ABSTRACT
This chapter describes sampling designs that can be used for estimating an absolute quantity β(Y ) such as the volume, surface area or length of the feature of interest Y .
It is assumed that Y is a fixed and arbitrary set, the entire reference space or containing space Z is available for sampling, and the probe T is randomised; thus we are in the Restricted case of stereological inference, see Sections 6.2 and 6.6. The estimation of absolute quantities is also of interest in the Extended case, but then the estimation is usually performed via intermediate ratios. That topic is treated in Chapter 9.
