Fitting Equations to Data: Computer Analysis of Multifactor Data

Helps any serious data analyst with a computer to recognize the strengths and limitations of data, to test the assumptions implicit in the least squares methods used to fit the data, to select appropriate forms of the variables, to judge which combinations of variables are most influential, and to state the conditions under which the fitted equations are applicable. This edition includes numerous extensions and new devices such as component and component-plus-residual plots, cross verification with a second sample, and an index of required x-precision; also, the search for better subset equations is enlarged to cover 262,144 alternatives. The methods described have been applied in agricultural, environmental, management, marketing, medical, physical, and social sciences. Mathematics is kept to the level of college algebra.

About the authors CUTHBERT DANIEL is a Consulting Engineering Statistician. He has specialized in applications of statistics to industrial experimentation since 1947. He has worked extensively in design of experiments and regression analysis. His numerous papers have appeared in Technometrics, the Journal of the American Statistical Association, Chemical Engineering Progress, and other journals. He read the R.A. Fisher Memorial Lecture in 1971 and the W.J. Youden Memorial Address in 1974. He was awarded the S.S. Wilks Memorial Medal in 1974. FRED S. WOOD is Senior Operations Research Analyst with the Standard Oil Company with clients in research and development, marketing, manufacturing, production, transportation, finance, and management. His articles have appeared in Technometrics, the Journal of the Society of Automotive Engineers, S.A.E. Transactions, the Oil and Gas Journal, and the Industrial and Chemical Engineering Journal. He holds a number of patents in the fields of both process and product development.