Howell Tong – författare

This book discusses dynamical systems that are typically driven by stochastic dynamic noise. It is written by two statisticians essentially for the statistically inclined readers, although readers whose primary interests are in determinate systems will find some of the methodology explained in this book of interest. The statistical approach adopted in this book differs in many ways from the deterministic approach to dynamical systems. Even the very basic notion of initial-value sensitivity requires careful development in the new setting provided. This book covers, in varying depth, many of the contributions made by the statisticians in the past twenty years or so towards our understanding of estimation, the Lyapunov-like index, the nonparametric regression, and many others, many of which are motivated by their dynamical system counterparts but have now acquired a distinct statistical flavour. Kung-Sik Chan is a professor at the University of Iowa, Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science. He is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics and Statistica Sinica.He received a Faculty Scholar Award from the University of Iowa in 1996. Howell Tong holds the Chair of Statistics at the London School of Economics and the University of Hong Kong. He is a foreign member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, an elected member of the International Statistical Institute and a Council member of its Bernoulli Society, an elected fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and an honorary fellow of the Institute of Actuaries (London). He was the Founding Dean of the Graduate School and sometimes the Acting Pro-Vice Chancellor (Research) at the University of Hong Kong.

It was none other than Henri Poincare who at the turn of the last century, recognised that initial-value sensitivity is a fundamental source of random­ ness. For statisticians working within the traditional statistical framework, the task of critically assimilating randomness generated by a purely de­ terministic system, often known as chaos, is an intellectual challenge. Like some other statisticians, we have taken up this challenge and our curiosity as reporters and participants has led us to investigate beyond the earlier discoveries in the field. Earlier statistical work in the area was mostly con­ cerned with the estimation of what is sometimes imprecisely called the fractal dimension. During the different stages of our writing, substantial portions of the book were used in lectures and seminars. These include the DMV (German Mathematical Society) Seminar Program, the inaugural session of lectures to the Crisis Points Project at the Peter Wall Institute of Advanced Stud­ ies, University of British Columbia and the graduate courses on Time Series Analysis at the University of Iowa, the University of Hong Kong, the Lon­ don School of Economics and Political Science, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. We have therefore benefitted greatly from the comments and suggestions of these audiences as well as from colleagues and friends. We are grateful to them for their contributions. Our special thanks go to Colleen Cutler, Cees Diks, Barbel FinkensHidt, Cindy Greenwood, Masakazu Shi­ mada, Floris Takens and Qiwei Yao.