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1180 Book Reviews highlymathematicalandwouldnotbeeasyreadingfor someone without a good grounding and under-standing of statistical theory. Although I think thatthe authors have achieved their aim of providing a‘complete,comprehensive,andupdatedreferenceand textbook in the area’primarily for the statistics student, it would havebeen good if the theory had been better supportedbydiscussionofcontextandapplication.Forexam-ple, I am not convinced of the rationale for adap-tive hypotheses or whether it is reasonable ever tolet data that are collected early in the trial alter the‘clinically meaningful difference’. These aspects areskirted over and although the equations that areapplied are valid for the purpose I would have likedtobemoreconvincedofthevalidityofthatpurpose.The final chapter offers a useful overview of pointsto note when designing an adaptive trial and alsosomecase-studiesofthemethodsthatareexplainedin earlier chapters. It is worth alerting the readerto the existence of these examples to refer to whilereading the preceding chapters as they may assistunderstanding.Non-mathematical users will require support inunderstanding the formulae and their interpreta-tions presented as there are important omissionswhichsupposethatthereaderhasamorethanbasiclevel of knowledge. For example, terms like ‘eigen-value’areintroducedwithoutexplanationandthenused to compare randomization methods withoutexplanation of how they should be interpreted inthis context. The book should not be read in isola-tion as it is desirable that any users of these meth-ods have a greater understanding of the ethical andpracticalissuesthanarepresented.Insummary,thisbook is worth reading for someone with a statisti-cal background who wants a general overview of current statistical methodologies.Angela WadeUniversity College London Statistique Théorique et Appliquée , vol. IIP. D agnelie , 2006Brussels, De Boeck and Larcier734 pp., 39ISBN 978-2-804-15229-1This book by Professor Dagnelie (a former Pres-ident and Honorary Life Member of the Interna-tionalBiometricSocietyandanHonoraryFellowof the Royal Statistical Society) is a revamped editionofhisearlier1998book,withconsiderableadditionsof new material.Whereas the first volume of this series is mainlydedicated to undergraduates of French-speakinguniversities, this second updated volume aimsmostly at advanced undergraduates and beginninggraduates and lecturers.ProfessorDagnelie’sbookalsohastheadvantagethat it can be used as a classical reference guide inmajor research centres, particularly those dealingwith the biological and agricultural sciences.One important feature of this book is that thetextisclearandaccessibleforbeginnersandwould-be specialists alike. It provides numerous workedexamplesandexercises,allofwhichhelptobuildthenecessary statistical skills that are necessary for thetraining of a good statistician. Answers to the exer-cisesthataresetareprovidedattheendofthebook.Another feature of the book is its bibliography,which contains more than 900 entries covering 46pages. Various errors which appeared in the previ-ous 1998 edition have also been corrected.Reviewing an earlier edition in the Journal of theRoyal Statistical Society , Series A, Professor D. J.Finney had this to say:‘The book appears to be very well designed,either as a text for a formal course, or for refer-ence,itwillgiveagoodappreciationofstatisticalmethodology’.The only thing which we might regret about Pro-fessor Dagnelie’s book is that it is written for aFrench-speaking audience. I firmly believe that theEnglish version of such a statistical reference guide(bysomeonewhohastaughtstatisticsformorethan35 years) should be widely acclaimed.Naguib LallmahomedMauritius Statistical Analysis of Medical Data using SAS G. D er and B. S. E veritt , 2006Boca Raton, Chapman and Hall428 pp., £39.99ISBN 1-584-88469-XThis is a book that I wish that I had had 15 yearsago when I first started using SAS, but I am stillglad to have it now. It starts with a basic introduc-tion to the SAS user interface and introduces thebasicsofSASprogramming,readinginandmanip-ulatingdatasetsandwritingbasicmacros,andthenmoves on to basic graphs and the output deliverysystem. It covers the topics that you would expectto see in any basic medical statistics text-book suchasbasicinferenceandregression,butitalsoincludestopicssuchasgeneralizedadditivemodels,general-izedestimatingequationsandsurvivalanalysiswithtimevaryingcovariates.Thetextiswelllaidoutandeasytoread,withnumerouspracticalexamplesthat
