Practical Curve Fitting And Data Analysis

This guide focuses on how to make graphs and abstract physical information from data using a personal computer. This tutorial program/book package covers the elements of curve fitting and statistical treatment of data and numerical analysis. Taking a step-by-step approach, the book, the program, and the accompanying data files are designed to demonstrate common errors and pitfalls. It contains examples from analytical chemistry, chemical engineering and biochemistry. For those engineers and/or scientists who want to easily make graphs and plot physical information from data with a microcomputer.

Most biologists use nonlinear regression more than any other statistical technique, but there are very few places to learn about curve-fitting. This book, by the author of the very successful Intuitive Biostatistics, addresses this relatively focused need of an extraordinarily broad range of scientists.

Practical Handbook of Curve Fitting is a reference work assembled by Arlinghaus and a set of editors with well over a century of combined experience in various disciplines and activities related to curve fitting. The book demonstrates how to analyze World data bases and graph and map the results. Default settings in software packages can produce attractive graphs of data imported into the software. Often, however, the default graph has no equation associated with it and cannot therefore be used as a tool for further analysis or projection of the data. The same software can often be used to generate curves from equations. The reader is shown directly, and in a series of steps, how to fit curves to data using Lotus 1-2-3. There are traditional unbounded curve fitting techniques-lines of least squares, exponentials, logistic curves, and Gompertz curves. There is the bounded curve fitting technique of cubic spline interpolation. Beyond these, there is a detailed application of Feigenbaum's graphical analysis from chaos theory, and there is a hint as to how fractal geometry might come into play. Curve fitting algorithms take on new life when they are actually used on real-world data. They are used in numerous worked examples drawn from electronic data bases of public domain information from the Stars data base of The World Bank and from the WRD data base of the World Resources Institute. The applications are current and reflect a state-of-the-art interest in the human dimensions of global change.

Though Japan has successfully competed with U.S. companies in the manufacturing and marketing of computer hardware, it has been less successful in developing computer programs. This book contains the first detailed analysis of how Japanese firms have tried to redress this imbalance by applying their skills in engineering and production management to software development. Cusumano focuses on the creation of "software factories" in which large numbers of people are engaged in developing software in cooperative ways---i.e. individual programs are not developed in isolation but rather utilize portions of other programs already developed whenever possible, and then yield usable portions for other programs being written. Devoting chapters to working methods at System Developing Corp., Hitachi, Toshiba, NEC, and Fujitsu, and including a comparison of Japanese and U.S. software factories, Cusumano's book will be important reading for all people involved in software and computer technology, as well as those interested in Japanese business and corporate culture.

This practical resource presents basic probabilistic and statistical methods or tools used to extract the information from reliability data to make sound decisions. It consolidates and condenses the reliability data analysis methods most often used in everyday practice into an easy-to-follow guide, while also providing a solid foundation from which to explore more complex methods if desired. The book provides mathematical and Excel spreadsheet formulas to estimate parameters and confidence bounds (uncertainty) for the most common probability distributions used in reliability analysis. Several other Excel tools are provided to aid users without access to expensive, dedicated, commercial tools. This book and tools were developed by the authors after many years of teaching the fundamentals of reliability data analysis to a broad range of technical and non-technical military and civilian personnel, making it useful for both novice and experienced engineers.

The fitting of a curve or surface through a set of observational data is a very frequent problem in different disciplines (mathematics, engineering, medicine, ...) with many interesting applications. This book describes the algorithms and mathematical fundamentals of a widely used software package for data fitting with (tensor product) splines. As such it gives a survey of possibilities and benefits but also of the problems to cope with when approximating with this popular type of function. In particular it is demonstrated in detail how the properties of B-splines can be fully exploited for improving the computational efficiency and for incorporating different boundary or shape preserving constraints. Special attention is also paid to strategies for an automatic and adaptive knot selection with intent to obtain serious data reductions. The practical use of the smoothing software is illustrated with many examples, academic as well as taken from real life.

Containing updated and new information on advanced technology - including micro and nanoscale immunoassays - this text provides a mix of practical information coupled with a review of clincal applications and practical examples.

Presenting a detailed, hands-on approach to fluorescence spectroscopy, this book describes experiments that cover basic spectroscopy and advanced aspects of fluorescence spectroscopy. It emphasizes practical guidance, providing background on fundamental concepts as well as guidance on how to handle artifacts, avoid common errors, and interpret data. Nearly 150 experiments from biophysics, biochemistry, and the biomedical sciences demonstrate how methods are applied in practical applications. The result is a hands-on guide to the most important aspects of fluorescence spectroscopy, from steady-state fluorescence to advanced time-resolved fluorescence. Provides a complete overview of nearly 150 experiments using fluorescence spectroscopy, from basic to advanced applications Presents laboratory methods using a variety of instrumental setups with detailed discussion of data analysis and interpretations Covers steady-state phenomena, time-resolved phenomena, and advanced methods Spans biophysical, biochemical, and biomedical applications Describes related concepts, theory, and mathematical background as well as commercially available instruments used for measurements