Theory of factorial designs of the parallel flats type. I: The coefficient matrix (Q2266325)

This paper deals with developing a general theory of factorial designs of the parallel flats type. The authors use certain kinds of alias component matrices to partition the information matrix X(n\(\times \nu)\), occurring in the corresponding linear model, into components \(X_{0j}(j=0,1,...,g)\) such that X is the direct sum of the \(X'_{0j}X_{0j}\). Here \(\nu\) is the number of parameters, which consist of possibly (\(\mu)\), and a general set of factorial effects (each carrying (s-1) degrees of freedom, with s representing the number of elements in the finite field GF(s)). For \(j\neq 0\), it is shown that the spectrum of \(X'_{0j}X_{0j}\) does not change under a change of the usual definition of the effects. Finally, it is shown that \(X_{0j}\) and \(X'_{oj}X_{0j}\) can be studied in terms of certain relatively small sized matrices over R, where R is a certain ring introduced using GF(s) and the additive groups of the rational field.