A general unbalanced ranked-set sample consists of independent order statis
tics each of which is out of a subsample from a common population. Such dat
a can arise from two situations: (a) a designed ranked-set sampling (RSS) a
nd (b) certain experimental process, e.g., the r-out-of-k systems in life t
esting experiments. There is no well accepted approach available so far in
the literature for the effective analysis of such data. In this article, we
develop methods for making inferences on various features of the populatio
n such as quantile, distribution function and moments etc., based on data o
f the above nature. The asymptotic properties of the methods are well estab
lished. Some simulation results are also provided for the vindication of th
e methods.