Analysis of variance for a Latin square 2026-10-14
For one response per cell in an order- Latin square, fit an intercept and additive row, column and treatment effects with sum-to-zero constraints. Each factor contributes statistical degrees of freedom; the residual has . The centered factor spaces are mutually orthogonal, so sequential sums of squares do not depend on fitting order. With an additional orthogonal symbol factor from a Graeco-Latin square, residual statistical degrees of freedom become . Exact F-tests require independent equal-variance normal errors; unmodeled interactions can invalidate the error term.
Balanced incomplete block design 2026-10-14
A binary block design has treatments, blocks of size , every treatment in blocks, and every distinct pair in blocks. Counting occurrences and pairs gives and . Its incidence matrix of a set system satisfies . For statistical comparison of all treatment effects one also needs connectedness; guarantees it, whereas singleton blocks with do not.
Block design Created 2026-10-07 Updated 2026-10-14
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.
Blocks in experimental design Created 2026-10-07 Updated 2026-10-14
A block groups experimental units expected to have similar background responses. Comparing treatments within blocks can reduce the variance of an estimator. Block allocation must be specified before responses are used to evaluate treatment effects.
Carryover effect 2026-10-07
A carryover effect is an effect of a previous treatment on a later response. Balanced transitions help prevent a treatment from being preceded disproportionately by one particular alternative, but do not ensure that carryover effects vanish or are separately identifiable in every model.
Completely randomized design 2026-10-07
A completely randomized design assigns treatments directly to available experimental units using complete randomization, without blocking. Fixed group sizes can be enforced. The residual then includes uncontrolled between-unit variation.
Crossover design 2026-10-07
A crossover design assigns each subject a sequence of treatments in successive periods. Subject blocking can reduce between-subject variation; balanced sequences can separate treatment from period effects. A carryover effect or irreversible change can invalidate a simple within-subject comparison.
Design of experiments Created 2026-10-07 Updated 2026-10-14
Design of experiments chooses experimental units, treatments, replication, blocks in experimental design and randomization so that scientifically useful treatment contrasts can be estimated with meaningful standard errors. Allocation determines which measurements supply independent treatment information.
Experimental unit 2026-10-07
An experimental unit is a unit to which a treatment is assigned under the experimental allocation. A whole orchard can be an experimental unit even when responses are recorded separately on its trees. Different factors in a split-plot design can have different experimental units.
Instrumental variable 2026-09-28
An instrumental variable changes an exposure or treatment but affects the outcome only through that exposure. Together, instrument relevance, instrumental-variable independence, and the exclusion restriction identify causal effects under suitable structural assumptions.
Latin square 2026-10-14
A Latin square of order is a array of symbols, each occurring once in each row and column. Used as a row-column design, its symbols label treatments. Centered treatment indicators are orthogonal to both row and column indicators, because every row-treatment and column-treatment pair occurs once. This balance separates additive effects from two nuisance directions.
Nested measurements 2026-10-18
Nested measurements are responses grouped inside larger units, with each measured object belonging to just one such unit. Three leaves within each pot give nested measurements; repeatedly reading one leaf gives another level of repetition. Either can yield clustered data. A common random effect can describe the shared influence of the containing experimental unit.
For the constructed pot example, label treatments by , pots within each group by , and leaves within each pot by . Consider the statistical modelHere is a leaf length, is its group expected value, is a pot random effect, and describes remaining variation among leaves and measurement error. Assume that all pot random effects are mutually independent, all remaining errors are mutually independent, and the two collections are independent of one another and of the randomization. These are explicit modelling assumptions, conditional on the assigned treatments; no normal distribution assumption is needed for the following variance calculation.
Two distinct leaf measurements in one pot share . Their covariance is , their individual variance is , and their intraclass correlation coefficient isMeasurements from different pots have zero covariance and are independent under the stated statistical model. Statistical independence therefore concerns the whole response structure, not just the fact that the measured leaves are different objects.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2002 iii Paper 39 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
A randomized complete block design groups similar experimental units into experimental blocks and places every treatment once in each experimental block, independently randomizing treatment allocation within experimental blocks. Blocking removes background between-block variation from within-block treatment comparisons. A balanced incomplete block design has treatments and experimental blocks of size , with each treatment occurring in experimental blocks and every distinct treatment pair together in experimental blocks. Counting treatment occurrences and co-occurrences gives and .
A Latin square of order places each of treatment symbols once in every row and every column of a array. This controls two nuisance directions. A Graeco-Latin square superposes two mutually orthogonal Latin squares: each square is Latin, and each ordered pair of symbols from the two squares occurs exactly once. The two symbol factors can then be fitted together with row and column effects. Random permutations of row labels, column labels and treatment symbols provide a suitable randomized allocation without destroying these balances.
For the operator experiment, fit the additive normal linear modelHere account for the two fabric directions, and is the operator effect. Additivity, independent equal-variance errors and the normal assumption supply the exact F-test; there is only one observation per cell, so an unrestricted interaction model is not available.
In the analysis of variance for a Latin square, the three centered factor spaces each have dimension . Together with the intercept the model has rank ten, leaving residual statistical degrees of freedom. The corrected total has . The completed calculation isUnder the null hypothesis , the operator F-statistic isThe upper five-percent critical value for is , so the operator effect is not significant at five percent in this model.
The decision is independent of the order of fitting rows, columns and operators. To prove the required orthogonality, let be any centered row coefficients and any centered operator coefficients. Their observation-space inner product is , since every operator occurs once in each row. The same calculation applies to columns and operators, and all row-column pairs occur once as well. Thus the three centered spaces are mutually orthogonal; their projections commute and sequential sums of squares equal adjusted sums of squares in every fitting order.
With machines included, the layout is a Graeco-Latin square: the machine symbols are Latin, and all sixteen operator-machine pairs occur exactly once. Fitin addition to the earlier constraints. The machine space contributes three new statistical degrees of freedom and is orthogonal to the previous factor spaces, so the operator sum of squares remains . The residual sum of squares and statistical degrees of freedom becomeHenceThis exceeds but not . Therefore the operator effect is now significant at five percent, but not at one percent. Adjustment for machines has removed substantial residual variation without altering the operator numerator. This illustrates why a balanced nuisance factor can change precision and significance even when it does not change the estimated treatment contrasts.