1. Why Multivariate Statistics?.- 2. Joint Distribution of Several Random Variables.- 3. The Multivariate Normal Distribution.- 4. Parameter Estimation.- 5. Discrimination and Classification, Round 1.- 6. Statistical Inference for Means.- 7. Discrimination and Classification, Round 2.- 8. Linear Principal Component Analysis.- 9. Normal Mixtures.- Appendix: Selected Results From Matrix Algebra.- A.0. Preliminaries.- A.1. Partitioned Matrices.- A.2. Positive Definite Matrices.- A.3. The Cholesky Decomposition.- A.4. Vector and Matrix Differentiation.- A.5. Eigenvectors and Eigenvalues.- A.6. Spectral Decomposition of Symmetric Matrices.- A.7. The Square Root of a Positive Definite Symmetric Matrix.- A.8. Orthogonal Projections on Lines and Planes.- A.9. Simultaneous Decomposition of Two Symmetric Matrices.

A comprehensive and self-contained introduction to the field, carefully balancing mathematical theory and practical applications. It starts at an elementary level, developing concepts of multivariate distributions from first principles. After a chapter on the multivariate normal distribution reviewing the classical parametric theory, methods of estimation are explored using the plug-in principles as well as maximum likelihood. Two chapters on discrimination and classification, including logistic regression, form the core of the book, followed by methods of testing hypotheses developed from heuristic principles, likelihood ratio tests and permutation tests. Finally, the powerful self-consistency principle is used to introduce principal components as a method of approximation, rounded off by a chapter on finite mixture analysis.