we develop a two phase sampling procedure to determine the sample size necessary to estimatethe population mean of a normally distributed random variable and show that the resulting estimator has preassigned variance and is unbiased under a regular condition. we present a necessary and sufficient condition under which the final sample mean is an unbiased estimator for the population mean.

inverse sampling design is generally considered to be appropriate technique when the population is divided into two subpopulations, one of which contains only few units. in this paper, we derive the horvitz-thompson estimator for the population mean under inverse sampling designs, where subpopulation sizes are known. we then introduce an alternative unbiased estimator, corresponding to post-str...

The sample frequency spectrum (SFS) is a widely-used summary statistic of genomic variation in a sample of homologous DNA sequences. It provides a highly efficient dimensional reduction of large-scale population genomic data and its mathematical dependence on the underlying population demography is well understood, thus enabling the development of efficient inference algorithms. However, it has...

Sample size estimation is an essential step in the design of clinical trials. For normal data, the calculation is based on estimates of the mean and variance of the treatment effect. These estimates are often unreliable because they are based on smaller studies, possibly looking at a different population than the one of interest. If the true treatment effect is overestimated and/or the variance...

Taylor's law (TL), which states that variance in population density is related to mean density via a power law, and density-mass allometry, which states that mean density is related to body mass via a power law, are two of the most widely observed patterns in ecology. Combining these two laws predicts that the variance in density is related to body mass via a power law (variance-mass allometry)...

Efficient designs are crucial for population genetic studies on forest species. In this study we employed individual based simulations aiming to evaluate what fraction of a population should be sampled to obtain confident estimations of allelic richness and of inbreeding coefficient in population genetic surveys. The simulations suggest that at least 10% of the total population has to be sample...