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  Fractional factorial designs have received considerable attention in the last twenty five years due to their applicability in a wide variety of situations. These have been successfully used for planning experiments in agriculture, physical and chemical sciences, medicine and industry and have been found very useful in quality improvement work. The literature on this subject is already voluminous and continues to grow. In this article, an overview of some of the recent developments in this area is presented. Keywords : Resolution, Minimum aberration, Estimation capacity, Blocking, Optimality.

  In this paper, spatial model for small area estimation described in Chandra et al. (2007) has been studied under Hierarchical Bayes (HB) framework and small area HB estimates for means have been obtained using Gibbs sampling. In this framework, small area mean is estimated by its posterior mean and posterior variance of the small area mean is used as a measure of precision of the estimate. Note that the proposed estimators automatically takes into account the extra uncertainty associated with the hyper-parameters in the model. The performance of the proposed estimators was evaluated via simulation studies. Our empirical results show that proposed method is efficient than the existing methods. Further, we examined three types of spatial weighting function to incorporate the spatial effects. In addition, we also did sensitivity analysis of the small area means estimators by the choice of different priors. Sensitivity analysis indicates that prior choice has impact on variance estimates. Keywords: SAR model, Prior sensitivity, Hierarchical Bayes, Gibbs sampling.

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  A method of construction of block designs for partial triallel crosses for p > 3 lines is proposed by using the mutually orthogonal Latin squares of order p, where p is a prime or power of a prime. Optimality of these designs is discussed by using the approach of Das and Gupta (1997). Keywords: Latin square, Mutually orthogonal Latin square, Partial triallel cross, Mating design.

  It has been observed that the two basic Lagrangian distributions, the Consul distribution of Consul (1983) and the Geeta distribution of Consul (1990) are nothing but the particular cases of shifted generalized negative binomial distribution (GNBD) of Jain and Consul (1971). The two distributions do not have identities separate from that of the GNBD and so the various properties of these two distributions can easily be deduced from those of the GNBD. A number of other such particular distributions of the GNBD may also be obtained. Keywords: Generalized geometric distribution, Generalized negative binomial distribution, Particular cases, Shifted distribution.

  Irrigation water provisioning is a complex undertaking. Most large-scale irrigation projects are multi-purpose in nature. These projects have been built over a long period of time and still providing service even after they have lived their economic life. The provisioning and use of irrigation water are associated with a number of externalities?both economic and environmental?whose costs have to be borne by the governments or the society. Irrigation water use is also associated with significant opportunity costs. Given these intricacies associated with irrigation water, estimating the cost of irrigation water is not easy. Several issues need to be resolved. How should the capital costs of irrigation be apportioned in multi-purpose projects? Should the capital cost of existing infrastructure be treated as a sunk cost? If not, how much of the capital cost invested in irrigation projects during the last several decades should be accounted for? How should the opportunity cost of irrigation water be measured? Should the cost of externalities be counted when estimating the cost of irrigation? Are the necessary data available to estimate these costs? Does a clear conceptual framework exist to estimate various costs? As on the cost side, there are similar questions on the revenue-realization side also. Are farmers the only beneficiaries of irrigation water infrastructure? Should farmers pay for all the costs of irrigation? Are there any other revenues for the government from the impoundment and sale of irrigation water? Are enough data available to estimate revenues? Answering the above questions is not easy. Given the complexities surrounding the estimation of the costs of irrigation water and the revenue realized therefrom, one wonders if these complexities in the estimation of costs and revenues have been addressed in the available estimates of irrigation subsidies. A consensus on a working and widely acceptable definition of subsidies, and their methods of measurement, is important, if subsidies are to be measured in a way that makes their estimates more meaningful, transparent, comparable and useful across nations. The present paper attempts to provide a conceptual and methodological framework so that more comparable estimates of subsidy could be derived. Keywords: Irrigation, Cost, Revenue, Multipurpose projects, Joint cost, Subsidy.

  Crop production statistics for smaller geographical (or small area) levels like Community Development Block level (Block) or Gram Panchayat (GP) level are in great demand to make area-specific plans for agricultural development programmes in India. The crop production estimates in the country are obtained through scientifically designed Crop Cutting Experiments (CCEs) conducted under the General Crop Estimation Survey. Large number of CCEs are conducted annually for producing reliable estimates of crop production of different crops at the district level. If reasonably precise estimates are required for further smaller geographical levels such as Block or GP level, the number of CCEs is expected to increase enormously. However, conducting requisite number of area specific CCEs is neither operationally feasible nor it is economically viable. In this paper we explore an alternative approach for estimation of crop production at Block level. The proposed approach uses available District level data from CCEs and the auxiliary information from various administrative sources to obtain a reliable estimate of crop production at Block level. An empirical study with wheat production data of Barabanki district of the State of Uttar Pradesh, India shows that approach works well and provides reliable estimates at Block level. Keywords : Development block, Crop cutting experiments, Crop-production estimates.

  Several forms of the Gompertz growth curve have been used extensively to describe the live weight of poultry over time. This note reviews these current forms of the Gompertz curve and also presents a new parameterization which is particularly useful for broiler chickens. Broiler chickens are processed well before attaining their asymptotic weight, and hence their time series data have a relatively short time span compared to other poultry. The three parameters associated with the new model, all of which are insightful for broilers, are (i) the time of maximum growth, (ii) the rate of maximum growth and (iii) the weight at time of maximum growth. The estimation of these parameters directly from the new model facilitates the subsequent statistical analysis. The model and statistical analysis are illustrated with data on chicken separately for each gender, aiding comparisons. Both genders have similar times of maximum growth, however the males have a significantly larger weight at this time, and a larger maximum rate of growth. The newly parameterized Gompertz model, with its new focus for analyzing growth curves, may be applied to other poultry such as turkey, duck and goose as well. Keywords : Logistic growth curve, Richards growth curve, Reparameterization, Autocorrelation, Point of inflection, Laird model.

  Sensitivity analysis is the study of how the given composite index depends upon the information fed into it. In this paper, methodological issues for sensitivity analysis of various indicators of composite index have been reviewed and sensitivity analysis using empirical method of variance-based technique has been proposed. The proposed method has been used for sensitivity analysis of indicators and sub indices of Agricultural Development Index (ADI) constructed for all 38 districts of Bihar State. Sensitivity analysis has also been carried out using a software namely SIMLAB, that is especially designed for sensitivity analysis. The results of sensitivity analysis using empirical method of variance-based technique have been compared with the results obtained using SIMLAB software. It has been observed that ADI was highly sensitive to Infrastructure index followed by Output index and Input index as per analysis using both the approaches. Keywords : Indicator, Composite index, Sensitivity analysis, Variance-based technique.

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  In this article we describe an application of small area estimation techniques to derive district level estimates of crop yield for paddy in the State of Uttar Pradesh using the data on crop cutting experiments supervised under Improvement of Crop Statistics (ICS) scheme and the secondary data from Population Census. The results show considerable improvement in the estimates generated by using small area estimation method. Keywords : Crop cutting experiments, General crop estimation surveys, Improvement of Crop Statistics, District level estimates, Small area estimation, Census.

  Partial Diallel Cross (PDC) plans can be used advantageously in breeding experiments to investigate the genetic properties of inbred lines involved in the crosses. The association schemes of Partially Balanced Incomplete Block (PBIB) designs have been used in the literature for obtaining PDC plans. With the advancement in web technology, it is desirable to generate PDC plans on web so that it is easily accessible to the statisticians and breeders. This paper describes a software, named webPDC (available at http://nabg.iasri.res.in/webpdc), developed for generation of PDC plans based on association schemes of PBIB designs. The software also analyzes the data obtained on PDC plan laid out in a Randomized Complete Block (RCB) design. Keywords : Association scheme, Mating design, Partial diallel cross, Partially balanced incomplete block design, Web generation.

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