We all like to know how reliable and how risky certain situations are, and our increasing reliance on technology has led to the need for more precise assessments than ever before. Such precision has resulted in efforts both to sharpen the notions of risk and reliability, and to quantify them. Quantification is required for normative decision-making, especially decisions pertaining to our safety and wellbeing. Increasingly in recent years Bayesian methods have become key to such quantifications.

Reliability and Risk provides a comprehensive overview of the mathematical and statistical aspects of risk and reliability analysis, from a Bayesian perspective. This book sets out to change the way in which we think about reliability and survival analysis by casting them in the broader context of decision-making. This is achieved by:

• Providing a broad coverage of the diverse aspects of reliability, including: multivariate failure models, dynamic reliability, event history analysis, non-parametric Bayes, competing risks, co-operative and competing systems, and signature analysis.
• Covering the essentials of Bayesian statistics and exchangeability, enabling readers who are unfamiliar with Bayesian inference to benefit from the book.
• Introducing the notion of "composite reliability", or the collective reliability of a population of items.
• Discussing the relationship between notions of reliability and survival analysis and econometrics and financial risk.

Reliability and Risk can most profitably be used by practitioners and research workers in reliability and survivability as a source of information, reference, and open problems. It can also form the basis of a graduate level course in reliability and risk analysis for students in statistics, biostatistics, engineering (industrial, nuclear, systems), operations research, and other mathematically oriented scientists, wherein the instructor could supplement the material with examples and problems.

About the Author

Nozer D. Singpurwalla is the author of Reliability and Risk: A Bayesian Perspective, published by Wiley.

Reviews
"The book is written by an expert in reliability analysis and it is a very valuable source of information for mathematical models for reliability problems ... An extensive bibliography concludes the book." (Stat Papers, 2011)

"As the author mentions in his preface, the book can be read in several different ways, as a text for a graduate level course on reliability or as a source book for "information and open problems." This book has been a joy to read for this reviewer." (International Statistical Review, August 2008)

"Singpurwalla seems to be at his best in probabilistic modeling of reality. He has written what must be one of the first books reliability written from a subjective, Bayesian point of view." (International Statistical Review, August 2008)

"The material of this book will be most profitable for practitioners and researchers in reliability and survivability, who will greatly appreciate it as a source of information and open problems." (Mathematical Reviews, 2008h)

"This is a very interesting, provocative, and worthwhile book." (Biometrics, June 2008)

"What I liked most about this book, however, is the way it blends interesting technical material with foundational discussion about the nature of uncertainty." (Biometrics, June 2008)

"The investigation of the theoretical models under consideration in the book is first class..." (Law, Probability and Risk Advance Access, September 2007)

"I feel that I have learned an effective plotting technique from these plots..." (Technometrics, February 2008)

"...a cornucopia of probability models and inference methods for different problems...[that] serve as a rich taxonomy that statisticians can use to fit models...works as both an educational tool and as a reference." (MAA Reviews, March 6, 2007)

Book Information
ISBN 9780470855027
Author Nozer D. Singpurwalla
Format Hardback
Page Count 400
Imprint John Wiley & Sons Inc
Publisher John Wiley & Sons Inc
Weight(grams) 822g
Dimensions(mm) 251mm * 176mm * 28mm