A Technique for Detecting the Number of Populations Falling Within a Total Sample.

摘要

Observations arrive in a sequence such that the first observation is taken from population 1, the second from population 2,..., the kth from population k, the k+1 st from population 1, the k+2 nd from population 2, etc.; i.e., the observations arrive in cycles of length k. A total of N observations is taken and we wish to estimate k. A technique, motivated by Analysis of Variance considerations, is suggested. It is examined with respect to an extensive simulation study which reveals its performance to be better than expected and better than two possible competitors. (Author)