There has been an enormous growth in recent years in the literature on discrete optimal designs. The optimality problems have been formulated in various models arising in the experimental designs and substantial progress has been made towards solving some of these. The subject has now reached a stage of completeness which calls for a self-contained monograph on this topic. The aim of this monograph is to present the state of the art and to focus on more recent advances in this rapidly developing area. We start with a discussion of statistical optimality criteria in Chapter One. Chapters Two and Three deal with optimal block designs. Row-column designs are dealt with in Chapter Four. In Chapter Five we deal with optimal designs with mixed effects models. Repeated measurement designs are considered in Chapter Six. Chapter Seven deals with some special situations and Weighing designs are dis cussed in Chapter Eight. We have endeavoured to include all the major developments that have taken place in the last three decades. The book should be of use to research workers in several areas including combinatorics as well as to the experimenters in diverse fields of applications. Since the details of the construction of the designs are available in excellent books, we have only pointed out the designs which have optimality proper ties. We believe, this will be adequate for the experimenters.

Prior to the 1970's a substantial literature had accumulated on the theory of optimal design, particularly of optimal linear regression design. To a certain extent the study of the subject had been piecemeal, different criteria of optimality having been studied separately. Also to a certain extent the topic was regarded as being largely of theoretical interest and as having little value for the practising statistician. However during this decade two significant developments occurred. It was observed that the various different optimality criteria had several mathematical properties in common; and general algorithms for constructing optimal design measures were developed. From the first of these there emerged a general theory of remarkable simplicity and the second at least raised the possibility that the theory would have more practical value. With respect to the second point there does remain a limiting factor as far as designs that are optimal for parameter estimation are concerned, and this is that the theory assumes that the model be collected is known a priori. This of course underlying data to is seldom the case in practice and it often happens that designs which are optimal for parameter estimation allow no possibility of model validation. For this reason the theory of design for parameter estimation may well have to be combined with a theory of model validation before its practical potential is fully realized. Nevertheless discussion in this monograph is limited to the theory of design optimal for parameter estimation.

Optimal Structural Design can be referred to as one of the most important and promising branches of applied mathematics and mechanics. This book reflects the culmination of Russian activity in the field of optimal structural design.

Theory Of Optimal Experiments

"This is an engaging and informative book on the modern practice of experimental design. The authors' writing style is entertaining, the consulting dialogs are extremely enjoyable, and the technical material is presented brilliantly but not overwhelmingly. The book is a joy to read. Everyone who practices or teaches DOE should read this book." - Douglas C. Montgomery, Regents Professor, Department of Industrial Engineering, Arizona State University "It's been said: 'Design for the experiment, don't experiment for the design.' This book ably demonstrates this notion by showing how tailor-made, optimal designs can be effectively employed to meet a client's actual needs. It should be required reading for anyone interested in using the design of experiments in industrial settings." —Christopher J. Nachtsheim, Frank A Donaldson Chair in Operations Management, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota This book demonstrates the utility of the computer-aided optimal design approach using real industrial examples. These examples address questions such as the following: How can I do screening inexpensively if I have dozens of factors to investigate? What can I do if I have day-to-day variability and I can only perform 3 runs a day? How can I do RSM cost effectively if I have categorical factors? How can I design and analyze experiments when there is a factor that can only be changed a few times over the study? How can I include both ingredients in a mixture and processing factors in the same study? How can I design an experiment if there are many factor combinations that are impossible to run? How can I make sure that a time trend due to warming up of equipment does not affect the conclusions from a study? How can I take into account batch information in when designing experiments involving multiple batches? How can I add runs to a botched experiment to resolve ambiguities? While answering these questions the book also shows how to evaluate and compare designs. This allows researchers to make sensible trade-offs between the cost of experimentation and the amount of information they obtain.

Principles of Optimal Design puts the concept of optimal design on a rigorous foundation and demonstrates the intimate relationship between the mathematical model that describes a design and the solution methods that optimize it. Since the first edition was published, computers have become ever more powerful, design engineers are tackling more complex systems, and the term optimization is now routinely used to denote a design process with increased speed and quality. This second edition takes account of these developments and brings the original text thoroughly up to date. The book now includes a discussion of trust region and convex approximation algorithms. A new chapter focuses on how to construct optimal design models. Three new case studies illustrate the creation of optimization models. The final chapter on optimization practice has been expanded to include computation of derivatives, interpretation of algorithmic results, and selection of algorithms and software. Both students and practising engineers will find this book a valuable resource for design project work.