In today’s global and highly competitive environment, continuous improvement in the processes and products of any field of engineering is essential for survival. This book gathers together the full range of statistical techniques required by engineers from all fields. It will assist them to gain sensible statistical feedback on how their processes or products are functioning and to give them realistic predictions of how these could be improved. The handbook will be essential reading for all engineers and engineering-connected managers who are serious about keeping their methods and products at the cutting edge of quality and competitiveness.

This book presents the state-of-the-art methodology and detailed analytical models and methods used to assess the reliability of complex systems and related applications in statistical reliability engineering. It is a textbook based mainly on the author’s recent research and publications as well as experience of over 30 years in this field. The book covers a wide range of methods and models in reliability, and their applications, including: statistical methods and model selection for machine learning; models for maintenance and software reliability; statistical reliability estimation of complex systems; and statistical reliability analysis of k out of n systems, standby systems and repairable systems. Offering numerous examples and solved problems within each chapter, this comprehensive text provides an introduction to reliability engineering graduate students, a reference for data scientists and reliability engineers, and a thorough guide for researchers and instructors in the field.

In today’s global and highly competitive environment, continuous improvement in the processes and products of any field of engineering is essential for survival. This book gathers together the full range of statistical techniques required by engineers from all fields. It will assist them to gain sensible statistical feedback on how their processes or products are functioning and to give them realistic predictions of how these could be improved. The handbook will be essential reading for all engineers and engineering-connected managers who are serious about keeping their methods and products at the cutting edge of quality and competitiveness.

In many statistical applications, scientists have to analyze the occurrence of observed clusters of events in time or space. Scientists are especially interested in determining whether an observed cluster of events has occurred by chance if it is assumed that the events are distributed independently and uniformly over time or space. Scan statistics have relevant applications in many areas of science and technology including geology, geography, medicine, minefield detection, molecular biology, photography, quality control and reliability theory and radio-optics.

An effective reliability programme is an essential component of every product's design, testing and efficient production. From the failure analysis of a microelectronic device to software fault tolerance and from the accelerated life testing of mechanical components to hardware verification, a common underlying philosophy of reliability applies. Defining both fundamental and applied work across the entire systems reliability arena, this state-of-the-art reference presents methodologies for quality, maintainability and dependability. Featuring: Contributions from 60 leading reliability experts in academia and industry giving comprehensive and authoritative coverage. A distinguished international Editorial Board ensuring clarity and precision throughout. Extensive references to the theoretical foundations, recent research and future directions described in each chapter. Comprehensive subject index providing maximum utility to the reader. Applications and examples across all branches of engineering including IT, power, automotive and aerospace sectors. The handbook's cross-disciplinary scope will ensure that it serves as an indispensable tool for researchers in industrial, electrical, electronics, computer, civil, mechanical and systems engineering. It will also aid professional engineers to find creative reliability solutions and management to evaluate systems reliability and to improve processes. For student research projects it will be the ideal starting point whether addressing basic questions in communications and electronics or learning advanced applications in micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), manufacturing and high-assurance engineering systems.

This handbook presents the state of the art of quantitative methods and models to understand and assess the science and technology system. Focusing on various aspects of the development and application of indicators derived from data on scholarly publications, patents and electronic communications, the individual chapters, written by leading experts, discuss theoretical and methodological issues, illustrate applications, highlight their policy context and relevance, and point to future research directions. A substantial portion of the book is dedicated to detailed descriptions and analyses of data sources, presenting both traditional and advanced approaches. It addresses the main bibliographic metrics and indexes, such as the journal impact factor and the h-index, as well as altmetric and webometric indicators and science mapping techniques on different levels of aggregation and in the context of their value for the assessment of research performance as well as their impact on research policy and society. It also presents and critically discusses various national research evaluation systems. Complementing the sections reflecting on the science system, the technology section includes multiple chapters that explain different aspects of patent statistics, patent classification and database search methods to retrieve patent-related information. In addition, it examines the relevance of trademarks and standards as additional technological indicators. The Springer Handbook of Science and Technology Indicators is an invaluable resource for practitioners, scientists and policy makers wanting a systematic and thorough analysis of the potential and limitations of the various approaches to assess research and research performance.

Any financial asset that is openly traded has a market price. Except for extreme market conditions, market price may be more or less than a “fair” value. Fair value is likely to be some complicated function of the current intrinsic value of tangible or intangible assets underlying the claim and our assessment of the characteristics of the underlying assets with respect to the expected rate of growth, future dividends, volatility, and other relevant market factors. Some of these factors that affect the price can be measured at the time of a transaction with reasonably high accuracy. Most factors, however, relate to expectations about the future and to subjective issues, such as current management, corporate policies and market environment, that could affect the future financial performance of the underlying assets. Models are thus needed to describe the stochastic factors and environment, and their implementations inevitably require computational finance tools.

This Springer Handbook of Metrology and Testing presents the principles of Metrology – the science of measurement – and the methods and techniques of Testing – determining the characteristics of a given product – as they apply to chemical and microstructural analysis, and to the measurement and testing of materials properties and performance, including modelling and simulation. The principal motivation for this Handbook stems from the increasing demands of technology for measurement results that can be used globally. Measurements within a local laboratory or manufacturing facility must be able to be reproduced accurately anywhere in the world. The book integrates knowledge from basic sciences and engineering disciplines, compiled by experts from internationally known metrology and testing institutions, and academe, as well as from industry, and conformity-assessment and accreditation bodies. The Commission of the European Union has expressed this as there is no science without measurements, no quality without testing, and no global markets without standards.

Addressing a broad range of big data analytics in cross-disciplinary applications, this essential handbook focuses on the statistical prospects offered by recent developments in this field. To do so, it covers statistical methods for high-dimensional problems, algorithmic designs, computation tools, analysis flows and the software-hardware co-designs that are needed to support insightful discoveries from big data. The book is primarily intended for statisticians, computer experts, engineers and application developers interested in using big data analytics with statistics. Readers should have a solid background in statistics and computer science.

This handbook offers a comprehensive source for electrical power professionals. It covers all elementary topics related to the design, development, operation and management of power systems, and provides an insight from worldwide key players in the electrical power systems industry. Edited by a renowned leader and expert in Power Systems, the book highlights international professionals’ longstanding experiences and addresses the requirements of practitioners but also of newcomers in this field in finding a solution for their problems. The structure of the book follows the physical structure of the power system from the fundamentals through components and equipment to the overall system. In addition the handbook covers certain horizontal matters, for example "Energy fundamentals", "High voltage engineering", and "High current and contact technology" and thus intends to become the major one-stop reference for all issues related to the electrical power system.