Significant new challenges to the use of likelihood-based methods for inference have helped to generate considerable interest in alternative inference methods that are not based on a full likelihood specification. This book provides a comprehensive survey of likelihood methods in statistics, with an emphasis on developments to inference functions for use in complex data. These inference functions are usually motivated by considerations related to likelihood-type arguments and have a variety of names, including composite likelihood, quasi-likelihood and pseudo-likelihood.


Why study the theory of experiment design? Although it can be useful to know about special designs for specific purposes, experience suggests that a particular design can rarely be used directly. It needs adaptation to accommodate the circumstances of the experiment. Successful designs depend upon adapting general theoretical principles to the spec