| Abstract: | We examine the efficiency of several sampling plans for use in certain agricultural, ecological and environmental studies. One concern for such studies is that plots that arephysically close might be more similar than distant plots. We considered sampling plansthat are designed to generate samples that represent the entire population while avoidingthe selection of units that provide essentially redundant information. All plans havethe property that they avoid the simultaneous selection of units that are, in some sense,neighboring units. By means of a simulation study, the efficiency of these plans iscompared to simple random Aampling Factors that influence the relative efficiencies areexamined. This is done for a number of different populations, representing variouspossible patterns for a response variable. |
