Customer Reviews

Applied Life Data Analysis (Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics)

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At the time this book was written Dr. Wayne Nelson was a research statistician for General Electric as well as a private consultant. Through his work at GE he became very familiar with the application of censored "life data" in practical reliability applications and this was one of the first well-presented applied books in reliability similar to other statistics books written on survival and reliability. Wayne never revised this book but he did go on to write books on accelerated testing and recurrent events and was a major contributor to the research in reliability both from the theoretical and practical sides. Wayne has said that one reason that he never revised it was that at a time when a revision might have been appropriate the book by Meeker and Escobar came out and that text was very close in content to what Wayne would have written. Although the book is outdated, it does rightfully belong in the Wiley Classic series and is affordable in its current paperback form. It is still a valuable resource and has historical significance.

This book has an excellent coverage of the topic of survival analysis from the basics through to far more advanced techniques. As both a practitioner using practical survival analysis, and as a student I find this book particularly useful.

Of particualr use is the focus on real situations, which may differ from the simplest forms that are often used in other texts.

I don't own many dedicated volumes on this specific topic, but I have used several and this compares very well. The Weibull sections are explained vary well. There is enough information for a novice and yet will still be a good reference for someone with experience. Modern software tools have made the tedious tasks more automated, however this volume covers the theory and has reference material and good examples.

There was a sharp client need, my experience with weibull was a while ago, and my (excellent) software was still new to me. Wayne Nelson's book, _Applied Life Data Analysis_, was just right. He has the equations; he has the examples, PLUS the pitfalls and cautions that go with them. Using this book, I was able to understand an unexpected but mathematically valid result in life test data. I strongly recommend this book for those who need to understand what they are doing with life test analysis and prediction.

This is Dr. Nelson's classic work on life data analysis, and should be on the bookshelf of anyone working in reliability and risk analysis. It covers the full specturm of reliability data analysis methods, and can be read at several levels - from a beginner who is trying to learn the language, to someone interested in developing their own software. Dr. Nelson once mentioned that he wasn't going to write an update to this classic as new developments were covered by Prof. Meeker's book. Although Meeker's book is excellent, this book remains an all-time favorite. I think part of this books popularity is it's writing style in addition to the way the topics are structured and covered. Well worth the price !