Bikas Sinha : Estimating the size of a population comprising of individuals with indirect accessibility

Posted by Ryan Martin , part of the Statistics and Data Science Seminar.

At

Sept. 17, 2014, 4 p.m.

In

SEO 636

Abstract

Considered is the problem of estimation of the size of a finite labeled population. However, the units of the population are not directly accessible. This is a well defined finite population of Reference Units (RUs) and these RUs may be accessed directly. As against this, the former population is referred to as that of Ultimate Units (UUs). Further to this, there is a well defined network connecting the population of RUs to that of the UUs. A sample of RUs will naturally create a partial view of the population network. Based on this sample network, it is required to unbiasedly estimate the size of the population of UUs. We review the literature (which is scanty anyway) and provide some suggestions towards satisfactory acceptable solutions to this fascinating problem.