QUEEN MARY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON MTH6116

Assignment 6

Design of Experiments
For discussion on 2nd March 2012

Work on your solutions beforehand so you can participate in the discussion. 1 In a toxicology experiment, the toxin bromobenzene is administered to rats. The toxicologist is interested in how the body deals with the toxin over time. For example, if the toxin aects normal liver function, does the liver ever return to normal? If so, when? (a) Three doses (low, medium and high) of the toxin are each diluted in a standard quantity of corn oil. Nine rats are fed each dose. Nine further rats are fed the same quantity of corn oil, with no added bromobenzene, and nine more have no addition to their normal diet. Six hours after administration of the corn oil (or nothing), three rats are randomly chosen from each group of nine: they are sacriced, and their liver extracted and measured. Same thing happens at 24 and 48 hours after administration. (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) What are the experimental units? What are the observational units? What are the treatments? Explain why some corn oil is used without bromobenzene.

(b) Another scientist suggests that measurements on the rats urine can provide just as much information as measurements on their livers. Then there is no need to sacrice rats. Moreover, the experiment can be run using only fteen rats, three for each of the ve diets. A sample of urine will be taken from each rat at six, 24 and 48 hours after administration. (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) What are the experimental units? What are the observational units? What are the treatments? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this design compared to the design in part (a).

2 In an agricultural eld experiment, ve fertiliser treatments were tested in a randomised block design with three replicate blocks. The experiment yielded the following data (recorded in non-standard units of measurement):

Treatment

I A 10 B 17 C 10 D 13 E 20

Block II III 13 13 15 16 15 14 * 17 17 20

(a) Outline at least three methods for estimating the missing value (denoted by an asterisk). (b) Use one of your methods, estimate the missing value and then perform an analysis of variance by a method that is in general, approximate.