Each chapter will consist of basic statistical theory, simple examples of S-PLUS code, more complex examples of S-PLUS code, and exercises. All data sets will be taken from genuine medical investigations and will be made available, if possible, on a web site. All examples will contain extensive graphical analysis to highlight one of the prime features of S-PLUS. The book would complement Venables and Ripley (VR). However, there is far less about the details of S-PLUS and probably less technical descriptions of techniques. The book concentrates solely on medical data sets trying to demonstrate the flexibility of S-PLUS and its huge advantages, particularly for applied medical statisticians.
From the reviews: TECHNOMETRICS "¿a well-organized, nicely conceived book that will be useful to practitioners with S-PLUS in any environment." SHORT BOOK REVIEWS "This book presents a survey of modern methods used in, but not confined to, medical statistics, each accompanied by a brief summary of the mathematical components, instruction in the basics of the S-PLUS computer language, up-to-date references, examples using sets of data from medical research, and S-PLUS code for the examples. The sets of data and S-PLUS code are available for downloading from a website referenced in the book (some but not all of the S-PLUS code runs in R, the freeware counterpart of S). ... The book will be a handy reference on my consulting shelf."