Data measured as angles or two-dimensional orientations are found almost everywhere in science. They commonly arise in biology, geography, geophysics, medicine, meteorology and oceanography, and many other areas. Examples of such data include departure directions of birds from release points, fracture plane orientations, the directional movement of animals after stimulation, wind and ocean current directions, and biorhythms. Statistical methods for handling such data have developed rapidly in the last twenty years, particularly data display, correlation, regression and analysis of tempered or spatially structured data. Further, some of the exciting modern developments in general statistical methodology, particularly nonparametric smoothing methods and bootstrap-based methods, have contributed significantly to relatively intractable data analysis problems. This book provides a unified and up-to-date account of techniques for handling circular data.
