Balanced and partially balanced incomplete block designs with autocorrelation errors

The paper aims to find variance balanced and variance partially balanced incomplete block designs when observations within blocks are autocorrelated and we call them BIBAC and PBIBAC designs. Orthogonal arrays of type I and type II when used as BIBAC designs have smaller average variance of elementary contrasts of treatment effects compared to the corresponding Balanced Incomplete Block (BIB) designs with homoscedastic, uncorrelated errors. The relative efficiency of BIB designs compared to BIBAC designs depends on the block size k and the autocorrelation ρ and is independent of the number of treatments. Further this relative efficiency increases with increasing k. Partially balanced incomplete block designs with autocorrelated errors are introduced using partially balanced incomplete block designs and orthogonal arrays of type I and type II.     

Symmetric designs of types V and VI

In Butler (1984a) a semi-translation block was defined and a classification given of all symmetric 2-(υ,k,λ) designs with λ>1, which contain more than one such block. In this paper we consider symmetric designs of type V and VI. We show that symmetric designs of type V are also of type VI, and in addition we show that all such designs can be obtained from a P_n,q by a construction which we give. Finally examples of proper symmetric designs of type V which are not of type VI are given.     

Incomplete block designs for symmetrical parallel line assays

New series of incomplete block designs for symmetrical parallel lines are proposed. From these designs important contrasts like L_p, L₁ and L′₁ are estimated free from block effects. In addition to these, other odd order contrasts are also estimated orthogonal to block effects. The designs are shown to have simple analysis.     

A new special class of peb designs

A new class of partially efficiency-balanced designs is introduced from a practical point of view. This new design includes all equireplicated incomplete block designs available in literature as special cases. The fundamental properties of the design are clarified with relation to other block designs.     

Computer-Generated Neighbor Designs

Neighbor designs are useful to remove the neighbor effects. In this article, an algorithm is developed and is coded in Visual C + +to generate the initial block for possible first, second,…, and all order neighbor designs. To get the required design, a block (0, 1, 2,…, k ? 1) is then augmented with (v ? 1) blocks obtained by developing the initial block cyclically mod (v ? 1).     

On the E-optimality of complete block designs under a mixed interference model

In experiments in which the response to a treatment can be affected by other treatments, the interference model with neighbor effects is usually used. It is known that circular neighbor balanced designs (CNBDs) are universally optimal under such a model if the neighbor effects are fixed (Druilhet, 1999) or random (4 and 7). However, such designs cannot exist for every combination of design parameters. In the class of block designs with the same number of treatments as experimental units per block, a CNBD cannot exist if the number of blocks, b  , is equal to p(t−1)±1$p(t-1)\pm 1$, where p is a positive integer and t is the number of treatments. Filipiak et al. (2008) gave the structure of the left-neighboring matrix of E-optimal complete block designs with p  =1 under the model with fixed neighbor effects. The purpose of this paper is to generalize E-optimality results for designs with p∈N$p\in \mathbb{N}$ assuming random neighbor effects.     

Construction of group divisible designs and rectangular designs from resolvable and almost resolvable balanced incomplete block designs

In this paper, we present a general construction of group divisible designs and rectangular designs by utilising resolvable and “almost resolvable” balanced incomplete block designs. As special cases, we obtain the following E-optimal designs: (a) Group divisible (GD) designs with λ₂=λ₁+1 and (b) Rectangular designs with 2 rows and having λ₃=λ₂−1=λ₁+1. Many of the GD designs are optimal among binary designs with regard to all type 1 criteria.     

On the recovery of intra- and interblock information in n-ary designs

This note presents an extension of Q-method of analysis for binary designs given by Rao (1956) to n-ary balanced and partially balanced block designs. Here a linked n-ary block (LNB) design is defined as the dual of balanced n-ary (BN) design. Having a note on Yates’ (1939, 1940) method of P-analysis, we further extend the expressions for binary linked block (LB) designs given by Rao (1956) to linked n-ary block (LNB) designs which admit easy estimation of parameters for these type of all n-ary designs.     

Proper generalized neighbor designs in circular blocks

Generalized neighbor designs relax the condition of constancy on the number of times two treatments occur as neighbors in a design. In this paper, we constructed generalized neighbor designs in circular blocks of equal size. Catalogs of these designs for block size 5, 7 and 9 are also compiled. All the designs given here are binary.     

Optimal Block Designs With Interference Effects From Neighboring Units Under a Non Additive Model

Here, the optimality of block design with interference effect from neighboring unit under a general non additive model is investigated, which allows for the presence of interactions among the treatments applied in the adjacent plots. A non additive model with interference × direct effects of treatments is considered as these effects contribute significantly to the response. A class of complete block designs balanced for interference effects from left neighboring unit is shown to be universally optimal for the estimation of direct and interference effects of treatments and two such series of designs have been constructed. Furthermore, considering direct treatment × block non additivity with interference effects, the optimality is studied and the optimal designs are obtained.     

Some sufficient conditions for the type 1 optimality of block designs

In this paper, we investigate the problem of determining block designs which are optimal under type 1 optimality criteria within various classes of designs having υ treatments arranged in b blocks of size k. The solutions to two optimization problems are given which are related to a general result obtained by Cheng (1978) and which are useful in this investigation. As one application of the solutions obtained, the definition of a regular graph design given in Mitchell and John (1977) is extended to that of a semi-regular graph design and some sufficient conditions are derived for the existence of a semi-regular graph design which is optimal under a given type 1 criterion. A result is also given which shows how the sufficient conditions derived can be used to establish the optimality under a specific type 1 criterion of some particular types of semi- regular graph designs having both equal and unequal numbers of replicates. Finally,some sufficient conditions are obtained for the dual of an A- or D-optimal design to be A- or D-optimal within an appropriate class of dual designs.     

Optimal block designs for triallel cross experiments

Optimal block designs for a certain type of triallel cross experiments are investigated. Nested balanced block designs are introduced and it is shown how these designs give rise to optimal designs for triallel crosses. Several .series of nested balanced block designs, leading to optimal designs for triallel crosses are reported.     

A note on circular neighbor balanced designs

ABSTRACT

This paper describes some methods of constructing circular neighbor balanced and circular partially neighbor balanced block designs for estimation of direct and neighbor effects of the treatments. A class of circular neighbor balanced block designs with unequal block sizes is also proposed.     

Designs for cropping systems research

The present article establishes equivalence between extended group divisible (EGD) designs and designs for crop sequence experiments. This equivalence has encouraged the agricultural experimenters to use EGD designs for their experimentation. Some real life applications of EGD designs have been given. It has also been shown that several existing association schemes are special cases of EGD association scheme. Some methods of construction of EGD designs are also given. A catalogue of EGD designs obtainable through methods of construction along with efficiency factors of various factorial effects is also presented. In some crop sequence experiments that are conducted to develop suitable integrated nutrient supply system of a crop sequence, the treatments do not comprise of a complete factorial structure. The experimenter is interested in estimating the residual and direct effect of the treatments along with their cumulative effects. For such experimental settings block designs with two sets of treatments applied in succession are the appropriate designs. The correspondence established between row–column designs and block designs for two stage experiments by Parsad et al. [2003. Structurally incomplete row–column designs. Comm. Statist. Theory Methods 32(1), 239–261] has been exploited in obtaining designs for such experimental situations. Some open problems related to designing of crop sequence experiments are also given.     

On optimality properties of simple block designs in the approximate design theory

Optimality properties of approximate block designs are studied under variations of (1) the class of competing designs, (2) the optimality criterion, (3) the parametric function of interest, and (4) the statistical model. The designs which are optimal turn out to be the product of their treatment and block marginals, and uniform designs when the support is specified in advance. Optimality here means uniform, universal, and simultaneous j_p-optimality. The classical balanced incomplete block designs are embedded into this approach, and shown to be simultaneously j_p-optimal for a maximal system of identifiable parameters. A geometric account of universal optimality is given which applies beyond the context of block designs.     

Efficient designs based on orthogonal arrays of type I and type II for experiments using units ordered over time or space

For a wide variety of applications, experiments are based on units ordered over time or space. Models for these experiments generally may include one or more of: correlations, systematic trends, carryover effects and interference effects. Since the standard optimal block designs may not be efficient in these situations, orthogonal arrays of type I and type II, which were introduced in 1961 by C.R. Rao [Combinatorial arrangements analogous to orthogonal arrays, Sankhya A 23 (1961) 283–286], have been recently used to construct optimal and efficient designs for many of these experiments. Results in this area are unified and the salient features are outlined.     

On properties of efficiency-balanced designs

We consider a class of efficiency-balanced block designs which are design patterns for the analytical simplification of statistical analysis. This paper consists of eight sections which investigate various problems (such as, bounds on parameters, characterizations, existence and nonexistence, and dual designs) for efficiency-balanced block designs.     

REDUCED RESIDUE CLASSES CYCLIC PBIB DESIGNS

A new general class of m-class cyclic association scheme is defined for v treatments, where v is a composite number. A simple method of construction of PBIB designs having this association scheme using more than one initial block and some methods using only one initial block are proposed. A complete analysis of this type of PBIB designs is given. Also given is a list of 39 useful PBIB designs of this type having v≤15 and r≤10 and having only three associate classes together with their efficiency factors for all types of comparisons and over all efficiency factors.     

Optimality of circular neighbor-balanced designs for total effects with autoregressive correlated observations

This paper studies the optimality of circular neighbor-balanced designs (CNBDs) for total effects when the one-sided or two-sided neighbor effects are present in the model and the observation errors are correlated according to a first-order circular autoregressive (AR(1,C$C$)) process. Some optimality results under some specified conditions are provided and the efficiency of a CNBD relative to the optimal block design is investigated. In order to discuss the efficiency of a CNBD among all possible block designs with the same size, the optimal equivalence classes of sequences under the one-sided neighbor effects model are characterized and the efficiencies of CNBDs with blocks of small size are illustrated.     

Robustness group divisible designs

Robustness of group divisible (GD) designs is investigated, when one block is lost, in terms of efficiency of the residual design. The exact evaluation of the efficiency can be made for singular GD and semi-regular GD designs as ell as regular GD designs with λ₁ = 0. In a regular GD design with λ₁ > 0, the efficiency may depend upon the lost block and sharp upper and lower bounds on the efficiency are presented. The investigation shows that GD designs are fairly robust in terms of efficiency. As a special case, we can also show the robustness of balanced incomplete block design when one block is lost.