Choice Review
Otto describes his book as a text on chemometrics derived from his lectures to undergraduate and graduate students, presumably of chemistry. He also suggests that the book would be suitable for individual study by various professionals as well. The book is an English translation from the German. As such, there are some awkward sentences and phrases and typographical errors/misspellings. The book is very concise and covers a great deal of ground in a short amount of space. It is definitely not a comprehensive primer on chemometrics, statistics, analysis, or knowledge processing. Otto recognizes that many chemists are not well grounded in statistical methods; thus, he provides a quick primer on descriptive and inferential statistics. separate chapters cover a number of popular methods of chemometrics, including experimental design, signal processing, pattern recognition, data banks, and knowledge processing. He finishes with a chapter on quality assurance and good lab practice. Reader understanding is aided by a set of learning objectives and questions/problems. A valuable overview of chemometrics, but definitely not for neophytes. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals. J. A. Siegel; Michigan State University