Approximate experimental design ($\xi ={\sum }_i{w}_i{\delta }_{x_i}$)

An approximate design is a probability measure on the design region, with weight $w_i$ specifying a proportion of observations at $x_i$. For $N$ independent observations and common error variance ${\sigma }^2$, a linear regression with vector $f(x)$ has normalized information matrix of an experimental design $M(\xi )=\int f(x)f(x{)}^{T}d\xi (x)$; its least-squares estimator has covariance ${\sigma }^{2}M(\xi {)}^{-1}/N$ when the allocations realize these proportions. Exact designs restrict $N{w}_i$ to integers.

The normalized information matrix for a homoscedastic linear regression model is the average outer product of its regressor vector. It is positive-definite precisely when the supported regressors span the parameter space. The full Fisher information matrix under normal errors is $NM(\xi )/{\sigma }^2$.

The sensitivity function is the normalized variance of a fitted regression mean. Its average under the design is the number $p$ of model coefficients, since $\int dd\xi =\mathrm{tr}(M^{-1}M)=p$. The directional derivative of $\log \det M$ towards a point mass at $x$ is $d(x,\xi )-p$.