Block design 2026-10-07
A block design assigns treatments to experimental units partitioned into blocks. Its incidence counts record how often treatment occurs in block . Balance and connectedness determine which treatment contrasts are estimable and how much adjustment for blocks costs.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 35 1 c i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Use a randomized complete block design, with day as block and each biological cell as an experimental unit. Each day should contain two biological cells at each of the five dose levels. Each level then has ten replicates overall and occurs equally often in every day: the resulting block design is an orthogonal block design.
This spreads any day-to-day changes in preparation, temperature or measurement across all levels instead of confounding dose with day. Treat the zero level as a control with otherwise comparable handling. Keep the treatment-to-measurement delay standardized because the response variable is a diffusion rate measured immediately after preparation.