ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of concepts and results that are used throughout the book. Section 2.2 contains an introduction to random effects models and describes functions of variance components to be considered. The next two sections present some basic notions concerning confidence intervals. Section 2.3 provides a brief discussion of statistical inference with special emphasis on the advantages of confidence intervals and Section 2.4 discusses simultaneous confidence intervals. Section 2.5 describes the notation used in the book and illustrates the use of the tables contained in Appendix A. These tables are used in Sections 2.6 and 2.7 to provide confidence intervals on variances for one and two normal populations.
