jamesbond 2007-9-13 09:33
Biostatistics - A Methodology for the Health Sciences
[attach]33873[/attach]
[Name] Biostatistics - A Methodology for the Health Sciences (Second Edition)
[Author] GERALD VAN BELLE, LLOYD D. FISHER, PATRICK J. HEAGERTY, THOMAS LUMLEY
[Publisher] A JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC., PUBLICATION
[Key Words] Biostatistics, Statistics
[Briefing]
Biostatistics did not spring fully formed from the brow of R. A. Fisher, but evolved over many
years. This process is continuing, although it may not be obvious from the outside. It has been
ten years since the first edition of this book appeared (and rather longer since it was begun).
Over this time, new areas of biostatistics have been developed and emphases and interpretations
have changed.
The original authors, faced with the daunting task of updating a 1000-page text, decided
to invite two colleagues to take the lead in this task. These colleagues, experts in longitudinal
data analysis, survival analysis, computing, and all things modern and statistical, have given a
twenty-first-century thrust to the book.
The author sequence for the first edition was determined by the toss of a coin (see the Preface
to the First Edition). For the second edition it was decided to switch the sequence of the first
two authors and add the new authors in alphabetical sequence.
This second edition adds a chapter on randomized trials and another on longitudinal data
analysis. Substantial changes have been made in discussing robust statistics, model building,
survival analysis, and discrimination. Notes have been added, throughout, and many graphs
redrawn. We have tried to eliminate errata found in the first edition, and while more have
undoubtedly been added, we hope there has been a net improvement. When you find mistakes
we would appreciate hearing about them at [url]http://www.vanbelle.org/biostatistics/.[/url]
Another major change over the past decade or so has been technological. Statistical software
and the computers to run it have become much more widely available—many of the graphs
and new analyses in this book were produced on a laptop that weighs only slightly more than a
copy of the first edition—and the Internet provides ready access to information that used to be
available only in university libraries. In order to accommodate the new sections and to attempt
to keep up with future changes, we have shifted some material to a set of Web appendices. These
may be found at [url]http://www.biostat-text.info.[/url] The Web appendices include notes, data sets and
sample analyses, links to other online resources, all but a bare minimum of the statistical tables
from the first edition, and other material for which ink on paper is a less suitable medium.
These advances in technology have not solved the problem of deadlines, and we would
particularly like to thank Steve Quigley at Wiley for his equanimity in the face of schedule
slippage.
