This paper discusses whether differences in the data structure of observational and experimental studies should lead to different strategies for variable selection. On the one hand, it is argued that outliers in the predictor variables have to be treated differently in the two kinds of studies....

We consider maximin and Bayesian D-optimal designs for nonlinear regression models. The maximin criterion requires the specification of a region for the nonlinear parameters in the model, while the Bayesian optimality criterion assumes that a prior distribution for these parameters is available....