Interlaboratory comparison of the intensity of drinking water odor and taste by two-way ordinal analysis of variation without replication.

A case study of ordinal data from human organoleptic examination (sensory analysis) of drinking water obtained in an interlaboratory comparison of 49 ecological laboratories is described. The recently developed two-way ordinal analysis of variation (ORDANOVA) is applied for the first time for the treatment of responses on the intensity of chlorine and sulfurous odor of water at 20 and 60 °C, which is classified into the six categories from 'imperceptible' to 'very strong'. The one-way ORDANOVA is used for the analysis of the 'salty taste' intensity of the water.

Total risk of a false decision on conformity of an alloy due to measurement uncertainty and correlation of test results.

Total risk (probability) of a false decision on conformity of an alloy due to measurement uncertainty and correlation of test results is quantified. As an example, a dataset of test results of a PtRh alloy is studied when contents of four components of the alloy composition are under control. There are specification limits for contents of 1) Pt and 2) Rh; 3) three precious impurities - Au, Ir and Pd, and 4) eight impurities, both precious Au, Ir, Pd, and non-precious Fe, Pb, Si, Sn, Zn.

Risk of a false decision on conformity of an environmental compartment due to measurement uncertainty of concentrations of two or more pollutants.

Risks of false decisions in conformity assessment of an environmental compartment due to measurement uncertainty of concentrations of two or more pollutants are discussed. Even if the assessment of conformity for each pollutant in the compartment is successful, the total probability of a false decision concerning the compartment as a whole might still be significant. A model of the total probability of a false decision, formulated on the base of the law of total probability, is used, for example, for a study of test results of total suspended particulate matter (TSPM) concentration in ambient air near to three independent stone quarries located in Israel, as the sources of the air pollution.

Risk of false decision on conformity of a multicomponent material when test results of the components' content are correlated.

The probability of a false decision on conformity of a multicomponent material due to measurement uncertainty is discussed when test results are correlated. Specification limits of the components' content of such a material generate a multivariate specification interval/domain. When true values of components' content and corresponding test results are modelled by multivariate distributions (e.

Conformity assessment of multicomponent materials or objects: Risk of false decisions due to measurement uncertainty - A case study of denatured alcohols.

Risk of a false decision on conformity of a multicomponent material or object due to measurement uncertainty is discussed. Even if conformity assessment for each component of a material sample is successful, the total probability of a false decision (total consumer's risk or producer's risk) concerning the sample as a whole might still be significant. A model of the total probability of such false decisions is formulated based on the law (theorem) of total probability.

Monte Carlo simulation of expert judgments on human errors in chemical analysis--a case study of ICP-MS.

Monte Carlo simulation of expert judgments on human errors in a chemical analysis was used for determination of distributions of the error quantification scores (scores of likelihood and severity, and scores of effectiveness of a laboratory quality system in prevention of the errors). The simulation was based on modeling of an expert behavior: confident, reasonably doubting and irresolute expert judgments were taken into account by means of different probability mass functions (pmfs). As a case study, 36 scenarios of human errors which may occur in elemental analysis of geological samples by ICP-MS were examined.