In order to follow the material, the following basic concepts and definitions from Statistics and Linear Algebra have to be reviewed.

Linear systems, rank, singular matrix, non-singular matrix, tridiagonal (band) matrix, LU, and Gaussian elimination.
Read:
- Eldén, Wittmeyer-Koch, Bruun-Nielsen, Introduction to numerical computations, Studentlitteratur, 2001, (here)
- (Wikipedia source) or some other introductor text.
Basic knowledge of random variables, distribution functions, density functions, statistical distributions; basic properties of the normal distribution, moments, sample moments, least squares estimators, maximum likelihood, regression, unbiased and consistent estimators, convergence in probability. Read
- (Wikipedia source)
- or some other introductory text.
Those who want to learn R well and use it in the course, should carefully study one of the two suggested books ([1] or [2])