Kim Sook Heun, Cho Hana, Heo Sung Woo, Hwang Euijin
Inorganic Metrology Group, Division of Chemical and Biological Metrology, Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, 267 Gajeong-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 34113, Republic of Korea.
Inorganic Metrology Group, Division of Chemical and Biological Metrology, Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, 267 Gajeong-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 34113, Republic of Korea.
Talanta. 2023 Apr 1;255:124184. doi: 10.1016/j.talanta.2022.124184. Epub 2022 Dec 10.
The Asia Pacific Metrology Program (APMP) and the Asia Pacific Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (APLAC) joint Proficiency Testing (PT) programs for toxic elements such as cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) or nutritional elements such as iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn) in food were organized by the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) with the aim of enhancing the quality of measurement and metrological traceability in various economies of the Asia Pacific region by evaluating the performance with rigorous evaluation. Three APMP-APLAC joint PT programs for elemental analyses were carried out by KRISS sequentially, where candidate certified reference materials (CRMs) were used as the PT materials and metrologically traceable certified reference values (RVs) were used as the PT assigned values for the evaluation of participants' results, which allows reliable evaluation of participant performance. This article describes the operation of the PTs and the overall performance of the participating laboratories. The effectiveness of these joint PT programs and trends in PT performance assessment are also discussed. These PT programs confirm the significant importance of using the metrologically traceable RVs instead of the consensus values from participants as the PT assigned value for reliable assessment. The lack of understanding of the concept of coverage factor, degree of freedom, standard uncertainty, and expanded uncertainty was revealed by some participants in these PT programs. Interpreting the zeta-scores or E scores, which are derived by using measurement uncertainties, in conjunction with the z-scores is highly meaningful for assessing participants' ability in measurement capabilities and measurement uncertainty evaluation. Assessment of participants' performance considering measurement uncertainties helps the participants to check how reasonable their measurement uncertainty estimation was. The results of PTs also demonstrated that these PT programs are useful for improving the measurement capability of the laboratories, whereas more capability-building in uncertainty evaluation is required for further improvement.
韩国标准科学研究院（KRISS）组织了亚太计量计划（APMP）和亚太实验室认可合作组织（APLAC）针对食品中镉（Cd）、铅（Pb）等有毒元素或铁（Fe）、锌（Zn）等营养元素的联合能力验证（PT）计划，目的是通过严格评估来提升亚太地区各经济体的测量质量和计量溯源性。KRISS依次开展了三项针对元素分析的APMP-APLAC联合PT计划，其中候选有证标准物质（CRM）用作PT材料，计量溯源的有证标准值（RV）用作PT指定值以评估参与者的结果，从而能够可靠地评估参与者的表现。本文描述了PT计划的运作以及参与实验室的整体表现。还讨论了这些联合PT计划的有效性以及PT性能评估的趋势。这些PT计划证实了使用计量溯源的RV而非参与者的共识值作为PT指定值以进行可靠评估的重要意义。这些PT计划中的一些参与者显示出对覆盖因子、自由度、标准不确定度和扩展不确定度概念缺乏理解。结合z分数解释通过测量不确定度得出的zeta分数或E分数，对于评估参与者的测量能力和测量不确定度评估能力非常有意义。考虑测量不确定度评估参与者的表现有助于他们检查自己的测量不确定度估计有多合理。PT结果还表明，这些PT计划有助于提高实验室的测量能力，不过要进一步改进还需要在不确定度评估方面开展更多能力建设。
