Sustainability, Vol. 11, Pages 7037: Application of Non-Parametric Bootstrap Confidence Intervals for Evaluation of the Expected Value of the Droplet Stain Diameter Following the Spraying Process (Sustainability)

In the era of sustainable agriculture, the issue of proper and precise implementation of agrotechnical operations, without harmful effects on the natural environment, begins to play an important role. Statistical tools also become important, for example, when assessing the malfunction of plant cultivation equipment. The study presents a comparison of six nonparametric bootstrap methods used for construction of confidence intervals for the expected value of an average diameter of droplet stains following the spraying process. The simulation tests were carried out based on experiment with nozzle sprayer Lechler 110-03 using two spray nozzles: a new one and an old one. It was assumed that the distribution of the droplet stain size was consistent with the lognormal distribution. The paper considers the influence of the sample size, mean value and standard deviation of the droplet stain diameter on the interval range as well as on the estimated coverage probabilities of the confidence intervals. It was shown that in general these methods can be applied for this purpose. For the double bootstrap method and the studentized method, the empirical confidence levels of the constructed intervals turned out to be less distinct than the assumed level but the lengths of these intervals were greater than the lengths of intervals obtained using the other four methods.