Collected Works of Dr. Stephen A. Book

BookStephen
Dr. Stephen A. Book
(1941-2012)

Welcome to the virtual library of the collected works of Dr. Stephen A. Book (1941-2012), a renowned member of our community whose major contributions to cost and cost risk analysis are preserved for others in this site.

After graduating from Georgetown University, Steve went on to Cornell and then to the University of Oregon where he earned his Ph.D. in mathematics, with a concentration in probability and statistics. He was one of the most sought after experts in cost analysis in the world. Whether he was supporting US Defense programs, the European Space Agency, or NASA Steve had the deep respect and high regard from all across the professional community.

Following a long and highly distinguished career at The Aerospace Corporation, and later as Chief Technical Officer at MCR, Steve was the 2005 recipient of ISPA’s Freiman Award for Lifetime Achievement and SCEA’s 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award. His contributions to the intellectual capital of the cost and mathematical communities have been immense, with 3 books and over 70 papers to his credit. His papers on cost risk and statistical regression techniques, and his special studies on satellites and launch vehicles, have been among his most influential.

Throughout his career, Steve served on many national panels. These included being a technical advisor to the National Space Council’s America’s Space Exploration Initiative (“Stafford Committee”, 1990-1991). Participating on the Cost Assessment and Validation Task Force on the International Space Station (“Chabrow Committee”, 1997-1998) and serving on the National Research Council Committee on Space Shuttle Upgrades (1998-1999). His contributions to these panels led to personal testimony before the Subcommittee of Space and Aeronautics of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science.

Although Steve was a giant in the field, he was as warm a person as you will ever meet. He had not a trace of pomp or pretense. Steve was known for his individualistic style and innovation. As an editor and peer reviewer, his critiques of others works were done in a manner that was dispassionate, easygoing, and invariably laced with good humor. A colleague once remarked, “The best thing to say about Steve was that he was a real mensch, which is Yiddish for a good soul who does the right thing by and for people.

A few weeks before he unexpectedly passed away, Steve agreed to co-author a second edition of the book “Probability Methods for Cost Uncertainty Analysis – first published in 2000. After discussions with Steve’s family, it was decided to go forward with a memorial second edition – in honor of Steve’s contributions to the literature. The second edition is now available and the collected works below are the basis for the edition’s new content.

Apart from spending time with his family, working on research was Steve’s favorite and consuming activity. His mind was always engaged in solving the next problem, debunking the latest myth, and saving taxpayers from inefficiencies in the next program. The availability of Steve’s major papers will continue the conversation and elicit new results and progress in cost and cost risk analysis. It was a subject that challenged him, extended him, and brought out the best of his far-ranging intelligence. Steve was personally very proud and honored to be associated with all his colleagues in the systems cost analysis community. It is our sincere hope the professional legacy he leaves will be as inspiring to you as it was to those who knew him.

“It’s not what you don’t know that hurts you – it’s what you DO know that isn’t true.”
– Dr. Stephen A. Book (1995)

 

Collected Works of Dr. Stephen A. Book

The following lists the major technical works of Dr. Stephen A. Book that advanced cost and cost risk analysis theory and practice. They are organized by those formally published in professional journals and those presented as briefings to various conferences and technical gatherings.

Where permissions have been received, links to these works are provided where they can be downloaded for personal study. For works where links are not provided, it is necessary to contact the publisher to obtain the paper or briefing of interest. The maintainers of this site are continuing to seek permissions to make works without links available for downloading. Check back from time to time for updates.

Use the links below to navigate between sections:

Books

Cost Analysis Journal Publications

Probability and Statistics Journal Publications

Cost Analysis Conference Presentations and Proceedings

 

Books

Garvey, P. R., Book, S. A., Covert, R. P. (2015). Probability Methods for Cost Uncertainty Analysis: A Systems Engineering Perspective, Second Edition, Chapman & Hall/CRC-Press

Purchase Probability Methods for Cost Uncertainty Analysis: A Systems Engineering Perspective, Second Edition online today!
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Book, S. A. (1995). Essentials of Statistics. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

Book, S. A., & Epstein, M. J. (1982). Statistical Analysis: Resolving Decision Problems in Business and Management. Glennview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Co.

Book, S. A. (1977). Statistics: Basic Techniques for Solving Applied Problems. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

https://www.amazon.com/Stephen-A.-Book

 

Cost Analysis Journal Publications

Where links are not provided, contact the editors or publishers associated with the identified journal to inquire about the availability of these works.

  1. Book, S., Broder, M. & Feldman, D. (2011). Statistical Foundations of Adaptive Cost-Estimating Relationships. Journal of Cost Analysis and Parametrics. 4(1), 63-90. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1941658X.2011.585333#abstract
  2. Book, S. (2010). Cost Risk as a Discriminator in Trade Studies. Journal of Cost Analysis and Parametrics. 3(2), 45-59. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1941658X.2010.10462234#abstract
  3. Book, S. (2007). Quantifying the Relationship between Schedule and Cost. The Measurable News, Winter 2007-2008, pages 11-15.
  4. Book, S. & Young, P. (2006). The Trouble with with R-Squared. Journal of Parametrics, 25(1), 87–114.
    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10157891.2006.10462273#abstract
  5. Book, S. (2006b). Unbiased Percentage-Error CERs with Smaller Standard Errors. The Journal of Cost Analysis & Management, 8(1), 55–71. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15411656.2006.10462256#.VTUavt50ySI
  6. Book, S. (2006).  The Mathematics of Deriving Factor CERs from Cost Data. Parametric World, 2006, 16-22.
  7. Book, S. (2006). ‘Earned Schedule’ and Its Possible Unreliability as an Indicator. The Measurable News, Project Management Institute College of Performance Management, Spring 2006, 24-30. (Correction Note: Fall 2006, pages 22-24).
  8. Book, S. (2003). Issues Associated with Basing Decisions on Schedule Variance in an Earned-Value Management System. National Estimator, Society of Cost Estimating and Analysis, Fall 2003, 11-15.
  9. Book, S. (1999). Problems of Correlation in the Probabilistic Approach to Cost Analysis. Proceedings of the Fifth Annual U.S. Army Conference on Applied Statistics, 19-21 October 1999, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Report No. ARL-SR-110, July 2001, 77-86. https://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA393461
  10. Book, S. & Lao, N. (1999, November). Minimum-Percentage-Error Regression under Zero-Bias Constraints. In Proceedings of the Fourth Annual U.S. Army Conference on Applied Statistics, 21–23 October 1998, U.S. Army Research Laboratory Report No. ARL-SR-84 (pp. 47–56).https://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA371791
  11. Book, S., & Young, P. (1997). General-Error Regression for Deriving Cost-Estimating Relationships. The Journal of Cost Analysis, 14(2), 1–28. Later presented at 33rd DODCAS, Williamsburg VA, 1-4 February 2000.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08823871.1997.10462310#preview
  12. Book, S. & Burgess, E. (1996). The Learning Rate’s Overpowering Impact on Cost Estimates and How to Diminish It. Journal of Parametrics, 16, 33-57.
    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10157891.1996.10462551#abstract

 

Probability and Statistics Journal Publications

  1. Book, S. & Chernick, M (1991). System Error Analysis Based on One-at-a-Time Perturbations. Mathematical and Computer Modelling, 15(2), 77-84. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/089571779190117P
  2. Book, S. (1983). Large Deviations and Applications. in S. Kotz and N. Johnson, Encyclopedia of Statistical Sciences, Vol. 4, 476-480. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/0471667196.ess1395.pub2/abstract
  3. Book, S. (1982). Least-Absolute-Deviations Position Finding. Naval Research Logistics Quarterly, 29, 235-246.https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/nav.3800290205/abstract
  4. Book, S., Brady, W. & Mazaika, P. (1980). The Nonuniform GPS Constellation. IEEE 1980 Position Location and Navigation Symposium Record, 1-8.
  5. Book, S. (1979). The Stochastic Geyser Problem for Sample Quantiles. Journal of Applied Probability, 16 (1979), 445-448. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3212914
  6. Book, S. (1979). Why n-1 in the formula for the Sample Standard Deviation? The Two-Year-College Mathematics Journal, 10, 330-333. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3026853
  7. Book, S.& Sher, L. (1979). How Close are the Mean and the Median? The Two-Year-College Mathematics Journal, 10, 202-204. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3026748
  8. Book, S. (1978). Probabilities of Very Large Deviations. Journal of the Australian Mathematical Society: Series A, 25, 332-347. https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S144678870002108X
  9. Book, S. & Shore, T. (1978). On Large Intervals in the Csörgö-Révész Theorem on Increments of a Wiener Process. Zeitschrift fur Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie und verwandte Gebiete, 46, 1-11. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00535684
  10. Book, S. (1976). Large Deviation Probabilities and the Erdös-Rényi Law of Large Numbers. Canadian Journal of Statistics, 4, 185-210. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3315135
  11. Book, S. & Truax, D. (1976). An Erdös-Rényi Strong Law for Sample Quantiles. Journal of Applied Probability, Vol. 13, pages 578-583. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3212478
  12. Book, S. (1975). A Version of the Erdös-Rényi Law of Large Numbers for Independent Random Variables. Bulletin of the Institute of Mathematics, Academia Sinica, 3, 199-211.
  13. Book, S. (1975). A Sharpened Goodman-Kruskal Statistic and Its Symmetry Property. Decision Sciences, 6, 605-613. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-5915.1975.tb01047.x/abstract
  14. Book, S. (1975). Convergence Rates for a Class of Large Deviation Probabilities. Annals of Probability, 3, 516-525. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2959472
  15. Book, S. (1975). An Extension of the Erdös-Rényi New Law of Large Numbers. Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society, 48, 438-446. https://www.ams.org/journals/proc/1975-048-02/S0002-9939-1975-0380950-0/
  16. Book, S. (1974). Large Deviations of the Winsorized Mean of an Exponential Distribution. Naval Research Logistics Quarterly, 21, 549-556. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/nav.3800210314/abstract
  17. Book, S. (1973). A Large Deviation Theorem for Weighted Sums. Zeitschrift fur Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie und verwandte Gebiete. 26, 43-49. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00533959
  18. Book, S. (1973). The Erdös-Rényi New Law of Large Numbers for Weighted Sums. Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society, 38, 165-171. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2038791
  19. Book, S. (1972). Large Deviation Probabilities for Weighted Sums. Annals of Mathematical Statistics, 43, 1221-1234. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2239952
  20. Book, S. (1971). Large Deviation Probabilities for Order Statistics. Naval Research Logistics Quarterly, 18, 521-523. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/nav.3800180411/abstract

 

Cost Analysis Conference Presentations and Proceedings

Where links are not provided, contact the organization associated with the identified conference to inquire about the availability of these works.

  1. Book, S. (2012, June). Significant Reasons to Eschew Log-Log OLS Regression when Deriving Estimating Relationships. 2012 SCEA/ISPA Joint Annual Conference and Training Workshop, Orlando, FL.
  2. Book, S. (2010, June). Schedule Risk Analysis: Why it is Important and How to Do it. Integration Training Track, 2010 SCEA/ISPA Joint Annual Conference & Training Workshop, San Diego, CA. (Also presented to six previous SCEA-ISPA Annual Conferences).
  3. Book, S. (2010, June). Multiplicative-Error Regression. Practitioner Training Track, 2010 SCEA/ISPA Joint Annual Conference & Training Workshop, San Diego, CA. (Also presented to six previous SCEA/ISPA Annual Conferences and the European Aerospace Working Group on Cost Engineering (EACE), Cranfield University, Milton Keynes/Bedford, UK, October 19–21, 2004).
  4. Book, S., Broder, M. & Feldman, D. (2009, June). Statistical Foundations of Adaptive Cost-Estimating Relationships. 2009 SCEA/ISPA Joint Annual Conference & Training Workshop. St Louis, MO.
  5. Book, S. (2009, April). Quantifying the Relationship between Cost and Schedule. NASA Cost Symposium, Cape Canaveral, FL, . (Also presented to 1st Annual Department of Energy Cost Analysis and Training Symposium. Santa Clara, CA, 19-20 May 2010; and 77th MORS Symposium. Fort Leavenworth, KS, 16-18 June 2009).
  6. Book, S. (2009). Combining Probabilistic Estimates to Reduce Uncertainty. Journal of Cost Analysis and Parametrics, Summer 2009, p 47-54. (Previously presented to NASA Program Management Conference. Daytona Beach, FL, 24-25 February 2009; and NASA Cost Analysis Symposium. Portland, OR, 26-28 August 2008).
  7. Book, S., Menton, N. (2009, February). Estimating Using Subsystem vs. Box-Level CERs: In-Progress Report. 42nd Department of Defense Cost Analysis Symposium (DODCAS), Williamsburg, VA.
  8. Book, S. and Broder, M. (2008, June), Adaptive Cost-Estimating Relationships. 2008 SCEA/ISPA Joint Annual Conference & Training Workshop. Industry Hills, CA.
  9. Book, S. and Coonce, T. (2008, February). Cost Estimating Initiatives at NASA. 41st DODCAS, Williamsburg, VA.
  10. Book, S. (2008, September). Cost Risk as a Discriminator in Trade Studies. Department of the Navy Cost Analysis Symposium, Quantico, VA. (Also presented to 76th MORS Symposium, New London CT, 10-12 June 2008; SCEA/ISPA Joint International Conference & Workshop, New Orleans, LA, 12-16 June 2007; and NASA Project Management Conference, Galveston TX, 7-8 February 2007.)
  11. Book, S. (2008, February). The Meaning and Use of S-Curves in Cost Estimating. NASA Project Management Conference, Daytona Beach, FL. (Also presented at NASA Cost Symposium, Denver, CO, 17-19 July 2007.)
  12. Book, S. (2006, February). Prediction Bounds for General-Error-Regression CERs. 39th Department of Defense Cost Analysis Symposium (DODCAS), Williamsburg, VA.
  13. Book, S. (2006, May). Allocating Risk Dollars Back to WBS Elements. SCEA/ISPA Joint Conference and Training Workshop. Seattle, WA. (Also presented at Department of the Navy Cost Analysis Symposium. Quantico, VA, 11 October 2007; 40th DODCAS. Williamsburg, VA, 13-16 February 2007; Joint Meeting of SSCAG/EACE/SCAF, London, UK, 19-21 September 2006; and NASA Cost Symposium, Cleveland, OH, 20-22 June 2006).
  14. Book, S. (2006, May). IRLS/MUPE CERs Are Not MPE-ZPB CERs. SCEA/ISPA Joint Conference and Training Workshop. Seattle, WA.
  15.  Book, S. (2006, June). Prediction Bounds for General-Error-Regression CERs, SCEA National Conference, Tysons Corner, VA. (Also presented to EACE, Abbey Wood, Bristol, UK, 26-27 April 2006; 39th DODCAS, Williamsburg, VA, 14-17 February 2006; 72nd MORS Symposium, Monterey, CA, 22-24 June 2004; and ISPA International Conference, Frascati, Italy, 10-12 May 2004.)
  16. Book, S. (2005, June). A Theory of Modeling Correlations for Use in Cost-Risk Analysis. 73rd MORS Symposium, West Point, NY. (Also presented to NASA Project Management Conference, Galveston TX, 21-22 March 2006; and SCEA/ISPA Joint International Conference & Educational Workshop, Broomfield, CO, 14-17 June 2005.)
  17.  Book, S. (2005, June). Risks in Costing Software vs. High Confidence in Estimates. SCEA/ISPA Joint International Conference & Educational Workshop, Broomfield, CO.
  18. Book, S. (2005, February). Universal Risk Issues in Source Selection. 38th DODCAS, Williamsburg, VA.
  19. Book, S. (2005, April). Performance of the Interquartile Range (IQR) as a Marker for the Cost Readiness Level (CRL) Quality Metric. NASA Cost Analysis Symposium, New Orleans, LA.
  20. Book, S. (2004). Multiplicative-Error Regression. European Aerospace Working Group on Cost Engineering (EACE), Cranfield University, Milton Keynes/Bedford, UK. (Also presented to 2010 ISPA/SCEA Joint Annual Conference & Training Workshop (Practitioner Training Track), San Diego, CA, 19-21 October 2004; and six previous ISPA/SCEA Annual Conferences).
  21. Book, S. (2004, June). How to Make Your Point Estimate Look Like a Cost-Risk Analysis (so It Can be Used for Decision-making). SCEA 2004 National Conference, Manhattan Beach CA. (Also presented to EACE, Immenstadt, Germany, 4-6 November 2003.)
  22. Book, S., & Burgess, E. (2003, January). A Way Out of the Learning-Rate Morass: Quantity as an Independent Variable (QAIV). 36th Annual DoD Cost Analysis Symposium (Advanced Training Track). Williamsburg, VA.
  23. Book, S. (2002, May). Issues in Specifying a Triangular Cost Distribution. ISPA International Conference, San Diego, CA.
  24. Book, S. (2001, December). Risk Assessment and Probability. European Aerospace Working Group on Cost Engineering, Noordwijk, Netherlands.
  25. Book, S. & Gayek, J. (2001, June). Effects of Inflation on Earned-Value-Based EACs. Joint ISPA/SCEA International Conference, Tysons Corner, VA.
  26. Book, S. (2001). Estimating Probable System Cost. Crosslink: The Aerospace Corporation’s magazine of advances in aerospace technology, Winter 2000/2001, pages 12-21. Also presented to EACE, Frascati, Italy, 2-4 May 2001.
  27. Book, S. (2000, June). Do Not Sum Earned-Value-Based WBS-Element Estimates-at-Completion. SCEA National Conference & Training Workshop, Manhattan Beach, CA.
  28. Book, S. (1999, November). What We Can and Cannot Learn from Earned Value. EACE, Frascati, Italy. (Also presented at SCEA National Conference, San Antonio, TX, 8-11 June 1999.)
  29. Book, S. (1999, January). Costs of Reusable Launch Vehicles: Should We Pay Up Front to Build in High Reliability or Pay Later to Buy More Vehicles? AIAA Space Technology & Applications International Forum (STAIF-99), Albuquerque, NM.
  30. Book, S. (1999, February). Why Correlation Matters in Cost Estimating. 32nd DODCAS, Williamsburg, VA.
  31. Book, S. (1998, February). Cost Risk as a Figure of Merit. 31st DODCAS, Williamsburg, VA.
  32. Book, S. (1996, February). Fictions We Live By. 29th DODCAS, Leesburg, VA.
  33. Book, S. (1994, November). Do Not Sum Most Likely Costs. NASA Cost Estimating Symposium, Houston, TX.
  34. Book, S. (1994). Do Not Sum ‘Most Likely’ Cost Estimates. 1994 NASA Cost Estimating Symposium. Houston, TX.
  35. Book, S. & Chernick, M. (1991). System Error Analysis Based on One-at-a-Time Perturbations. Mathematical and Computer Modelling [sic – U.K. Publication], Vol. 15 (1991), p. 77-84.
  36. Book, S. (1990). Deriving Cost-Estimating Relationships Using Weighted Least-Squares Regression. IAA/ISPA/AIAA Space Systems Cost Methodologies and Applications Symposium, San Diego, CA, p. 19.
  37. Book, S. , & Young, P. (1990). Optimality Considerations Related to the USCM-6 ‘Ping Factor’. Record of the ICA/NES National Conference, Los Angeles, CA, p. 40.
  38. Book, S. & Young, P. (1990, September). Monte-Carlo Generation of Total-Cost Distributions when WBS-Element Costs are Correlated. 24th DODCAS, Leesburg, VA.
  39. Book, S., Brady, W, & Mazaika, P. (1980). The Nonuniform GPS Constellation. IEEE 1980 Position Location and Navigation Symposium Record, p. 1-8.