It will demonstrate the relevance of these techniques to many branches of science, technology and medicine and introduce students to the directions in which current research in this area is progressing.
Many natural phenomena involve a random distribution of points in space.
Biologists who observe the locations of cells of a certain type in an organ, astronomers who plot the positions of the stars, botanists who record the positions of plants of a certain species and geologists detecting the distribution of a rare mineral in rock are all observing spatial point patterns in two or three dimensions. Such phenomena can be modelled by spatial point processes. The first half of the unit will deal with the development of processes which can realistically model the random mechanisms underlying the complex systems described above, whilst the second half will deal with methods of statistical inference for such processes. Teaching Methods Thirty Lectures supplemented by some revision classes at the end of the unit. Detailed solution sheets will be released approximately two weeks after the problem sheets.