Locally optimal designs for some dose–response models with continuous endpoints

We consider the problem of constructing static (or non sequential), approximate optimal designs for a class of dose–response models with continuous outcomes. We obtain conditions for a design being D-optimal or c-optimal. The designs are locally optimal in that they depend on the model parameters. The efficiency studies show that these designs have high efficiency when the mis-specification of the initial values of model parameters is not severe. A case study indicates that using an optimal design may result in a significant saving of resources.     

Optimal designs for the Michaelis–Menten model with correlated observations

In this paper we investigate the problem of designing experiments for generalized least-squares analysis in the Michaelis–Menten model. We study the structure of exact D-optimal designs in a model with an autoregressive error structure. Explicit results for locally D-optimal designs are derived for the case where two observations can be taken per subject. Additionally standardized maximin D-optimal designs are obtained in this case. The results illustrate the enormous difficulties to find exact optimal designs explicitly for nonlinear regression models with correlated observations.     

The analytic construction of D-optimal designs for the two-variable binary logistic regression model without interaction

Candidate locally D-optimal designs for the binary two-variable logistic model with no interaction, which comprise 3 and 4 support points lying in the first quadrant of the two-dimensional Euclidean space, were introduced by Haines et al. (D-optimal designs for logistic regression in two variables. In: Lopez-Fidalgo J, Rodrigez-Diaz JM, Torsney B, editors. MODA8 – advances in model-oriented designs and analysis. Heidelberg: Physica-Verlag; 2007. p. 91–98). The authors proved algebraically the global D-optimality of the 3-point design for the special case in which the intercept parameter is equal to?1.5434. However for other selected values of the intercept parameter, the global D-optimality of the proposed 3- and 4-point designs was only demonstrated numerically. In this paper, we provide analytical proofs of the D-optimality of these 3- and 4-point designs for all negative and zero intercept parameters of the binary two-variable logistic model with no interaction. The results are extended to the construction of D-optimal designs on a rectangular design space and illustrated by means of two examples of which one is a real example taken from the literature.     

D s -optimal designs for Kozak's tree taper model

In this work, we study D _s -optimal design for Kozak's tree taper model. The approximate D _s -optimal designs are found invariant to tree size and hence create a ground to construct a general replication-free D _s -optimal design. Even though the designs are found not to be dependent on the parameter value p of the Kozak's model, they are sensitive to the s×1 subset parameter vector values of the model. The 12 points replication-free design (with 91% efficiency) suggested in this study is believed to reduce cost and time for data collection and more importantly to precisely estimate the subset parameters of interest.     

Locally and maximin optimal designs for multi-factor nonlinear models

This paper considers the search for locally and maximin optimal designs for multi-factor nonlinear models from optimal designs for sub-models of a lower dimension. In particular, sufficient conditions are given so that maximin D-optimal designs for additive multi-factor nonlinear models can be built from maximin D-optimal designs for their sub-models with a single factor. Some examples of application are models involving exponential decay in several variables.     

Rank-order choice-based conjoint experiments: Efficiency and design

In a rank-order choice-based conjoint experiment, the respondent is asked to rank a number of alternatives of a number of choice sets. In this paper, we study the efficiency of those experiments and propose a D-optimality criterion for rank-order experiments to find designs yielding the most precise parameter estimators. For that purpose, an expression of the Fisher information matrix for the rank-ordered conditional logit model is derived which clearly shows how much additional information is provided by each extra ranking step. A simulation study shows that, besides the Bayesian D-optimal ranking design, the Bayesian D-optimal choice design is also an appropriate design for this type of experiments. Finally, it is shown that considerable improvements in estimation and prediction accuracy are obtained by including extra ranking steps in an experiment.     

Optimal designs for discriminating between some extensions of the Michaelis–Menten model

In this paper some results on the computation of optimal designs for discriminating between nonlinear models are provided. In particular, some typical deviations of the Michaelis–Menten model are considered. A common deviation of this pharmacokinetic model consists on adding a linear term. If two linear models differ in one parameter the T-optimal design for discriminating between them is c-optimal for estimating the added linear term. This is not the case for nonlinear models.     

Optimal foldover designs

An obvious strategy for obtaining a Doptimal foldover design for p factors at two levels each in 2N runs is to fold a Doptimal main effects plan. We show that this strategy works except when N = 4t + 2 and s is even In that case there are two different classes of D-optimal main effects plans with N runs that have the same determinant. However folding them gives two different values foi the D-optimality criteiion One set of designs is D-optimal The other is not.     

Constrained design strategies for improving normal approximations in nonlinear regression problems

In nonlinear regression problems, the assumption is usually made that parameter estimates will be approximately normally distributed. The accuracy of the approximation depends on the sample size and also on the intrinsic and parameter-effects curvatures. Based on these curvatures, criteria are defined here that indicate whether or not an experiment will lead to estimates with distributions well approximated by a normal distribution. An approach is motivated of optimizing a primary design criterion subject to satisfying constraints based on these nonnormality measures. The approach can be used either to I) find designs for a fixed sample size or to II) choose the sample size for the optimal design based on the primary objective so that the constraints are satisfied. This later objective is useful as the nonnormality measures decrease with the sample size. As the constraints are typically not concave functions over a set of design measures, the usual equivalence theorems of optimal design theory do not hold for the first approach, and numerical implementation is required. Examples are given, and a new notation using tensor products is introduced to define tractable general notation for the nonnormality measures.     

Optimal designs for non-competitive enzyme inhibition kinetic models

In this paper, we present a new method for determining optimal designs for enzyme inhibition kinetic models, which are used to model the influence of the concentration of a substrate and an inhibition on the velocity of a reaction. The approach uses a nonlinear transformation of the vector of predictors such that the model in the new coordinates is given by an incomplete response surface model. Although there exist no explicit solutions of the optimal design problem for incomplete response surface models so far, the corresponding design problem in the new coordinates is substantially more transparent, such that explicit or numerical solutions can be determined more easily. The designs for the original problem can finally be found by an inverse transformation of the optimal designs determined for the response surface model. We illustrate the method determining explicit solutions for the D-optimal design and for the optimal design problem for estimating the individual coefficients in a non-competitive enzyme inhibition kinetic model.     

Bayesian D-optimal Accelerated Life Test plans for series systems with competing exponential causes of failure

This paper provides methods of obtaining Bayesian D-optimal Accelerated Life Test (ALT) plans for series systems with independent exponential component lives under the Type-I censoring scheme. Two different Bayesian D-optimality design criteria are considered. For both the criteria, first optimal designs for a given number of experimental points are found by solving a finite-dimensional constrained optimization problem. Next, the global optimality of such an ALT plan is ensured by applying the General Equivalence Theorem. A detailed sensitivity analysis is also carried out to investigate the effect of different planning inputs on the resulting optimal ALT plans. Furthermore, these Bayesian optimal plans are also compared with the corresponding (frequentist) locally D-optimal ALT plans.     

Highly Efficient Designs for Logistic Models with Categorical Variables

Optimal designs for logistic models generally require prior information about the values of the regression parameters. However, experimenters usually do not have full knowledge of these parameters. We propose a design that is D-optimal on a restricted design region. This design assigns an equal weight to design points that contain more information and ignores those design points that contain less information about the regression parameters. The design can be constructed in practice by means of the rank order of the outcome variances. A numerical study compares the proposed design with the D-optimal and completely balanced designs in terms of efficiency.     

Optimal estimation for the Pareto distribution

This paper proposes an optimal estimation method for the shape parameter, probability density function and upper tail probability of the Pareto distribution. The new method is based on a weighted empirical distribution function. The exact efficiency functions of the estimators relative to the existing estimators are derived. The paper gives L ₁-optimal and L ₂-optimal weights for the new weighted estimator. Monte Carlo simulation results confirm the theoretical conclusions. Both theoretical and simulation results show that the new estimation method is more efficient relative to several existing methods in many situations.     

Minimax Design for the Difference Between Estimated Responses for the Quadratic Model Over Hypercubic Regions

Abstract

A second-order model involving the intercept and only the pure quadratic terms is considered for regression over hypercubes. Minimization of the variance of the difference between estimated responses at two points, maximized over all pairs of points in the region of interest in factor space, is taken as the design criterion. Optimal design under the minimax criterion is derived and found to be the one which is also simultaneously A-, D-, and E-optimal for the parameters excluding the intercept. The minimax design is compared with other standard designs and is found to perform extremely well.     

D-optimal designs for combined polynomial and trigonometric regression on a partial circle

Consider the D-optimal designs for a combined polynomial and trigonometric regression on a partial circle. It is shown that the optimal design is equally supported and the structure of the optimal design depends only on the length of the design interval and the support points are analytic functions of this parameter. Moreover, the Taylor expansion of the optimal support points can be determined efficiently by a recursive procedure. Examples are presented to illustrate the procedures for computing the optimal designs.     

Model-Robust Design of Conjoint Choice Experiments

Within the context of choice experimental designs, most authors have proposed designs for the multinomial logit model under the assumption that only the main effects matter. Very little attention has been paid to designs for attribute interaction models. In this article, three types of Bayesian D-optimal designs for the multinomial logit model are studied: main-effects designs, interaction-effects designs, and composite designs. Simulation studies are used to show that in situations where a researcher is not sure whether or not attribute interaction effects are present, it is best to take into account interactions in the design stage. In particular, it is shown that a composite design constructed by including an interaction-effects model and a main-effects model in the design criterion is most robust against misspecification of the underlying model when it comes to making precise predictions.     

A note on D-optimal designs for models with and without an intercept

In this paper we give a sufficient condition under which theD-optimal design for a regression model without an intercept can be obtained from theD-optimal design for the corresponding model with an intercept by simply removing the origin from its support points. Examples are given to demonstrate the applications of the results.     

Improved pretest nonparametric estimation in a multivariate regression model

Shrinkage pretest nonparametric estimation of the location parameter vector in a multivariate regression model is considered when nonsample information (NSI) about the regression parameters is available. By using the quadratic risk criterion, the dominance of the pretest estimators over the usual estimators has been investigated. We demonstrate analytically and computationally that the proposed improved pretest estimator establishes a wider dominance range for the parameter under consideration than that of the usual pretest estimator in which it is superior over the unrestricted estimator.     

Robust first-order rotatable lifetime improvement experimental designs

Experimental designs are widely used in predicting the optimal operating conditions of the process parameters in lifetime improvement experiments. The most commonly observed lifetime distributions are log-normal, exponential, gamma and Weibull. In the present article, invariant robust first-order rotatable designs are derived for autocorrelated lifetime responses having log-normal, exponential, gamma and Weibull distributions. In the process, robust first-order D-optimal and rotatable conditions have been derived under these situations. For these lifetime distributions with correlated errors, it is shown that robust first-order D-optimal designs are always robust rotatable but the converse is not true. Moreover, it is observed that robust first-order D-optimal and rotatable designs depend on the respective error variance–covariance structure but are independent from these considered lifetime response distributions.     

Optimal design for nonlinear regression models

Two results for D _θ-optimal designs for nonlinear regression models are shown to follow directly from approximate design theory. The first result considered is one concerning the replication of exact designs with minimum support, first established by Atkinson and Hunter and by M.J. Box in 1968, while the second pertains to a heteroscedastic model introduced by Velilla and Llosa in 1992. An illustrative example is provided.