Spline curves, originally developed by numerical analysts for interpolation, are widely used in statistical work, mainly as regression splines and smoothing splines. Barycentric rational interpolants have recently been developed by numerical analysts, but have yet seen very few statistical...

In this comprehensive Handbook, John Goddard and Peter Sloane present a collection of analytical contributions by internationally regarded scholars in the field, which extensively examine the many economic challenges facing the world's most popular team sport.

Data from 20 sporting contests in which the same two teams compete regularly are studied. Strong and weak symmetry requirements for possible models are identified, and some simple models are proposed and fitted to the data. The need to compute the exact likelihood function and the presence of...

A model of breast cancer screening was developed, in which the processes of tumour origination and growth, detection of tumours at screening, presentation of women with cancers to their GP, and of survival after diagnosis were modelled parametrically. The model was fitted to data from the...

A new system of multivariate distributions with fixed marginal distributions is introduced via the consideration of random variates that are randomly chosen pairs of order statistics of the marginal distributions. The distributions allow arbitrary positive or negative Pearson correlations...

Tests of space-time clustering such as the Knox test are used by epidemiologists in the preliminary analysis of datasets where an infectious aetiology is suspected. The Knox test statistic is the number of cases close in both space and time to another case. The test statistic proposed here is...

In February, 2005 the Spanish National Lottery Agency (LAE) made several modifications to the design of one of its lotto games. The entry fee was not changed but the familiar 6/49 format was replaced by 5/54 + 1/10. This considerably lengthened the odds against winning a share of the grand...

From the Olympics to the World Cup, mega sporting events are a source of enjoyment for tens of thousands of people, but can also be a source of intense debate and controversy. This insightful Handbook addresses a number of central questions, including: How are host cities selected and under what...