 Solution

The least-squares estimator minimizes $(Y-Xb{)}^T(Y-Xb)$. Differentiation gives $X^{T}X\hat{\beta }=X^{T}Y$, and the full column rank of $X$ makes $X^{T}X$ positive definite. HenceThe fitted values are $\hat{Y}=X\hat{\beta }=HY$, where the hat matrix is $H=X(X^{T}X{)}^{-1}{X}^T$. The regression residuals are $\hat{\epsilon }=Y-\hat{Y}=(I-H)Y$. Since $H$ is the orthogonal projection matrix onto the column space of $X$, $(I-H)X=0$ andThis is a singular multivariate normal distribution supported on the $(n-p)$-dimensional orthogonal complement of the column space: its components are generally correlated. The equality $\hat{Y}=X\hat{\beta }$ puts the fitted vector in that column space, while $X^T\hat{\epsilon }=0$ expresses fitted-residual orthogonality. No residual component lies in an explanatory direction that could improve the least-squares fit.

For the calibration model, write $R_i$ for a reading and $a_i$ for the known amount. The first fit assumes $R_i=\alpha +\beta a_i+{\epsilon }_i$ with independent $N(0,{\sigma }^2)$ errors. Its residual-versus-fitted plot has systematic changes in group means and an increasing within-group spread. These suggest both a nonlinear mean relationship and heteroscedasticity, rather than the random scatter expected from a satisfactory normal linear model.

The Box–Cox transformation plot is a profile log-likelihood for the power parameter $\lambda$. Its maximum is near $0.94$; the horizontal line gives an approximate 95% likelihood-ratio confidence interval, which excludes the untransformed value $1$. Since affine rescaling of the response does not change the fitted mean space, fitting the raw power $R_i^{0.94}$ is equivalent to using $(R_i^{0.94}-1)/0.94$ with an intercept. The second model isIts residual spread is more even, but observation 17 has a conspicuously negative residual near $-9.95$. This motivates checking for an outlier or recording error. The third fit omits that observation; omission should be justified by that investigation, since choosing exclusions from residuals can affect inference. Some group pattern still remains, so the transformation alone does not certify a perfect model.

At an amount of $3$ nanograms, the third fit predicts the transformed meanSimply applying the inverse power gives ${\hat{m}}^{1/0.94}=118.5187$. The requested expected reading needs bias correction after an inverse transformation, since $\mathbb{E}[g(Z)]\ne g(\mathbb{E}[Z])$ for nonlinear $g$. With $q=1/0.94$ and $s=2.832$, a second-order Taylor expansion givesHere the correction uses the residual variance, rather than the variance of the estimated fitted mean. The power-transformed Gaussian model is an approximation for positive readings; the fitted mean is over 31 residual standard deviations above zero, so the negative tail has negligible effect on this local approximation. The ordinary inverse-transformed prediction is therefore essentially $118.52$ at the displayed precision.