Ebook: Statistical Design

Although statistical design is one of the oldest branches of statistics, its importance is ever increasing, especially in the face of the data flood that often faces statisticians. It is important to recognize the appropriate design, and to understand how to effectively implement it, being aware that the default settings from a computer package can easily provide an incorrect analysis. The goal of this book is to describe the principles that drive good design, paying attention to both the theoretical background and the problems arising from real experimental situations. Designs are motivated through actual experiments, ranging from the timeless agricultural randomized complete block, to microarray experiments, which naturally lead to split plot designs and balanced incomplete blocks.

George Casella is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of Florida. He is active in many aspects of statistics, having contributed to theoretical statistics in the areas of decision theory and statistical confidence, to environmental statistics, and has more recently concentrated efforts in statistical genomics. He also maintains active research interests in the theory and application of Monte Carlo and other computationally intensive methods. He is listed as an ISI "Highly

Cited Researcher."

In other capacities, Professor Casella has served as Theory and Methods Editor of the Journal of the American Statistical Association, 1996-1999, Executive Editor of Statistical Science, 2001-2004, and Co-Editor of the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B, 2009-2012. He has served on the Board of Mathematical Sciences of the National Research Council, 1999-2003, and many committees of both the American Statistical Association and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. Professor Casella has co-authored five textbooks: Variance Components, 1992; Theory of Point Estimation, Second Edition, 1998; Monte Carlo Statistical Methods, Second Edition, 2004; Statistical Inference, Second Edition, 2001, and Statistical Genomics of Complex Traits, 2007.

---

Statistical design is one of the fundamentals of our subject, being at the core of the growth of statistics during the previous century. Design played a key role in agricultural statistics and set down principles of good practic, principles that still apply today. Statistical design is all about understanding where the variance comes from, and making sure that is where the replication is. Indeed, it is probably correct to say that these principles are even more important today.