It is primarily a research document on the application of probability theory to the parameter estimation problem. The people who will be interested in this material are physicists, economists, and engineers who have to deal with data on a daily basis; consequently, we have included a great deal of introductory and tutorial material. Anyperson with the equivalent of the mathematics background required for the graduate-level study of physics should be able to follow the material contained in this book, though not without effort. (From author's preface)"