Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2003 iii Paper 42 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Write the binary incidence matrix of a set system as to avoid confusing it with a sample size. Thencounts the number of blocks containing treatment , and for , counts blocks containing both treatments. The displayed structure therefore makes every treatment replication equal to and every pair concurrence equal to .
Assume the usual nonempty block design, with and . If , any block containing one treatment contains every other treatment: otherwise that treatment's replication would exceed its concurrence with the omitted one. Every block is consequently complete, so and . With random allocation within blocks this is a randomized complete block design. If , the design is a balanced incomplete block design. Counting partners of a fixed treatment in its blocks givesFor , gives , hence . Moreover has eigenvalue on the -dimensional zero-sum subspace and eigenvalue on the constant direction. Thus , while . This proves , the Fisher's inequality for block designs. The case allows singleton blocks; their lack of connectedness prevents general treatment comparison after block adjustment, but does not invalidate the rank inequality.
First ignore the day information and use a one-way normal linear model with five group means and independent errors of common variance. There are observations. The analysis of variance has treatment, residual and corrected-total statistical degrees of freedom , respectively. The mean squares in ANOVA giveUnder equal treatment means this has the F-distribution with degrees. It exceeds the given upper critical value , so the unblocked analysis rejects equality at .
The actual day allocation omits a different treatment on each of the five days. Hence it is a balanced incomplete block design withEvery pair occurs on exactly the three days omitting neither member. In the additive two-way analysis of variance, use an intercept, four independent treatment contrasts and four day contrasts. The design is connected, so the model rank is and its residual has statistical degrees of freedom. Day effects and treatment effects are not orthogonal, because a different treatment is absent each day; the unadjusted treatment sum of squares cannot be used for the adjusted test.
Enter days first and then treatments. The supplied sequential sums of squares giveThe day, treatment-after-day, residual and corrected-total statistical degrees of freedom are . Under the additive normal linear model and the null of equal treatment effects, the adjusted numerator and residual squared lengths are independent chi-squared quantities, so the ratio has the F-distribution with degrees. It is below even the given critical value . After accounting for days there is no significant treatment difference at either or . This inference assumes independent homoscedastic normal errors and an additive day effect; with one observation per observed treatment–day cell, unrestricted interactions cannot also be fitted.