Statistical Method

The interaction between mathematicians and statisticians reveals to be an effective approach for dealing with actuarial, insurance and financial problems, both in an academic and in an operative perspective. The international conference MAF 2008, held at the University Ca’ Foscari of Venezia (Italy) in 2008, had precisely this purpose, and the collection here published gathers a selection of about the one hundred papers presented at the conference and successively referred and reviewed to this aim. They cover a wide variety of subjects in actuarial, insurance and financial fields, all treated in light of the successful cooperation between the two quantitative approaches.

This book focuses on experimental research in two disciplines that have a lot of common ground in terms of theory, experimental designs used, and methods for the analysis of experimental research data: education and psychology. Although the methods covered in this book are also frequently used in many other disciplines, including sociology and medicine, the examples in this book come from contemporary research topics in education and psychology.

A t the terminal seated, the answering tone: pond and temple bell. ODAY as in the past, statistical method is profoundly affected by T resources for numerical calculation and visual display. The main line of development of statistical methodology during the first half of this century was conditioned by, and attuned to, the mechanical desk calculator. Now statisticians may use electronic computers of various kinds in various modes, and the character of statistical science has changed accordingly. Some, but not all, modes of modern computation have a flexibility and immediacy reminiscent of the desk calculator. They preserve the virtues of the desk calculator, while immensely exceeding its scope. Prominent among these is the computer language and conversational computing system known by the initials APL. This book is addressed to statisticians. Its first aim is to interest them in using APL in their work-for statistical analysis of data, for numerical support of theoretical studies, for simulation of random processes. In Part A the language is described and illustrated with short examples of statistical calculations. Part B, presenting some more extended examples of statistical analysis of data, has also the further aim of suggesting the interplay of computing and theory that must surely henceforth be typical of the develop­ ment of statistical science.

Statistical disclosure control is the discipline that deals with producing statistical data that are safe enough to be released to external researchers. This book concentrates on the methodology of the area. It deals with both microdata (individual data) and tabular (aggregated) data.

Conventional statistical methods have a very serious flaw. They routinely miss differences among groups or associations among variables that are detected by more modern techniques, even under very small departures from normality. Hundreds of journal articles have described the reasons standard techniques can be unsatisfactory, but simple, intuitive explanations are generally unavailable. Situations arise where even highly nonsignificant results become significant when analyzed with more modern methods.

Motivation Stochastic Linear Programming with recourse represents one of the more widely applicable models for incorporating uncertainty within in which the SLP optimization models. There are several arenas model is appropriate, and such models have found applications in air­ line yield management…