This paper reviews the literature on Bayesian experimental design. A unified view of this topic is presented, based on a decision-theoretic approach. This framework casts criteria from the Bayesian literature of design as part of a single coherent approach. The decision-theoretic structure incorporates both linear and nonlinear design problems and it suggests possible new directions to the experimental design problem, motivated by the use of new utility functions. We show that, in some special cases of linear design problems, Bayesian solutions change in a sensible way when the prior distribution and the utility function are modified to allow for the specific structure of the experiment. The decision-theoretic approach also gives a mathematical justification for selecting the appropriate optimality criterion.

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Bayesian Experimental Design: A Review

Subjectivism has become the dominant philosophical foundation for Bayesian inference. Yet in practice, most Bayesian analyses are performed with so-called “noninformative” priors, that is, priors constructed by some formal rule. We review the plethora of techniques for constructing such priors and discuss some of the practical and philosophical issues that arise when they are used. We give special emphasis to Jeffreys's rules and discuss the evolution of his viewpoint about the interpretation of priors, away from unique representation of ignorance toward the notion that they should be chosen by convention. We conclude that the problems raised by the research on priors chosen by formal rules are serious and may not be dismissed lightly: When sample sizes are small (relative to the number of parameters being estimated), it is dangerous to put faith in any “default” solution; but when asymptotics take over, Jeffreys's rules and their variants remain reasonable choices. We also provide an annotated b...

The Selection of Prior Distributions by Formal Rules

This chapter provides an overview of recent developments in the design and analysis of cross-over trials. We first consider the analysis of the trial that compares two treatments, A and B, over two periods and where the subjects are randomized to the treatment sequences AB and BA. We make the distinction between fixed and random effects models and show how these models can easily be fitted using modern software. Issues with fitting and testing for a difference in carry-over effects are described and the use of baseline measurements is discussed. Simple methods for testing for a treatment difference when the data are binary are also described. Various designs with two or more treatments but with three or four periods are then described and compared. These include the balanced and partially balanced designs for three or more treatments and designs for factorial treatment combinations. Also described are nearly balanced and nearly strongly balanced designs. Random subject-effects models for the designs with two or more treatments are described and methods for analysing non-normal data are also given. The chapter concludes with a description of the use of cross-over designs in the testing of bioequivalence.

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Design and Analysis of Cross-Over Trials

Maximizing data information requires careful selection, termed design, of the points at which data are observed. Experimental design is reviewed here for broad classes of data collection and analysis problems, including: fractioning techniques based on orthogonal arrays, Latin hypercube designs and their variants for computer experimentation, efficient design for data mining and machine learning applications, and sequential design for active learning. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Experimental design

A uniform design (UD) seeks design points that are uniformly scattered on the domain. It has been popular since 1980. A survey of UD is given in the first portion: The fundamental idea and construction method are presented and discussed and examples are given for illustration. It is shown that UD's have many desirable properties for a wide variety of applications. Furthermore, we use the global optimization algorithm, threshold accepting, to generate UD's with low discrepancy. The relationship between uniformity and orthogonality is investigated. It turns out that most UD's obtained here are indeed orthogonal.

Uniform Design: Theory and Application

Asymptotically optimal weighing designs with string property

In a set-up, where both the interest parameter and the nuisance parameter are possibly multi-dimensional and global parametric orthogonality may not hold, we suggest a test that is superior to the usual likelihood ratio test with regard to second-order local maximinity. The test can be motivated from the principles of conditional and adjusted likelihood.

An extension of the conditional likelihood ratio test to the general multiparameter case

A-efficient designs for bioassays

Factorial and fractional factorial designs are widely used for assessing the impact of several factors on a process. Frequently, restrictions are placed on the randomization of the experimental trials. The randomization structure of such a factorial design can be characterized by its set of randomization defining contrast subspaces. It turns out that in many practical situations, these subspaces will overlap, thereby making it impossible to assess the significance of some of the factorial effects. In this article, we propose new designs that minimize the number of effects that have to be sacrificed. We also propose new designs, called stars, that are easy to construct and allow the assessment of a large number of factorial effects under an appropriately chosen overlapping strategy.

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Stars and regular fractional factorial designs with randomization restrictions

We consider second-order probability matching priors that ensure frequentist validity of posterior quantiles with margin of error o(n −1), where n is the sample size. It is well known that there are many models of interest where data-free second-order probability matching priors do not exist. We explore how this problem can be resolved via consideration of data-dependent priors. This is done both in the absence and presence of nuisance parameters.

Rahul Mukerjee

Papers

Asymptotically optimal weighing designs with string property

An extension of the conditional likelihood ratio test to the general multiparameter case

A-efficient designs for bioassays

Stars and regular fractional factorial designs with randomization restrictions

Data-dependent probability matching priors of the second order