N. Balakrishnan

First derived within the context of life-testing, inverse Gaussian distribution has become one of the most important and widely employed distributions, and is often used to model the lifetimes of components. It is also used as a model in many varied applications, including fatigue analysis, economic prediction analysis, and the analysis of extreme events such as rainfall and flood levels. The interesting features and properties of this distribution make it an important and realistic model in a variety of problems across numerous disciplines. Because of the broad range of applications, this handbook will be useful not only to members of the statistical community but will also appeal to applied scientists, engineers, econometricians, and anyone who desires a thorough evaluation of this important topic.

This unique volume presents chapters written on the areas of life-testing and reliability by many well-known researchers who have contributed significantly to these two areas over the years. Chapters cover a wide range of topics such as inference under censoring and truncation, reliability growth models, designs to improve quality, prediction techniques, Bayesian analysis of reliability, multivariate methods, accelerated testing, and more. The book is written in an easy-to-follow style, first presenting the necessary theoretical details and then illustrating the methods with a numerical examples wherever possible. Many tables and graphs that are essential for the use of some of the new methodologies are presented throughout the volume. Numerous examples provide the reader with a clear understanding of the methods presented as well as with insight into the applications of these results.

This book highlights various theoretical developments on logistic distribution, illustrates the practical utility of these results, and describes univariate and multivariate generalizations of the distribution. It is useful for researchers, practicing statisticians, and graduate students.