In 1978 Edwin T. Jaynes and Myron Tribus initiated a series of workshops to exchange ideas and recent developments in technical aspects and applications of Bayesian probability theory. The first workshop was held at the University of Wyoming in 1981 organized by C.R. Smith and W.T. Grandy. Due to its success, the workshop was held annually during the last 18 years. Over the years, the emphasis of the workshop shifted gradually from fundamental concepts of Bayesian probability theory to increasingly realistic and challenging applications. The 18th international workshop on Maximum Entropy and Bayesian Methods was held in Garching / Munich (Germany) (27-31. July 1998). Opening lectures by G. Larry Bretthorst and by Myron Tribus were dedicated to one of th the pioneers of Bayesian probability theory who died on the 30 of April 1998: Edwin Thompson Jaynes. Jaynes revealed and advocated the correct meaning of 'probability' as the state of knowledge rather than a physical property. This inter­ pretation allowed him to unravel longstanding mysteries and paradoxes. Bayesian probability theory, "the logic of science" - as E.T. Jaynes called it - provides the framework to make the best possible scientific inference given all available exper­ imental and theoretical information. We gratefully acknowledge the efforts of Tribus and Bretthorst in commemorating the outstanding contributions of E.T. Jaynes to the development of probability theory.

Inhalt

Preface. Edwin Thompson Jaynes; G.L. Bretthorst. A Tribute to Edwin T. Jaynes; M. Tribus. The Near-Irrelevance of Sampling Frequency Distributions; G.L. Bretthorst. Outlier Tolerant Parameter Estimation; V. Dose, W. von der Linden. Universality, Prior Information and Maximum Entropy in Foams; N. Rivier, et al. Texture Reconstruction in Noisy Images; M. Walessa, M. Datcu. Bayesian 3D X-Ray Reconstruction from Incomplete Noisy Data; V. Vengrinovic, et al. A Bayesian Reflection on Surfaces; D.R. Wolf. Quantum Entropy Regularization; R.N. Silver. Bayesian Reconstruction of Electron Energy Distributions from Emission Line Intensities; R. Fischer, et al. Depth Profile Reconstruction from Rutherford Backscattering Data; U. v. Toussaint, et al. Bayesian Image Segmentation Using a Dynamic Pyramidal Structure; H. Rehrauer, et al. Adaptive Image Reconstruction with Predictive Models; V.M. Artemiev, et al. Are we Cruising a Hypothesis Space? C.C. Rodriguez. Fiducial Inference; D. Salomé. Posterior Moments of the Cauchy Distribution; D.R. Wolf. Bayesian Reasoning Versus Conventional Statistics in High Energy Physics; G. D'Agostini. Model Comparison in Plasma Energy Confinement Scaling; R. Preuss, et al. Straight Lines; D. Kester. Bayesian Analysis with Application to the Timing Residuals of a Pulsar; G. Zalamansky, C.P. Robert. Bayesian Labeling of Remote Sensing Image Content; M. Schröder, et al. Some Recent Developments in Bayesian Statistics and Econometrics; A. Zellner. Blind Source Separation and Electromagnetic Source Estimation; K.H. Knuth, H.G. Vaughan, jr. A Maximum Entropy Approach for Estimating Nonlinear Dynamic Models; A. Golan. Probability and Entropy in Quantum Theory; A. Caticha. Unreal Probabilities: PartialTruth with Clifford Numbers; C.C. Rodriguez. Yet Another Derivation of the Principle of Maximum Entropy; A.J.M. Garrett. Efficient Estimation of Missing Information in Multivalued Singly Connected Networks Using Maximum Entropy; D. Holmes. Overview and Bayesian Perspective of Phase Unwrapping; G. Nico, et al. Operation of the Bayes Inference Engine; K.M. Hanson, G.S. Cunningham. The Prior-Predictive Value; W. von der Linden, et al. An Unsupervised Clustering Method by Entropy Minimization; G. Palubinskas. Applications of the Maximum Entropy Method in Crystallography; M. Schneider, S. van Smaalen. Trace Metal Detection in Natural Water; A. Taglauer, et al. Oscillator Stability Analysis Using a Bayesian Approach; G. Zalamansky, F. Vernotte. Index. List of Participants.