the Academic NEST

Many areas of mining engineering gather and use statistical information, provided by observing the actual operation of equipment, their systems, the development of mining works, surface subsidence that accompanies underground mining, displacement of rocks surrounding surface pits and underground drives and longwalls, amongst others. In addition, the actual modern machines used in surface mining are equipped with diagnostic systems that automatically trace all important machine parameters and send this information to the main producer’s computer. Such data not only provide information on the technical properties of the machine but they also have a statistical character. Furthermore, all information gathered during stand and lab investigations where parts, assemblies and whole devices are tested in order to prove their usefulness, have a stochastic character. All of these materials need to be developed statistically and, more importantly, based on these results mining engineers must make decisions whether to undertake actions, connected with the further operation of the machines, the further development of the works, etc. For these reasons, knowledge of modern statistics is necessary for mining engineers; not only as to how statistical analysis of data should be conducted and statistical synthesis should be done, but also as to understanding the results obtained and how to use them to make appropriate decisions in relation to the mining operation.

This book on statistical analysis and synthesis starts with a short repetition of probability theory and also includes a special section on statistical prediction. The text is illustrated with many examples taken from mining practice; moreover the tables required to conduct statistical inference are included.

This is the first book to show the capabilities of Microsoft Excel to teach engineering statistics effectively.  It is a step-by-step exercise-driven guide for students and practitioners who need to master Excel to solve practical engineering problems.  If understanding statistics isn’t your strongest suit, you are not especially mathematically-inclined, or if you are wary of computers, this is the right book for you. Excel, a widely available computer program for students and managers, is also an effective teaching and learning tool for quantitative analyses in engineering courses.  Its powerful computational ability and graphical functions make learning statistics much easier than in years past.  However, Excel 2013 for Engineering Statistics: A Guide to Solving Practical Problems is the first book to capitalize on these improvements by teaching students and managers how to apply Excel to statistical techniques necessary in their courses and work. Each chapter explains statistical formulas and directs the reader to use Excel commands to solve specific, easy-to-understand engineering problems.  Practice problems are provided at the end of each chapter with their solutions in an Appendix.  Separately, there is a full Practice Test (with answers in an Appendix) that allows readers to test what they have learned.

Katta G. Murty ... 502 pages - Publisher: Springer; 2010 edition (March 14, 2010)
Language: English - ASIN: B008BA5X7Q 

Linear programming (LP), modeling, and optimization are very much the fundamentals of OR, and no academic program is complete without them. No matter how highly developed one’s LP skills are, however, if a fine appreciation for modeling isn’t developed to make the best use of those skills, then the truly ‘best solutions’ are often not realized, and efforts go wasted.

Katta Murty studied LP with George Dantzig, the father of linear programming, and has written the graduate-level solution to that problem. While maintaining the rigorous LP instruction required, Murty's new book is unique in his focus on developing modeling skills to support valid decision making for complex real world problems. He describes the approach as 'intelligent modeling and decision making' to emphasize the importance of employing the best expression of actual problems and then applying the most computationally effective and efficient solution technique for that model.

From Back Cover: Optimization for Decision Making: Linear and Quadratic Models is a first-year graduate level text that illustrates how to formulate real world problems using linear and quadratic models; how to use efficient algorithms – both old and new – for solving these models; and how to draw useful conclusions and derive useful planning information from the output of these algorithms. While almost all the best known books on LP are essentially mathematics books with only very simple modeling examples, this book emphasizes the intelligent modeling of real world problems, and the author presents several illustrative examples and includes many exercises from a variety of application areas.

Additionally, where other books on LP only discuss the simplex method, and perhaps existing interior point methods, this book also discusses a new method based on using the sphere which uses matrix inversion operations sparingly and may be well suited to solving large-scale LPs, as well as those that may not have the property of being very sparse. Individual chapters present a brief history of mathematical modeling; methods for formulating real world problems; three case studies that illustrate the need for intelligent modeling; classical theory of polyhedral geometry that plays an important part in the study of LP; duality theory, optimality conditions for LP, and marginal analysis; variants of the revised simplex method; interior point methods; sphere methods; and extensions of sphere method to convex and nonconvex quadratic programs and to 0-1 integer programs through quadratic formulations. End of chapter exercises are provided throughout, with additional exercises available online.