Quick search Find article
Quick search
Find article

The evaluation of key comparison data: determining the largest consistent subset

Maurice G Cox

Show affiliations


Suppose a single stable travelling standard is circulated around the national metrology institutes (NMIs) participating in a key comparison. Consider the set of data consisting of a measurement result, comprising a measured value and the associated standard uncertainty, provided independently by each such NMI. Each measured value is the corresponding NMI's best estimate of a single stipulated property of the standard. The weighted mean (WM) of the measured values can be formed, the weights being proportional to the reciprocals of the squared standard uncertainties. If this WM is consistent with the measured values according to a statistical test, it can be accepted as a key comparison reference value for the comparison. Otherwise, the WM of a largest consistent subset (LCS) can be determined. The LCS contains as many as possible of those results of participating NMIs that are consistent with the WM of that subset. An efficient approach for determining the LCS having smallest chi-squared value is described, and applied to length, temperature and ionizing radiation comparisons.


PACS

06.20.fb Standards and calibration

06.20.Dk Measurement and error theory

06.30.-k Measurements common to several branches of physics and astronomy

02.70.Rr General statistical methods

Subjects

Computational physics

Instrumentation and measurement

Dates

Issue 3 (June 2007)

Received 7 February 2007

Published 27 April 2007



  1. The evaluation of key comparison data: determining the largest consistent subset

    Maurice G Cox 2007 Metrologia 44 187

  2. A new vertex-finding algorithm for the oblique rotation step in factor analysis

    M Van Daele et al 1991 Phys. Med. Biol. 36 77

  3. Independent atomic timescale in Poland—organization and results

    J Azoubib et al 2003 Metrologia 40 S245

  4. Reply to "Instrument nonlinearities and therapy unit timer error"

    C G Orton and J B Seibert 1972 Phys. Med. Biol. 17 863

  5. Quantum logical states and operators for Josephson-like systems

    Lara Faoro et al 2006 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 39 L111

  6. Optimal leaf sequencing with elimination of tongue-and-groove underdosage

    Srijit Kamath et al 2004 Phys. Med. Biol. 49 N7

  7. A model for bipolar charge transport, trapping and recombination in degassed crosslinked polyethene

    J M Alison and R M Hill 1994 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 27 1291

  8. Experimenting with musical intervals

    Michael C LoPresto 2003 Phys. Educ. 38 309

  9. Flow equations and normal ordering

    Elmar Körding and Franz Wegner 2006 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 39 1231

  10. Imaging that exploits multipath scattering from point scatterers

    Margaret Cheney and Robert J Bonneau 2004 Inverse Problems 20 1691

Users also read

What's this?
This innovative new feature generates a list of articles 'also read' by other users based on them reading the original article. Article abstracts citations and references are all considered and weighted accordingly. We hope that this will help you find relevant papers for your research.

  1. The evaluation of key comparison data
  2. Combining inconsistent data from interlaboratory comparisons
  3. Analysis of key comparison data and laboratory biases

View by subject




Export








Please login to access our web services, or create an account if you don't yet have one.

You must have cookies enabled in your web browser to be able to login.

Username
Password

Forgotten your password? Get a new one here.