title: On the design of closed recapture experiments.
abstract: We propose a method to plan the number of occasions of recapture experiments for population size estimation. We do so by fixing the smallest number of capture occasions so that the expected length of the profile confidence interval is less than or equal to a fixed threshold. In some cases, we solve the optimization problem in closed form. For more complex models we use numerical optimization. We detail models assuming homogeneous, time-varying, subject-specific capture probabilities, behavioral response to capture, and combining behavioral response with subject-specific effects. The principle we propose can be extended to plan any other model specification. We formally show the validity of the approach by proving distributional convergence. We illustrate with simulations and challenging examples in epidemiology and ecology. We report that in many cases adding as few as two sampling occasions may substantially reduce the length of confidence intervals.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health and Infectious Diseases, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro, 5, 00185 Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Danilo
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Alunni Fegatelli
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health and Infectious Diseases, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro, 5, 00185 Rome, Italy. alessio.farcomeni@uniroma1.it.
authors.forename: Alessio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Farcomeni
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004463:Ecology / Q000379:methods*; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D008954:Models, Biological; D015233:Models, Statistical; D011156:Population Density; D011336:Probability; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
keywords: Planning of experiments; Population size estimation; Profile confidence interval