Nils Lid Hjort

This lively book lays out a methodology of confidence distributions and puts them through their paces. Among other merits, they lead to optimal combinations of confidence from different sources of information, and they can make complex models amenable to objective and indeed prior-free analysis for less subjectively inclined statisticians. The generous mixture of theory, illustrations, applications and exercises is suitable for statisticians at all levels of experience, as well as for data-oriented scientists. Some confidence distributions are less dispersed than their competitors. This concept leads to a theory of risk functions and comparisons for distributions of confidence. Neyman–Pearson type theorems leading to optimal confidence are developed and richly illustrated. Exact and optimal confidence distribution is the gold standard for inferred epistemic distributions. Confidence distributions and likelihood functions are intertwined, allowing prior distributions to be made part of the likelihood. Meta-analysis in likelihood terms is developed and taken beyond traditional methods, suiting it in particular to combining information across diverse data sources.

Highly Structured Stochastic Systems (HSSS) is a modern strategy for building statistical models for challenging real-world problems, for computing with them, and for interpreting the resulting inferences. Complexity is handled by working up from simple local assumptions in a coherent way, and that is the key to modelling, computation, inference and interpretation; the unifying framework is that of Bayesian hierarchical models. The aim of this book is to make recent developments in HSSS accessible to a general statistical audience. Graphical modelling and Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methodology are central to the field, and in this text they are covered in depth. The chapters on graphical modelling focus on causality and its interplay with time, the role of latent variables, and on some innovative applications. Those on Monte Carlo algorithms include discussion of the impact of recent theoretical work on the evaluation of performance in MCMC, extensions to variable dimension problems, and methods for dynamic problems based on particle filters. Coverage of these underlying methodologies is balanced by substantive areas of application - in the areas of spatial statistics (with epidemiological, ecological and image analysis applications) and biology (including infectious diseases, gene mapping and evolutionary genetics). The book concludes with two topics (model criticism and Bayesian nonparametrics) that seek to challenge the parametric assumptions that otherwise underlie most HSSS models. Altogether there are 15 topics in the book, and for each there is a substantial article by a leading author in the field, and two invited commentaries that complement, extend or discuss the main article, and should be read in parallel. All authors are distinguished researchers in the field, and were active participants in an international research programme on HSSS. This is the 27th volume in the Oxford Statistical Science Series, which includes texts and monographs covering many topics of current research interest in pure and applied statistics. These texts focus on topics that have been at the forefront of research interest for several years. Other books in the series include: J.Durbin and S.J.Koopman: Time series analysis by State Space Models; Peter J. Diggle, Patrick Heagerty, Kung-Yee Liang, Scott L. Zeger: Analysis of Longitudinal Data 2/e; J.K. Lindsey: Nonlinear Models in Medical Statistics; Peter J. Green, Nils L. Hjort & Sylvia Richardson: Highly Structured Stochastic Systems; Margaret S. Pepe: Statistical Evaluation of Medical Tests.