Best unbiased estimation of fixed effects in mixed ANOVA models

In a linear model with an arbitrary variance–covariance matrix, Zyskind (Ann. Math. Statist. 38 (1967) 1092) provided necessary and sufficient conditions for when a given linear function of the fixed-effect parameters has a best linear unbiased estimator (BLUE). If these conditions hold uniformly for all possible variance–covariance parameters (i.e., there is a UBLUE) and if the data are assumed to be normally distributed, these conditions are also necessary and sufficient for the parametric function to have a uniformly minimum variance unbiased estimator (UMVUE). For mixed-effects ANOVA models, we show how these conditions can be translated in terms of the incidence array, which facilitates verification of the UBLUE and UMVUE properties and facilitates construction of designs having such properties.     

Efficient estimators for adaptive stratified sequential sampling

In stratified sampling, methods for the allocation of effort among strata usually rely on some measure of within-stratum variance. If we do not have enough information about these variances, adaptive allocation can be used. In adaptive allocation designs, surveys are conducted in two phases. Information from the first phase is used to allocate the remaining units among the strata in the second phase. Brown et al. [Adaptive two-stage sequential sampling, Popul. Ecol. 50 (2008), pp. 239–245] introduced an adaptive allocation sampling design – where the final sample size was random – and an unbiased estimator. Here, we derive an unbiased variance estimator for the design, and consider a related design where the final sample size is fixed. Having a fixed final sample size can make survey-planning easier. We introduce a biased Horvitz–Thompson type estimator and a biased sample mean type estimator for the sampling designs. We conduct two simulation studies on honey producers in Kurdistan and synthetic zirconium distribution in a region on the moon. Results show that the introduced estimators are more efficient than the available estimators for both variable and fixed sample size designs, and the conventional unbiased estimator of stratified simple random sampling design. In order to evaluate efficiencies of the introduced designs and their estimator furthermore, we first review some well-known adaptive allocation designs and compare their estimator with the introduced estimators. Simulation results show that the introduced estimators are more efficient than available estimators of these well-known adaptive allocation designs.     

Efficient three-level screening designs using weighing matrices

Screening is the first stage of many industrial experiments and is used to determine efficiently and effectively a small number of potential factors among a large number of factors which may affect a particular response. In a recent paper, Jones and Nachtsheim [A class of three-level designs for definitive screening in the presence of second-order effects. J. Qual. Technol. 2011;43:1–15] have given a class of three-level designs for screening in the presence of second-order effects using a variant of the coordinate exchange algorithm as it was given by Meyer and Nachtsheim [The coordinate-exchange algorithm for constructing exact optimal experimental designs. Technometrics 1995;37:60–69]. Xiao et al. [Constructing definitive screening designs using conference matrices. J. Qual. Technol. 2012;44:2–8] have used conference matrices to construct definitive screening designs with good properties. In this paper, we propose a method for the construction of efficient three-level screening designs based on weighing matrices and their complete foldover. This method can be considered as a generalization of the method proposed by Xiao et al. [Constructing definitive screening designs using conference matrices. J. Qual. Technol. 2012;44:2–8]. Many new orthogonal three-level screening designs are constructed and their properties are explored. These designs are highly D-efficient and provide uncorrelated estimates of main effects that are unbiased by any second-order effect. Our approach is relatively straightforward and no computer search is needed since our designs are constructed using known weighing matrices.     

Analysis of a supersaturated design using Entropy Prior Complexity for binary responses via generalized linear models

A supersaturated design is a factorial design in which the number of effects to be estimated is greater than the available number of experimental runs. It is used in many experiments for screening purposes, i.e., for studying a large number of factors and then identifying the active ones. The goal with such a design is to identify just a few of the factors under consideration, that have dominant effects and to do this at minimum cost. While most of the literature on supersaturated designs has focused on the construction of designs and their optimality, the data analysis of such designs remains still at an early stage. In this paper, we incorporate the parameter model complexity into the supersaturated design analysis process, by assuming generalized linear models for a Bernoulli response, for analyzing main effects designs and discovering simultaneously the effects that are significant.     

Orthogonal Latin hypercube designs for Fourier-polynomial models

Latin hypercube designs (LHDs) are widely used in computer experiments because of their one-dimensional uniformity and other properties. Recently, a number of methods have been proposed to construct LHDs with properties that all linear effects are mutually orthogonal and orthogonal to all second-order effects, i.e., quadratic effects and bilinear interactions. This paper focuses on the construction of LHDs with the above desirable properties under the Fourier-polynomial model. A convenient and flexible algorithm for constructing such orthogonal LHDs is provided. Most of the resulting designs have different run sizes from that of Butler (2001), and thus are new and very suitable for factor screening and building Fourier-polynomial models in computer experiments as discussed in Butler (2001).     

Circular balanced repeated measurements designs

The concept of a circular design is defined and when proper balance for various effects is assumed, its universal optimality is proved over the class of all designs with the same set of parameters, Such designs are shown to minimize the variance of the best linear unbiased estimators of contrasts of residual and direct effects over the class of equireplicated designs. All models assume first order residual effects and are of a circular nature. The proofs are presented in a unified manner for several models at a time. They are based on certain matrix domination which occurs when parameters are eliminated from a linear modelj this latter fact is proved for a general linear model.     

Sweeping,alignment and the analysis of unbalanced data

The terms sweeping and alignment refer to the same process. Sweeping/alignment is used by data analysts as a technique for describing the effects of a model factor (e.g., treatments in a randomized block design) after the effects of nuisance parameters (e.g., blocks) have been removed from the data. In this paper sweeping/alignment is used as the basis for developing tests of factors in unbalanced experimental design models. Formulas are presented for treatment effects in randomized block designs with missing observations, and for interaction and main effects in unbalanced two-way factorial designs with empty cells.     

Row-column designs with minimal units

A new class of row-column designs is proposed. These designs are saturated in terms of eliminating two-way heterogeneity with an additive model. The proposed designs are treatment-connected, i.e., all paired comparisons of treatments in the designs are estimable in spite of the existence of row and column effects. The connectedness of the designs is justified from two perspectives: linear model and contrast estimability. Comparisons with other designs are studied in terms of A-, D-, E-efficiencies as well as design balance.     

A candidate-set-free algorithm for generating D-optimal split-plot designs

Summary.  We introduce a new method for generating optimal split-plot designs. These designs are optimal in the sense that they are efficient for estimating the fixed effects of the statistical model that is appropriate given the split-plot design structure. One advantage of the method is that it does not require the prior specification of a candidate set. This makes the production of split-plot designs computationally feasible in situations where the candidate set is too large to be tractable. The method allows for flexible choice of the sample size and supports inclusion of both continuous and categorical factors. The model can be any linear regression model and may include arbitrary polynomial terms in the continuous factors and interaction terms of any order. We demonstrate the usefulness of this flexibility with a 100-run polypropylene experiment involving 11 factors where we found a design that is substantially more efficient than designs that are produced by using other approaches.     

On the inadequacy of the customary orthogonal arrays in quality control and general scientific experimentation,and the need of probing designs of higher revealing power ∗

This paper breaks new ground concerning the general problem of factorial experimentation, namely, the identification and estimation of nonnegligible factorial effects (with minimal number of runs), without making the usual unrealistic and artificial assumptions concerning the negligibility of higher order interactions. (In other words, we consider the general factor screening problem when interactions may be present.) Through an example, it is shown that the customary orthogonal arrays fall short of the need. New principles for sieving the set of factorial effects to determine the large ones, are introduced. The concept of ‘revealing power’of designs, i.e. of their ability to help identify nonnegligible parameters is developed, and the usefulness in this direction of balanced arrays of full strength is studied.     

Sampling methods and sensitivity analysis for large parameter sets

Models with large parameter (i.e., hundreds or thousands of parameters) often behave as if they depend upon only a few parameters, with the rest having comparatively little influence. One challenge of sensitivity analysis with such models is screening parameters to identify the influential ones, and then characterizing their influences.

Large models often require significant computing resources to evaluate their output, and so a good screening mechanism should be efficient: it should minimize the number of times a model must be exercised. This paper describes an efficient procedure to perform sensitivity analysis on deterministic models with specified ranges or probability distributions for each parameter.

It is based on repeated exercising of the model, which can be treated as a black box. Statistical checks can ensure that the screening identified parameters that account for the bulk of the model variation. Subsequent sensitivity analysis can use the screening information to reduce the investment required to characterize the influence of influential and other parameters.

The procedure exploits simplifications in the dependence of a model output on model inputs. It works best where a small number of parameters are much more influential than all the rest. The method is much more sensitive to the number of influential parameters than to the total number of parameters. It is most effective when linear or quadratic effects dominate higher order effects and complex interactions.

The paper presents a set of M athematica functions that can be used to create a variety of types of experimental designs useful for sensitivity analysis, including simple random, latin hypercube and fractional factorial sampling. Each sampling method can use discretization, folding, grouping and replication to create composite designs. These techniques have beencombined in a composite approach called Iterated Fractional Factorial Design (IFFD).

The procedure is applied to model of nuclear fuel waste disposal, and to simplified example models to demonstrate the concepts involved.     

Interaction balance for symmetrical factorial designs with generalized minimum aberration

There are two different systems of contrast parameterization when analyzing the interaction effects among the factors with more than two levels, i.e., linear-quadratic system and orthogonal components system. Based on the former system and an ANOVA model, Xu and Wu (2001) introduced the generalized wordlength pattern for general factorial designs. This paper shows that the generalized wordlength pattern exactly measures the balance pattern of interaction columns of a symmetrical design ground on the orthogonal components system, and thus an alternative angle to look at the generalized minimum aberration criterion is given. This work is partially supported by NNSF of China grant No. 10231030.     

A powerful and efficient algorithm for breaking the links between aliased effects in asymmetric designs

Fractional factorial (FF) designs are no doubt the most widely used designs in experimental investigations due to their efficient use of experimental runs. One price we pay for using FF designs is, clearly, our inability to obtain estimates of some important effects (main effects or second order interactions) that are separate from estimates of other effects (usually higher order interactions). When the estimate of an effect also includes the influence of one or more other effects the effects are said to be aliased. Folding over an FF design is a method for breaking the links between aliased effects in a design. The question is, how do we define the foldover structure for asymmetric FF designs, whether regular or nonregular? How do we choose the optimal foldover plan? How do we use optimal foldover plans to construct combined designs which have better capability of estimating lower order effects? The main objective of the present paper is to provide answers to these questions. Using the new results in this paper as benchmarks, we can implement a powerful and efficient algorithm for finding optimal foldover plans which can be used to break links between aliased effects.     

A-optimal design measures for one-way layouts with additive regression

For linear models with one discrete factor and additive general regression term the problem of characterizing A-optimal design measures for inference on (i) treatment effects, (ii) the regression parameters and (iii) all parameters will be considered. In any of these problems product designs can be found which are optimal among all designs, and equal weigth 1/J may be given to each of the J levels of the discrete factor. For problem (i) and (ii) the allocation of the continuous factors for the regression term should follow a suitable optimal design for the corresponding pure regression model, whereas for problem (iii) this would not give an A-optimal product design. For this problem an equivalence theorem for A-optimal product designs will be given. An example will illustrate these results. Finally, by analyzing a model with two discrete factors it will be shown that for enlarged models the best product designs may not be A-optimal.     

Second-Order Response Surface Model with Neighbor Effects

This article considers the second-order response surface model in which the experimental units, i.e., plots experience the neighbor effects from immediate left and right neighboring plots assuming the plots to be placed adjacent linearly with no gaps. Conditions have been derived for the estimation of coefficients of second-order response surface model. A method of constructing designs for fitting second-order response surface in the presence of neighbor effects has been developed. The designs so obtained are found to be rotatable.     

A series of single array 2m factorial search designs for even m

By means of a search design one is able to search for and estimate a small set of non‐zero elements from the set of higher order factorial interactions in addition to estimating the lower order factorial effects. One may be interested in estimating the general mean and main effects, in addition to searching for and estimating a non‐negligible effect in the set of 2‐ and 3‐factor interactions, assuming 4‐ and higher‐order interactions are all zero. Such a search design is called a ‘main effect plus one plan’ and is denoted by MEP.1. Construction of such a plan, for 2^m factorial experiments, has been considered and developed by several authors and leads to MEP.1 plans for an odd number m of factors. These designs are generally determined by two arrays, one specifying a main effect plan and the other specifying a follow‐up. In this paper we develop the construction of search designs for an even number of factors m, m≠6. The new series of MEP.1 plans is a set of single array designs with a well structured form. Such a structure allows for flexibility in arriving at an appropriate design with optimum properties for search and estimation.     

Minimum Cost Linear Trend Free 2n-(n-k) Designs of Resolution IV

This article extends the resolution of time trend free designs for sequential 2^n-p experiments from III into IV and minimizes the number of factor level changes between runs (i.e., cost) by constructing a catalog of (2^k?2 ?1) minimum cost linear trend free resolution IV 2^n?(n?k) designs (2^k?2 ≤ n ≤ 2^k?1?2) from the full 2^k factorial experiment using the interactions-main effects assignment technique. Each systematic 2^n?(n?k) design in the catalog is economic in minimum number of factor level changes and allows for the estimation of all n main effects unbiased by either the linear time trend (which may be present in the 2^n?(n?k) sequentially generated responses) or the non negligible two-factor interactions. This article provides for each 2^n?(n?k) design: (1) the defining relation or the alias structure; (2) the k independent generators for sequencing the 2^n?(n?k) runs by the generalized foldover scheme; and (3) the minimum cost represented by the total number of factor level changes between the 2^n?(n?k) runs. All k main effects of the 2^k experiment are excluded from the selection assignment process due to their nonlinear time trend resistance as well as excluding a total of (2^k?1 –k +1) interactions violating the resolution IV requirement.     

Balanced 2m factorial designs of resolution v which allow search and estimation of one extra unknown effect, 4 ≤ m ≤ 8

In this paper, we obtain balanced resolution V plans for 2^m factorial experiments (4 ≤ m ≤ 8), which have an additional feature. Instead of assuming that the three factor and higher order effects are all zero, we assume that there is at most one nonnegligible effect among them; however, we do not know which particular effect is nonnegligible. The problem is to search which effect is non-negligible and to estimate it, along with estimating the main effects and two factor interactions etc., as in an ordinary resolution V design. For every value of N (the number of treatments) within a certain practical range, we present a design using which the search and estimation can be carried out. (Of course, as in all statistical problems, the probability of correct search will depend upon the size of “error” or “noise” present in the observations. However, the designs obtained are such that, at least in the noiseless case, this probability equals 1.) It is found that many of these designs are identical with optimal balanced resolution V designs obtained earlier in the work of Srivastava and Chopra.     

Clear Effects in the 2 n−p Combined Design

The technique of semifolding is used to develop the 2 ^n?p designs. Based on the initial analysis, some factors may be more important than others. In other words, the results from analyzing the original experiment may suggest a specific set of effects to be de-aliased. On the other hand, some previously acquired information might be available for specific factors. In these cases, one may desire to isolate the main effects of these factors and each of their two-factor interactions in the experiments. Four rules that are presented in this article can systematically isolate effects of potential interest, which should serve well for researchers in all disciplines. The combined design, by semifolding, provides estimates of the interactions that involve specific factors so that the alias chains of the two-factor interactions can be broken.     

On invariance and randomization in factorial designs with applications to D-optimal main effect designs of the symmetrical factorial

Under the setting of the columnwise orthogonal polynomial model in the context of the general factorial it is shown that (i) the determinant of the information matrix of a design relative to an admissible vector of effects is invariant under a permutation of levels; (ii) the unbiased estimation of a linear function of an admissible vector of effects can be obtained under equal probability randomization. These results extend the work on invariance and randomization carried out under the more restrictive assumption of the orthonormal polynomial model by Srivastava, Raktoe and Pesotan (1976) and Pesotan and Raktoe (1981). Moreover, the problem of the construction of D-optimal main effect designs in the symmetrical factorial is reduced to a study of a special class of (0,1)-matrices using the Helmat matrix model. Using this class of (0,1)-matrices and the determinant invariance result, some classes of D-optimal main effect designs of the s² and s³ factorial respectively are presented.