On May 27-31, 1985, a series of symposia was held at The University of
Western Ontario, London, Canada, to celebrate the 70th birthday of Pro-
fessor V. M. Joshi. These symposia were chosen to reflect Professor
Joshi's research interests as well as areas of expertise in statistical
science among faculty in the Departments of Statistical and Actuarial
Sciences, Economics, Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and Philosophy.
From these symposia, the six volumes which comprise the "Joshi
Festschrift" have arisen. The 117 articles in this work reflect the
broad interests and high quality of research of those who attended our
conference. We would like to thank alI of the contributors for their
superb cooperation in helping us to complete this project. Our deepest
gratitude must go to the three people who have spent so much of their
time in the past year typing these volumes: Jackie BeU, Lise Constant,
and Sandy Tamowski. This work has been printed from "camera ready" copy
produced by our Vax 785 computer and QMS Lasergraphix printers, using
the text processing software TEX. At the initiation of this project, we
were neophytes in the use of this system. Thank you, J ackie, Lise, and
Sandy, for having the persistence and dedication needed to complete this
undertaking.