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EWENS, W. J. and GRANT, G. R. Statistical Methods in Bioinformatics: An Introduction. Springer, New York, 2001. xix + 476 pp. 59.50/$79.95. ISBN 0-387-95229-2.
This book is aimed both at biologists and computer scientists who want to learn about statistical methods in bioinformatics, and at statisticians who want to become involved in bioinformatics. The first author, who is Professor of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, is very well known for his work and books on population genetics. His co-author is a bioinformatics researcher, also at the University of Pennsylvania.
Readers will need to have taken introductory courses in calculus and linear algebra (some key results are summarised in an appendix), but probability and statistics are covered from scratch. Thus the book consists of fairly standard material on probability, stochastic processes and statistical inference, interspersed with chapters in which the theory is applied to specific problems in bioinformatics.
Probability theory is discussed in two chapters, one on single random variables and one on several random variables. Stochastic processes are covered in three chapters, one on the Poisson process with an introduction to Markov chains, one on random walks, and one covering more advanced material on Markov chains. Statistical inference is discussed from both a classical and a Bayesian perspective in an early chapter. A subsequent chapter discusses classical estimation...