Frédéric Ferraty – författare

Modern apparatuses allow us to collect samples of functional data, mainly curves but also images. On the other hand, nonparametric statistics produces useful tools for standard data exploration. This book links these two fields of modern statistics by explaining how functional data can be studied through parameter-free statistical ideas. This book starts from theoretical foundations including functional nonparametric modeling, description of the mathematical framework, construction of the statistical methods, and statements of their asymptotic behaviors. It proceeds to computational issues including R and S-PLUS routines. Several functional datasets in chemometrics, econometrics, and pattern recognition are used to emphasize the wide scope of nonparametric functional data analysis in applied sciences. The companion Web site includes R and S-PLUS routines, command lines for reproducing examples presented in the book, and the functional datasets.

Rather than set application against theory, this book is really an interface of these two features of statistics. A special effort has been made in writing this book to accommodate several levels of reading. The computational aspects are oriented toward practitioners whereas open problems emerging from this new field of statistics will attract Ph.D. students and academic researchers. Finally, this book is also accessible to graduate students starting in the area of functional statistics.

An increasing number of statistical problems and methods involve infinite-dimensional aspects. This is due to the progress of technologies which allow us to store more and more information while modern instruments are able to collect data much more effectively due to their increasingly sophisticated design. This evolution directly concerns statisticians, who have to propose new methodologies while taking into account such high-dimensional data (e.g. continuous processes, functional data, etc.). The numerous applications (micro-arrays, paleo- ecological data, radar waveforms, spectrometric curves, speech recognition, continuous time series, 3-D images, etc.) in various fields (biology, econometrics, environmetrics, the food industry, medical sciences, paper industry, etc.) make researching this statistical topic very worthwhile. This book gathers important contributions on the functional and operatorial statistics fields.

New technologies allow us to handle increasingly large datasets, while monitoring devices are becoming ever more sophisticated. This high-tech progress produces statistical units sampled over finer and finer grids. As the measurement points become closer, the data can be considered as observations varying over a continuum. This intrinsic continuous data (called functional data) can be found in various fields of science, including biomechanics, chemometrics, econometrics, environmetrics, geophysics, medicine, etc. The failure of standard multivariate statistics to analyze such functional data has led the statistical community to develop appropriate statistical methodologies, called Functional Data Analysis (FDA). Today, FDA is certainly one of the most motivating and popular statistical topics due to its impact on crucial societal issues (health, environment, etc). This is why the FDA statistical community is rapidly growing, as are the statistical developments . Therefore, it is necessary to organize regular meetings in order to provide a state-of-art review of the recent advances in this fascinating area. This book collects selected and extended papers presented at  the second International Workshop of Functional and Operatorial Statistics (Santander, Spain, 16-18 June, 2011), in which many outstanding experts on FDA will present the most relevant advances in this pioneering statistical area. Undoubtedly, these proceedings will be an essential resource for academic researchers, master students, engineers, and practitioners not only in statistics but also in numerous related fields of application.