Statistical Inference for Spatial Processes

This book is designed for specialists needing an introduction to statistical inference in spatial statistics and its applications. One of the author's themes is to show how these techniques give new insights into classical procedures (including new examples in likelihood theory) and newer statistical paradigms such as Monte-Carlo inference and pseudo-likelihood. Professor Ripley also stresses the importance of edge effects and of the lack of a unique asymptotic setting in spatial problems. Throughout, he discusses the foundational issues posed and the difficulties, both computational and philosophical, which arise. The final chapters consider image restoration and segmentation methods and the averaging and summarizing of images.