OPTIMUM SINGULAR SPRING BALANCE WEIGHING DESIGNS WITH NON-HOMOGENEITY OF THE VARIANCES OF ERRORS FOR ESTIMATING THE TOTAL WEIGHT

The problem of estimation of the total weight of objects using a singular spring balance weighing design with non-homogeneity of the variances of errors has been dealt with in this paper. Based on a theorem by Katulska (1984) giving a lower bound for the variance of the estimated total weight, a necessary and sufficient condition for this lower bound to be attained is obtained. It is shown that weighing designs for which the the lower bound is attainable, can be constructed from the incidence matrices of (α₁,.,α_t)-resolvable block designs, α-resolvable block designs, singular group divisible designs, and semi-regular group divisible designs.     

ON THE ESTIMATION OF TOTAL WEIGHT IN CHEMICAL BALANCE WEXGHING DESIGNS1

This paper is concerned with the problem of estimation of total weight in a chemical balance weighing design. Some results regarding the estimability of the total weight are obtained and a lower bound for the variance of the estimated total weight is given. Finally, a series of weighing designs estimating the total weight in an ‘optimum’ manner is reported.     

BALANCED ARRAYS AND WEIGHING DESIGNS

Dey (19711, Saha (1975), Kageyama & Saha (1983) and others have shown how optimum chemical balance weighing designs can be constructed from the incidence matrices of balanced incomplete block (BIB) designs. In this paper, it is shown that weighing designs can be constructed from some suitably chosen two-symbol balanced arrays of strength two, which need not always be incidence matrices of BIB designs. The findings lead us to construct new optimum chemical balance weighing designs from incidence matrices of BIB designs.     

A NOTE ON THE ANALYSIS OF COVARIANCE IN BALANCED INCOMPLETE BLOCK DESIGNS

The Williams & Ratcliff (1980) and Zelen (1957) methods for the analysis of covariance in incomplete block designs with recovery of inter-block information are compared using data from a balanced incomplete block design. The former is shown to be more efficient. Other advantages of the Williams & Ratcliff formulation are also presented.     

A NOTE ON SAMPLING DESIGNS FOR RANDOM PROCESSES WITH NO QUADRATIC MEAN DERIVATIVE

Several authors have previously discussed the problem of obtaining asymptotically optimal design sequences for estimating the path of a stochastic process using intricate analytical techniques. In this note, an alternative treatment is provided for obtaining asymptotically optimal sampling designs for estimating the path of a second order stochastic process with known covariance function. A simple estimator is proposed which is asymptotically equivalent to the full‐fledged best linear unbiased estimator and the entire asymptotics are carried out through studying this estimator. The current approach lends an intuitive statistical perspective to the entire estimation problem.     

A NOTE ON OPTIMUM STRATIFICATION IN SAMPLING WITH VARYING PROBABILITIES1

Singh and Sukhatme [4] have considered the problem of optimum stratification on an auxiliary variable x when the units from the different strata are selected with probability proportional to the value of the auxiliary variable and the sample sizes for the different strata are determined by using Neyman allocation method. The present paper considers the same problem for the proportional and equal allocation methods. The rules for finding approximately optimum strata boundaries for these two allocation methods have been given. An investigation into the relative efficiency of these allocation methods with respect to the Neyman allocation has also been made. The performance of equal allocation is found to be better than that of proportional allocation and practically equivalent to the Neyman allocation.     

ON THE ESTIMATION OF TOTAL WEIGHT IN SINGULAR SPRING BALANCE WEIGHING DESIGNS UNDER THE CO VARIANCE MATRIX OF ERRORS s2G

The problem of the estimation of the linear combination of weights, c′w, in a singular spring balance weighing design when the error structure takes the form E(ee′) =s?²G has been studied. A lower bound for the variance of the estimated linear combination of weights is obtained and a necessary and sufficient condition for this lower bound to be attained is given. The general results are applied to the case of the total of the weights. For a specified form for G, some optimum spring balance weighing designs for the estimated total weight are found.     

A NOTE ON OPTIMUM STRATIFICATION OF POPULATIONS FOR ESTIMATING THE POPULATION MEANS

The note gives the results of a study carried out to find the optimum points of stratification (OPS) for estimating the population means of some standard distributions. The distributions considered here are the normal and the set of chi-square distributions. The OPS for the various gamma distributions can be easily derived from the known OPS of the corresponding chi-square distributions. The OPS depend on the type of allocation envisaged. In this note attention has been confined to the proportional, equal, and optimum allocations.
Tables of OPS are given for the distributions and allocations mentioned above. Some other interesting results follow:
(i) Equalization of stratum totals as suggested by Ransen, Hurwitz and Madow (1953) does not lead to OPS for any of the populations considered.
(ii) Equalization of {f(x)}^½ dx gives an excellent approximabioii to the OPS for both equal and optimum allocations.
(iii) The OPS for equal and optimum allocations almost coincide. To put in other words, if strata are defined by OPS optimum allocation differs only slightly from equal allocation.
New rules are suggested for the family of distributions considered in this paper for all the three types of allocations.     

A NOTE ON OPTIMUM STRATIFICATION FOR EQUAL ALLOCATION WITH RATIO AND REGRESSION METHODS OF ESTIMATION

When the information on a highly positively correlated auxiliary variable x is used to construct stratified regression (or ratio) estimates of the population mean of the study variable y, the paper considers the problem of determining approximately optimum strata boundaries (AOSB) on x when the sample size in each stratum is equal. The form of the conditional variance function V(y/x) is assumed to be known. A numerical investigation into the relative efficiency of equal allocation with respect to the Neyman and proportional allocations has also been made. The relative efficiency of equal allocation with respect to Neyman allocation is found to be nearly equal to one.     

A NOTE ON BAYES FACTORS

This note establishes a connection between Bayes factors and the use of the logarithmic score utility function for model selection in a Bayesian context. The connection presented provides insights into Bayes factors.     

A NOTE ON EVANESCENT PROCESSES

This note examines the connection between μ-invariant measures for the transition function of a continuous-time Markov chain and those of its q-matrix, Q. The major result establishes a necessary and aufficient condition for a convergent μ-invariant measure for Q to be μ-inhant for the minimal transition function, P, under the assumption that P is honest. This corrects Theorem 6 of Vere-Jones (1969) and the first part of Corollary 1 of Pollett (1986), both of which assert that the above conclusion holds in the absence of this condition. The error was pointed out by E.A. van Doom (1991) and the counterexample which be presented provides the basis for the present arguments. In determining where the error occurred in the original proof, we are able to identify a simple sufficient condition for μ-invariance.     

A NOTE ON A SEQUENTIAL GROUP t-TEST

A sequential probability ratio test (SPET) of the mean of a normal distribution with unknown variance, based on an independent sequence of groups of observations, is investigated and its efficiency compared with that of the WAGE sequential t-test, which is based on an invariantly sufficient sequence of test statistics.     

A NOTE ON ARMA PARAMETERISATION*

This paper considers the relationship between ARMA parameterisations of models for y(t) and Ay(t), where A is invertible and y(t) is a vector time series (t = 0,±1,…). An ARMA model for the transformed series Ay(t) may have fewer parameters than a model for y(t). This paper shows that such a saving is illusory because the apparently saved parameters are exactly balanced by the number of new parameters appearing in A.     

A NOTE ON TRANSITION PROBABILITY ESTIMATION

The usual regression model for the estimation of Markovian transition probabilities is examined under the assumption that the disturbance terms are normally distributed. It is found that for a certain variance-covariance structure, the regular quadratic programming estimates are the same as the maximum likelihood estimates when non-negativity is imposed.     

ON RESOLVABLE INCOMPLETE BLOCK DESIGNS1

A method of constructing resolvable incomplete block designs for v(=ks, 2 ≤ k ≤ s - 1) treatments in blocks of size k using mutually orthogonal Latin squares is proposed. It has been seen in particular that when the number of replications is s — 1 (or s), which is feasible if s is a prime or a prime power, the method gives PBIB (3) (or semi-regular GD) designs. The analysis of such designs has also been discussed.     

A NOTE ON THE EFFICIENCY OF PROPORTIONAL STRATIFICATION

In stratified random sampling, it is generally recognised that nonproportional allocation is worthwhile only if the gain in precision is substantial. This note presents a sharp lower bound for the relative precision of proportional to optimum (Neyman) allocation, in terms of the ratio of the largest to the smallest stratum standard deviations. This provides a quick measure of the efficiency of proportional allocation, and may be used as a formal basis for deriving useful practical rules. In particular, it is formally confirmed that for estimating a proportion nonproportional allocation is rarely worthwhile.     

A NOTE ON MULTIVARIATE LINEAR MODELS WITH NON-ADDITIVITY

Tukey's non-additivity test in an analysis of variance model is extended to a multivariate linear model with covariates. If non-additivity is found to exist, a Wilks's Lambda test for the dimensionality of the matrix of the non-additivity parameters is derived and the Lambda criterion is then factorized into two independent test criteria to test meaningful hypotheses concerning the multivariate model.