Statistical Analysis of Circular Data [Hardcover]

N. I. Fisher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 29, 1993 | ISBN-10: 0521350182 | ISBN-13: 978-0521350181

This book provides a unified and up-to-date account of techniques for handling circular data, and will interest all who perform data analyses.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...I suggest you pick up this book...this is a delightful, modern, and unified text. The writing style is exceptionally clear and lucid...examples are motivating and nontechnical and are easy to follow. For these reasons, the book can also be used as a textbook for university students who often deal with or collect circular data...the book looks wonderful...contains much valuable information and many interesting examples and gives an excellent--and for the most part nontechnical--introduction to build a solid foundation in circular data analysis...covers the most recent developments in the area. I strongly recommend it for students and researchers." Chance

"I would recommend this book to any statistician who needs to analyze circular data. The author's style is quite readable. The page layout is pleasing, and the graphics are very well done....I was very impressed with this book." Thomas E. Wehrly, Technometrics

"...as circular data become more common and their underlying questions become more complex, Statistical Analysis of Circular Data will continue to help move this 'curious byway' into a mainstream of applied statistical science. This is a book that is written to be used." Nicholas Lange, Journal of the American Statistical Association

"...this well-crafted text contains a wealth of other historical and technical aspects of analyzing circular data that you will find both interesting and informative." Timothy G. Gregoire, Forest Science

Book Description

Statistical methods for handling circular data have developed rapidly in the past twenty years, with emphasis on problems of data display, and the correlation, regression, and analysis of data with temporal or spatial structure. This text provides a unified and up-to-date account.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 295 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (October 29, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521350182
• ISBN-13: 978-0521350181
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,306,776 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a good reference for this niche of statistics, June 20, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Statistical Analysis of Circular Data (Paperback)

I came across this book while looking for methods to smooth local orientation measures in an image processing application. The author presents more information than you wanted to know about the "right" ways to compute averages and related measures of axial (undirected) data. Particularly useful is the treatment of tests of uniformity and the discussion of the Von Mises and wrapped normal distributions. If you work with data that is best described around the circle, e.g. direction of bird flight from a landmark, this is a good reference to have on hand. It will help you to avoid the common mistake of applying conventional descriptive statistics to circular data.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The definitive book on the subject; fun, and a must-read for all statisticians!, November 24, 2007

By 

Alexander C. Zorach "Alex Zorach" (Lancaster, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Statistical Analysis of Circular Data (Paperback)

This is the definitive book, both as a reference and as an introductory or pedagogical text, on the topic of circular data. The topic is not exactly a "niche" as the other reviewer described--it's more like a much-neglected area within the "fundamentals" of statistical theory. The material here is accessible, elementary, interesting, and makes you wonder how you ever got through so much statistics without learning this stuff.

There's a remarkable amount of information packed into this small volume. The book is very accessible, requiring only a modest background. Since the material in this book is unlikely to be taught in most courses, the book is written to be read, and is very useful for self-study.

The required background is different for different parts of the book. A solid course in probability theory (as well as an active mind and a desire to fidget extensively with things on your own) is all that is needed to understand the sections on circular probability distributions. Some experience with data analysis and applications would be necessary to really grasp the parts of the book dealing with that material. There is also some interesting discussion of applications, some of which goes deep enough that it could only really be fully grasped by someone with prior familiarity with the material.

Although the writing in this book is generally quite clear (quite outstanding, actually, relative to most statistics texts), there is something about the overall presentation of the book as a whole that is lacking. At times the author rambles a bit, and more conciseness would be welcome. At other times, however, the book rolls through presentation of a bunch of concepts where more expanded discussion would be welcome. I found that the sections on data analysis and applications tend to ramble, whereas the sections on probability theory and mathematical properties tend to prompt a little more discussion. Also, the order of the chapters seems a bit unnatural...I found I needed to skip around a lot and re-read many sections in order for this book to make sense.

Bottom line? It may have a few ways that it could be improved, but it's still a great book. I'd say that this book is a must-read for any statistician. I would even suggest all people studying elementary probability theory to take a peek at it. The omission of probability and statistics on circles and other spaces is a huge omission from the curriculum of most introductory statistics courses, since this type of data is ubiquitous in the real world, and also since the mathematical structures are rich and interesting from a theoretical perspective. People studying complex analysis will find some neat connections that go beyond the material discussed in the text.

And...not least importantly of all, the material is very cool, and very fun to learn. This is a book that will expand your mind. Read this book!