Advanced Row-Column Designs for Test Vs Single Control Comparisons in Animal Experiments

Authors

  • Anindita Datta ICAR-Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, New Delhi, India
  • Seema Jaggi Krishi Anusandhan Bhawan, ICAR, New Delhi, India
  • Cini Varghese ICAR-Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, New Delhi, India
  • Eldho Varghese ICAR – Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Cochin, India
  • Arpan Bhowmik ICAR – Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Assam, India
  • Mohd Harun ICAR-Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, New Delhi, India
  • Med Ram Verma ICAR-Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, New Delhi, India

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13052/jrss0974-8024.1915

Keywords:

Row-column designs, Test Vs Control, Partially balanced

Abstract

In animal studies where experimental units are influenced by two sources of variation, row-column designs are commonly employed. When there is a large number of treatments but limited experimental resources, Generalized Row-Column (GRC) designs become useful. These designs enable multiple experimental units at each row-column intersection, optimizing resource use. Historically, GRC designs have been focused on supporting all possible pairwise comparisons among treatments. However, in many biomedical or pharmaceutical experiments, the main goal is not to compare all treatments, but rather to evaluate new (test) treatments against a standard (control) treatment. In such situations, the emphasis is placed on estimating the treatment-control contrast as precisely as possible. To meet this need, we introduce a balanced version of GRC designs specifically for treatment-control comparisons, and we propose a class of partially balanced GRC designs. These modifications aim to improve the precision of contrast estimation between test and control treatments, while still ensuring structural balance within rows and columns.

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Author Biographies

Anindita Datta, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, New Delhi, India

Anindita Datta is a Scientist in the Division of Design of Experiments at the ICAR-Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, New Delhi. She handled 8 research projects including those funded by NAHEP. She has published around 50 research papers in international/national journals of high repute. She has received the ‘Jawaharlal Nehru Award for P.G. Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research in Agricultural and Allied Sciences 2017 of ICAR and Dr. G.R. Seth Young Scientist memorial awards of Indian Society of Agricultural Statistics. She has been involved in teaching Agricultural Statistics for the last 9 years to M.Sc. and Ph. D. students of PG School, IARI, Delhi. She has organized many training programmes and workshops as coordinator/co-coordinator. Her research areas of interest are ‘Construction and analysis of designs for various experimental situations in agriculture’ and ‘Web generation and analysis of experimental designs’.

Seema Jaggi, Krishi Anusandhan Bhawan, ICAR, New Delhi, India

Seema Jaggi is currently serving as Assistant Director General (Human Resource Development) in the Agricultural Education Division of ICAR, a position she has held since April 2021. Her career at ICAR–IASRI includes serving as Scientist (1992–1997), Scientist (Senior Scale) (1997–2001), Senior (2001–2008), and Principal Scientist (2009 onwards). She also worked as Professor (Agricultural Statistics) from 2014 to 2021 and as Officiating Head, Division of Design of Experiments, from 2015 to 2021. She has received numerous awards, including the ICAR Panjabrao Deshmukh Outstanding Woman Scientist Award (2017), ICAR Bharat Ratna Dr. C. Subramaniam Award for Outstanding Teachers (2013), INSA Teacher Award (2015), ISAS Sankhyiki Bhushan Award (2022), and several others recognizing her contributions to teaching, research, and publication. Her major research areas include Agricultural Statistics, Design of Experiments, Statistical Computing, and Agricultural Education.

Cini Varghese, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, New Delhi, India

Cini Varghese is a Principal Scientist in the Division of Design of Experiments at the ICAR-Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, New Delhi. She has handled 24 research projects including those funded by Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi, AP Cess fund as well as National fund of ICAR. She is Professor in the discipline of Agricultural Statistics and has been involved in teaching Agricultural Statistics for the last 27 years to M.Sc. and Ph. D. students of PG School, IARI, New Delhi. She has guided eight M.Sc. students and six Ph.D. students as Chairperson. She has organized many training programmes and workshops as coordinator/co-coordinator. Her research areas of interest are ‘Construction and analysis of designs for various experimental situations in agriculture’. She has published around 195 research papers in international/national journals of high repute and developed a number of software packages. She has received the ‘Lal Bahadur Shastri Young Scientist Award’ of ICAR for her outstanding contributions in the field of Social Sciences.

Eldho Varghese, ICAR – Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Cochin, India

Eldho Varghese is a Senior Scientist in the Fishery Resources Assessment, Economics and Extension Division at ICAR–CMFRI, Kochi, a position he has held since 2022. He previously served as Scientist at ICAR–IASRI, New Delhi (2010–2017), and at ICAR–CMFRI, Kochi (2017–2019). He has received several honours, including the IARI Merit Medal (2012), Lal Bahadur Shastri Outstanding Young Scientist Award (2017), NAAS Young Scientist Award (2017–18), and NAAS Associateship (2023). He is Associate Editor of Model Assisted Statistics and Applications since 2012 and served as Honorary Joint Secretary of the Indian Society of Agricultural Statistics (2020–2023). He is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute and has represented India in expert committees and international meetings, including BOBP-IGO–FAO (2023) and the IOTC-FAO 20WPDCS (2024). His key research areas include Agricultural Statistics, Design of Experiments, Statistical Computing, Fish Stock Assessment, and Deep Learning Models.

Arpan Bhowmik, ICAR – Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Assam, India

Arpan Bhowmik is a Senior Scientist at ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Gogamukh, Dhemaji, Assam. He previously served as Scientist at ICAR–IASRI, New Delhi (2012–2022). He has received several honours, including NAAS Associateship-2025, Best Scientist of the year-2024-25 at IARI Assam, IARI Merit Medal for Ph.D., International Travel Support for Young Scientist from SERB, DST, GOI for attending III LACSC at University of Costa Rica in 2018, Dr. G.R. Seth Memorial Young Scientist Award from Indian Society of Agricultural Statistics. He published more than 150 research papers in various national and international journals.

Mohd Harun, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, New Delhi, India

Mohd Harun is working as Scientist at ICAR-Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute for more than 9 years. His major expertise is in Design of Experiments. His area of research includes Block Designs, Row-Column Designs, Mating Designs, Screening Designs, space-filling designs, etc. He has Published more than 60 research papers; several popular articles, R-Packages, SAS macros. He is the recipient of GR Seth Memorial young scientist award, Dr R.K. Arora Best Paper Award, Nehru Memorial Gold Medal. He has organized many training programmes, workshop, etc.

Med Ram Verma, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, New Delhi, India

Med Ram Verma is presently working as a Head, Division of Design of Experiments, ICAR-IASRI, Pusa, New Delhi since July 2023. He joined Agricultural Research Service in 2003. He joined ICAR-IVRI, Izatnagar Bareilly as a Senior Scientist in December 2009. He guided 4 Ph.D. and 10 M.V.Sc. students in the discipline of Biostatistics. He was awarded with “Best Teacher Award” by IVRI Deemed University in 2016. He was awarded with “Bharat Ratna Dr. C. Subramaniam Award for Outstanding Teachers” in 2019 by ICAR. He is the Fellow of Indian Society of Agricultural Statistics and Elected Member of International Statistical Institute, Netherlands. He is the Editorial Board Member and reviewer of the several journals. He published 260 research papers with total citations 2923 (h index 28 and i-10 Index 76).

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Published

2026-01-22

How to Cite

Datta, A. ., Jaggi, S. ., Varghese, C. ., Varghese, E. ., Bhowmik, A. ., Harun, M. ., & Verma, M. R. . (2026). Advanced Row-Column Designs for Test Vs Single Control Comparisons in Animal Experiments. Journal of Reliability and Statistical Studies, 19(01), 101–118. https://doi.org/10.13052/jrss0974-8024.1915

Issue

2026: Vol 19 Iss 1

Section

Articles