Professor Ratan Dasgupta is a senior professor of Statistics at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. His research interests include nonparametric statistics, rates of convergence in central limit theorem, application of statistics to industrial quality control, sociology, education, agriculture, biology, physics and other natural sciences. He has been at the forefront of promoting the theory and applications of growth curve modeling, and his knowledge, expertise and extensive publication record on the topic, together with his outstanding theoretical skills make him uniquely qualified to edit this volume.