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Part 7A Review
by David Coleman and Lynn Vanatta
With the publication of the previous installment (American Laboratory, July 2003), this series of
articles has arrived at a logical
spot for reviewing what has been
presented to date. The past material can be considered introductory for exploring the main task in
calibration studies (i.e., diagnosing or analyzing the calibration
data to determine the appropriate
model and its inherent uncertainties). Before proceeding to this
next topic (which will be discussed in considerable detail), it
seems prudent to summarize the
background material as well as
clarify some confusion that was
spotted by various readers in part
3 (American Laboratory, January
2003). This article will try to
achieve both goals.
Perhaps the overall theme thus
far has been Risk and Uncertainty. Both are an inescapable
fact of life, and the two go hand
in hand. People must determine
how much risk is acceptable,
where risk is a combination of
likelihood and severity of an outcome. In statistical terms, the
likelihood part translates to
the confidence level that is
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STATISTICS continued
STATISTICS continued
article of the series (American Laboratory, January 2003). Those concepts will be presented again, this
time in conjunction with a concentration-related figure (see
Figure 1).
It should be noted that the numerical value of any of the terms may
vary as the true value being measured changes; it is generally not
the case that bias, precision, etc.,
are the same throughout the
entire working range of a measurement system. It also should be
noted that error refers to a measurement itself, while the rest of
the terms pertain to a measurement system.
Error (of a measurement)the
(usually) unknown difference
between a single reported measurement and the true value; it
can include bias and noise
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Bias (of a measurement system)the systematic (or average) difference between reported values and the true value
Reference
Precision (of a measurement system)the consistency of measurements over time or space;
precision is the reciprocal of
noise; high precision is equivalent to low noise, and low precision is equivalent to high noise
Uncertainty (of a measurement
system)a statistical interval
within which measurement
errors are believed to occur, at
some level of confidence;