Parameter Estimation and Inverse Problems

This text was one of two books used for a graduate-level class iI attended for students of geophysics. The second textbook was Tarantola's.Positive: The writing is very readable and the book is well organized. Prerequisite knowledge in statistics, linear algebra and vector calculus is summarised in appendices, which include exercises. The exercises throughout the book are well aligned with the difficulty level. Compared to Tarantola, the Aster et al. book is certainly more accessible for the novice, except for those with a background in pure mathematics. In addition to the exposition and exercises, the book also contains worked examples including, and this is a great plus, Matlab code that can be downloaded and run to follow along. The code is well written and comes with utility libraries that can then be used to work examples or even apply to research problems.Neutral: The organisation of the material is very classical, starting with linear problems and treating non-linear problems. Some may prefer it this way. It happens that the class I attended used Aster et al. to cover the background material (ie, the appendices), then proceeded to general inverse problems through iterative methods using Tarantola, and finally returned to Aster to treat the linear case more in-depth. If I had to teach this class, I would probably do something similar and work through general, potentially non-linear problems before linear problems. The language and examples of Aster et al. are geared towards the seismologist or other solid-earth geophysicist, though there are some that allude to tomography.Negative: The only potentially questionable choice is the total reliance on Matlab. I appreciate that this commercial software is widespread at least in US institutions, but the heavy use of custom-written Matlab code does reduce the usefulness of this book for those who don't have access to this programming environment.I would give this text 4.5 points if I could. The 4-point score doesn't mean I'm not highly recommending it.

This book strikes a good balance between applications and mathematical rigor. Useful for practitioners of numerical inversion as a reference and a gateway to the original mathematical works.

This book was required for my Inverse Theory class taught by Cliff Thurber, the 3rd author. Normally I don't like using the texts a professor has been a part of writing, but this text is very well written. It is easy to understand and gives many examples, which are nice when trying to do homework. The appendices also give a good background in information you will need to know for the class, which is much nicer than most texts that have no such information. Would suggest to anyone interested in parameter estimation.

The book arrived within the estimated delivery time and in excellent condition. Good introductory reference for the inverse problems theory and techniques. I recommend it.

I've spent the last year trying to teach myself inverse theory and wish I would have had this book from the beginning. Great explanations, logical progression of topics, good examples and sample MATLAB code. It has in my opinion the right amount of mathematical rigor for engineers and will get you going solving your own problems.

This is a comprehensive guide to understand the basic approaches to the inverse problems. As it addresses the Bayesian approaches as well toward the end of the text, one who is interested in parameter estimation should benefit from this book for further development and application of mathematical tools to deal with real life data from measurements or experiments.

I saw the first edition of this book about seven years ago and I found out it discussed many of the basic topics in inverse problems in a relatively easy language. I considered this book as the main reference text for inverse modeling course. It reiterates issues on existence, uniqueness and stability of the solutions and the ways to gain idea about them in specific problems. There is a minor poor side with this book, that it is not very well proof read in a few chapters and there are some errors and typos in the text. But overall I like this book as a starting text for gaining a good general idea on the topic.