Observations which are directions, axes or rotations occur in many sciences, including astronomy, biology, earth sciences, image analysis, and medicine. To analyse such data it is necessary to use the techniques of directional statistics, in which the special structure of circles, spheres and rotation groups is taken into account. This book gives a unified and comprehensive account of directional statistics, presenting both the underlying statistical theory and the practical methodology. The book is divided into three parts. The first part concentrates on statistics on the circle. Topics covered include tests of uniformity, tests of goodness-of-fit, inference on von Mises distributions and non-parametric methods. The second part considers statistics on spheres of arbitrary dimension, and includes a detailed account of inference on the main distributions on spheres. Recent material on correlation, regression, time series, robust techniques, bootstrap methods, density estimation and curve fitting is presented. The third part considers statistics on more general sample spaces, in particular rotation groups, Stiefel manifolds, Grassmann manifolds and complex projective spaces. Shape analysis is considered from the perspective of directional statistics. This text will be invaluable not only to researchers in probability and statistics interested in the latest developments in directional statistics, but also to practitioners and researchers in many scientific fields, including astronomy, biology, computer vision, earth sciences and image analysis.

Modern Directional Statistics collects important advances in methodology and theory for directional statistics over the last two decades. It provides a detailed overview and analysis of recent results that can help both researchers and practitioners. Knowledge of multivariate statistics eases the reading but is not mandatory. The field of directional statistics has received a lot of attention over the past two decades, due to new demands from domains such as life sciences or machine learning, to the availability of massive data sets requiring adapted statistical techniques, and to technological advances. This book covers important progresses in distribution theory,high-dimensional statistics, kernel density estimation, efficient inference on directional supports, and computational and graphical methods. Christophe Ley is professor of mathematical statistics at Ghent University. His research interests include semi-parametrically efficient inference, flexible modeling, directional statistics and the study of asymptotic approximations via Stein’s Method. His achievements include the Marie-Jeanne Laurent-Duhamel prize of the Société Française de Statistique and an elected membership at the International Statistical Institute. He is associate editor for the journals Computational Statistics & Data Analysis and Econometrics and Statistics. Thomas Verdebout is professor of mathematical statistics at Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). His main research interests are semi-parametric statistics, high- dimensional statistics, directional statistics and rank-based procedures. He has won an annual prize of the Belgian Academy of Sciences and is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute. He is associate editor for the journals Statistics and Probability Letters and Journal of Multivariate Analysis.

Presents new and up-dated material on both the underlying theory and the practical methodology of directional statistics, helping the reader to utilise and develop the techniques appropriate to their work. The book is divided into three parts. The first part concentrates on statistics on the circle. Topics covered include tests of uniformity, tests of good-of-fit, inference on von Mises distributions and non-parametric methods. The second part considers statistics on spheres of arbitrary dimension, and includes a detailed account of inference on the main distributions on spheres. Recent material on correlation, regression time series, robust techniques, bootstrap methods, density estimation and curve fitting is presented. The third part considers statistics on more general sample spaces, in particular rotation groups, Stiefel manifolds, Grassmann manifolds and complex projective spaces. Shape analysis is considered from the perspective of directional statistics. Written by leading authors in the field, this text will be invaluable not only to researchers in probability and statistics interested in the latest developments in directional statistics, but also to practitioners and researchers in many scientific fields, including astronomy, biology, computer vision, earth sciences and image analysis.

This book collects important advances in methodology and data analysis for directional statistics. It is the companion book of the more theoretical treatment presented in Modern Directional Statistics (CRC Press, 2017). The field of directional statistics has received a lot of attention due to demands from disciplines such as life sciences or machine learning, the availability of massive data sets requiring adapted statistical techniques, and technological advances. This book covers important progress in bioinformatics, biology, astrophysics, oceanography, environmental sciences, earth sciences, machine learning and social sciences.

A unified, up-to-date account of circular data-handling techniques, useful throughout science.

Circular Statistics in R provides the most comprehensive guide to the analysis of circular data in over a decade. Circular data arise in many scientific contexts whether it be angular directions such as: observed compass directions of departure of radio-collared migratory birds from a release point; bond angles measured in different molecules; wind directions at different times of year at a wind farm; direction of stress-fractures in concrete bridge supports; longitudes of earthquake epicentres or seasonal and daily activity patterns, for example: data on the times of day at which animals are caught in a camera trap, or in 911 calls in New York, or in internet traffic; variation throughout the year in measles incidence, global energy requirements, TV viewing figures or injuries to athletes. The natural way of representing such data graphically is as points located around the circumference of a circle, hence their name. Importantly, circular variables are periodic in nature and the origin, or zero point, such as the beginning of a new year, is defined arbitrarily rather than necessarily emerging naturally from the system. This book will be of value both to those new to circular data analysis as well as those more familiar with the field. For beginners, the authors start by considering the fundamental graphical and numerical summaries used to represent circular data before introducing distributions that might be used to model them. They go on to discuss basic forms of inference such as point and interval estimation, as well as formal significance tests for hypotheses that will often be of scientific interest. When discussing model fitting, the authors advocate reduced reliance on the classical von Mises distribution; showcasing distributions that are capable of modelling features such as asymmetry and varying levels of kurtosis that are often exhibited by circular data. The use of likelihood-based and computer-intensive approaches to inference and modelling are stressed throughout the book. The R programming language is used to implement the methodology, particularly its "circular" package. Also provided are over 150 new functions for techniques not already covered within R. This concise but authoritative guide is accessible to the diverse range of scientists who have circular data to analyse and want to do so as easily and as effectively as possible.

Probability and Mathematical Statistics: A Series of Monographs and Textbooks: Statistics of Directional Data aims to provide a systematic account of statistical theory and methodology for observations which are directions. The publication first elaborates on angular data and frequency distributions, descriptive measures, and basic concepts and theoretical models. Discussions focus on moments and measures of location and dispersion, distribution function, corrections for grouping, calculation of the mean direction and the circular variance, interrelations between different units of angular measurement, and diagrammatical representation. The book then examines fundamental theorems and distribution theory, point estimation, and tests for samples from von Mises populations. The text takes a look at non-parametric tests, distributions on spheres, and inference problems on the sphere. Topics include tests for axial data, point estimation, distribution theory, moments and limiting distributions, and tests of goodness of fit and tests of uniformity. The publication is a dependable reference for researchers interested in probability and mathematical statistics.

This research monograph on circular data analysis covers some recent advances in the field, besides providing a brief introduction to, and a review of, existing methods and models. The primary focus is on recent research into topics such as change-point problems, predictive distributions, circular correlation and regression, etc. An important feature of this work is the S-plus subroutines provided for analyzing actual data sets. Coupled with the discussion of new theoretical research, the book should benefit both the researcher and the practitioner.

This book collects important advances in methodology and data analysis for directional statistics. It is the companion book of the more theoretical treatment presented in Modern Directional Statistics (CRC Press, 2017). The field of directional statistics has received a lot of attention due to demands from disciplines such as life sciences or machine learning, the availability of massive data sets requiring adapted statistical techniques, and technological advances. This book covers important progress in bioinformatics, biology, astrophysics, oceanography, environmental sciences, earth sciences, machine learning and social sciences.

Modern Directional Statistics collects important advances in methodology and theory for directional statistics over the last two decades. It provides a detailed overview and analysis of recent results that can help both researchers and practitioners. Knowledge of multivariate statistics eases the reading but is not mandatory. The field of directional statistics has received a lot of attention over the past two decades, due to new demands from domains such as life sciences or machine learning, to the availability of massive data sets requiring adapted statistical techniques, and to technological advances. This book covers important progresses in distribution theory,high-dimensional statistics, kernel density estimation, efficient inference on directional supports, and computational and graphical methods. Christophe Ley is professor of mathematical statistics at Ghent University. His research interests include semi-parametrically efficient inference, flexible modeling, directional statistics and the study of asymptotic approximations via Stein’s Method. His achievements include the Marie-Jeanne Laurent-Duhamel prize of the Société Française de Statistique and an elected membership at the International Statistical Institute. He is associate editor for the journals Computational Statistics & Data Analysis and Econometrics and Statistics. Thomas Verdebout is professor of mathematical statistics at Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). His main research interests are semi-parametric statistics, high- dimensional statistics, directional statistics and rank-based procedures. He has won an annual prize of the Belgian Academy of Sciences and is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute. He is associate editor for the journals Statistics and Probability Letters and Journal of Multivariate Analysis.