised exercises. New material consists of a discussion of summary statistics for competing risks probabilities in Chapter 2 and the estimation process for these probabilities in Chapter 4. A new section on tests of the equality of survival curves at a fixed point in time is added in Chapter 7. In Chapter 8 an expanded discussion is presented on how to code covariates and a new section on discretizing a continuous covariate is added. A new section on Lin and Ying's additive hazards regression model is presented in Chapter 10. We now proceed to a general discussion of the usefulness of this book incorporating the new material with that of the first edition. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Good book of Studying Survival Analysis
In this new edition, most of the errata are corrected and the texts are explained in a more detailed way.

The formulae are correct and the examples are explained in a more direct and expressive way than that in the 1st edition.

The most valuable one is its Theoretical Notes and Practical Notes. They show a lot of different points of views.

A good-buy and must-read for those want to have an intense level in Survival Analysis. Suitable for elementary and intermediate candidates to read and study.

Ian Lauder

A good book of studying Survival Analysis
In this new edition, many errata are corrected and each of the theories has a reason why this is true. Although they may be more practical in view, it is very good to use them to learn Survival Analysis, which is more realistic in sense.

In its Theoretical Notes and Practical Notes, there are a lot of different views and sights to show that which is the best to use. The examples are more or less good one and explained in a more detailed way than that in the 1st edition. A good-buy and must-read for those want to have a thorough view in this aspects. Read them carefully! Better than Cox's in this new edition. Buy and read this new edition!

Good for practitioners, but not for statistician
This book describes formulas and list of applications, but it don't give more accurate statistical reasons. I get how to use the formulas, but i think i am more interested in how to get the formulas

Worst Textbook Ever
I don't want to say hard words, but this is really a completely USELESS book. It says nothing but only presenting tons of lengthy, non-understandable formulas, without a single explanation. Why would people need such a JUNK book?

There are people that need it. It is a prescribed textbook for Society of Actuary course 4 exam. Other than those guys taking this exam, DON'T TOUCH THIS BOOK.

P.S.: Many of those formulas in the books are wrong.

Almost Unreadable
Murphy's Law of College Textbooks: When an author prepares a textbook on a topic he doesn't understand thoroughly, his work will only be understood by those readers who understand more about the topic than the writer . . . thus defeating the prime purpose of writing, which is to inform those who understand less about the topic than the writer.

The above statement applies to this textbook more than to any other that I have ever read in my life. Each chapter reduces to nothing more than an inscrutable collection of formulas. The authors do not provide even the slightest beginning of an insight to a student attempting to learn the material from this text. ... Read more