Based Measures

There is a general assumption that incident-based measures are concrete and therefore can be measured very reliably. Although there are frequent complaints that incident-based measures are not very helpM in process improvement, there is rarely a question about their reliability or validity. In fact, examining the reliability and validity of these measures will go a long way toward helping us explain the limitations of incident-based measures as a source of direction for process-improvement efforts. 

There are two sources of limitation on the reliability of incident rates variation in interpretation of the criteria for recording an incident and variation in the statistic itself. We will address them separately. 

Because the pressure to reduce accident rates often remained, this was a conflict scenario for many management groups. Should they count everything and protect themselves from a potential OSHA citation Or should they focus on recording only those that were obviously recordable to protect their incentive pay or bonus Or should they keep two sets of records. One for OSHA and one for internal purposes, such as determining how bonuses are paid  

Of course, a result of the conflict is that differences abound between companies and even different sites within a company. One company records all second-degree bums. Another records only those with blisters over the size of a dime. Another records only those bums with blisters the size of a quarter. Yet another records incidents only when they require medical treatment. One anployer records all allegations that an injury was work related, while another requires clear verification that an injury was work related. Yet another records only those injuries that are also recorded on workers compensation logs. 

Differences in recording create a problem when companies seek to find benchmarks. When benchmarking on safety, the accident rate is often used to determine who has the best safety performance. These benchmarking efforts seldom consider the wide variation in aiteria discussed above. 

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Manufacturers of measurement devices always state the accuracy of the instrument. However, these statements always specify specific or reference conditions at which the measurement device will perform with the stated accuracy, with temperature and pressure most often appearing in the reference conditions. When the measurement device is apphedat other conditions, the accuracy is affected. Manufacturers usually also provide some statements on how accuracy is affected when the conditions of use deviate from the referenced conditions in the statement of accuracy. Although appropriate cahbration procedures can minimize some of these effects, rarely can they be totally eliminated. It is easily possible for such effects to cause a measurement device with a stated accuracy of 0.25 percent of span at reference conditions to ultimately provide measured values with accuracies of 1 percent or less. Microprocessor-based measurement devices usually provide better accuracy than the traditional electronic measurement devices. 

V = volume a = length of base edge b = width of base measured perpendicular to a h = height measured perpendicular to plane ab d = diameter... 

This chapter covers a description of conventional measurement techniques used in ventilation as well as othei related topics such as flow visualization, laser- based measurement techniques, and scale model experiments. 

Since the calibration factors for these techniques are known and relatively stable (depending on constant optical and geometrical parameters), the calibration process for laser-based measurements is simple or can be ignored. 

Hellinger (1988,1991,1992) developed a model that estimated the provider costs of AIDS using incidence-based measures derived from US data. His findings for inpatients were similar to those by Scitovsky and Rice (1987). He added the costs of outpatient antiretroviral medications and estimated an increase of provider costs from US 5.8 billion in 1991 to US 10.4 billion in 1994 and to US 15.2 billion in 1995. 

Although such a fragment-based measure clearly provides a very simple picture of the similarity relationships between pairs of structures, it is both efficient (because it involves just the application of logical operations to pairs of bit-strings) and effective (in that it is able to bring together molecules that are judged by chemists to be structurally similar to each other) in operation. 

Sangster, J. Octanol-Water Partition Coefficients Fundamentals and Physical Chemistry, Wiley, Chichester, 1997. n Valko, K. Application of high-performance liquid chromatography based measurements of lipophilicity to model biological distribution. J. Chromatogr. A 2004, 1037, 299-310. 

Hollosy, F., Valko, K., Hersey, A., Nunhuck, S., Keri, G., Bevan, C. Estimation of volume of distribution in humans from high throughput HPLC-based measurements of human serum albumin binding and immobilized artificial membrane partitioning. J. Med. Chem. 2006, 49, 6958-6971. 

A globally based measurement network for atmospheric Hg does not exist. Longterm measurements of TGHg have, however, been performed at some land-based stations. Data from remote marine sites are mainly available from research cruises. Recently, Slemr et al. (2003) compiled TGHg data from a number of permanent stations and oceanic cruises for the northern and southern hemispheres (Figure 2.7). Although the data set is incomplete, a peak in TGHg concentrations seems to have... 

The HPLC-based measurement of 8-OH-dGua is a highly sensitive method, largely because of the use of electrochemical detection, introduced by Floyd et al. (1986). Floyd et al. (1986) quote a detection limit of 20 fmol, or one 8-OH-dGua per 10 nucleosides. Shigenaga et al. (1990) quote 5-50 fmol on 40-100 / g samples of DNA. 

Table 13.4 GC-MS-based measurement of 8-hydroxyguanlne in DNA (after acidic hydroiysis of DNA, unless...

A mathematically very simple classification procedure is the nearest neighbour method. In this method one computes the distance between an unknown object u and each of the objects of the training set. Usually one employs the Euclidean distance D (see Section 30.2.2.1) but for strongly correlated variables, one should prefer correlation based measures (Section 30.2.2.2). If the training set consists of n objects, then n distances are calculated and the lowest of these is selected. If this is where u represents the unknown and I an object from learning class L, then one classifies u in group L. A three-dimensional example is given in Fig. 33.11. Object u is closest to an object of the class L and is therefore considered to be a member of that class. 

NMR signals are highly sensitive, via a number of different mechanisms, to the physical and chemical properties of porous materials. Using the set of NMR-based measurement methods that we have developed, it is possible to non-invasively and non-destructively characterize both the microstructural properties of the materials and relaxation properties of fluids imbibed into these materials. 

Lack of reliable measurement is the first reason, as reliable ground-based measurements by scientific instruments have been made just in this century. These measure conditions only at the location of each instrument, and they are usually land-based, although 75% of the Earth is covered with water. We have been able to take precise, direct measurements only in the last four decades, and not until the advent of precision space borne instruments in the 1970s were we able to measure global temperatures at a range of altitudes across the entire atmosphere. 

Acid-base Measures acid-base reactions. Strong acids (bases) will tend to change pH weak acids... 

Figure 1. Chamber-based measurements of methane emissions from small plots at the Rice Research and Extension Center near Stuttgart, AR (top), and at the Northeast Research and Extension Center at Keiser, AR (bottom). Photographs taken by K. Brye.

Livingston G, Hutchinson G. Enclosure-based measurement of trace gas exchange applications and sources of error. In Matson PA, Harris RC, editors. Biogenic Trace Gases Measuring Emissions from Soil and Water. Osney Mead, Oxford Blackwell Sciences Ltd. 1995. pp. 14r-51. 

Moment analysis is one of the simplest types of analysis and is useful for measuring the performance of the chromatography. Moments can be used to measure the same things that are measured in ID chromatographic systems these include the first, second, and third moments, which are more accurate than the related peak maximum, peak width, and peak asymmetry. In 2D, however, these values each have a component in each dimension and this can be easily determined in software-based measurement systems. 

The versatility of luminescence goes beyond intensity-, wavelength- and kinetic-based measurements. Fluorescence polarization (or anisotropy) is an additional parameter still largely unexplored for optical sensing yet widely used in Biochemistry to study the interaction of proteins, the microfluidity of cell membranes and in fluorescence immunoassays. Although only a few optosensors based on luminescence polarization measurements can be found in the literature, elegant devices have recently been reported to measure chemical parameters such as pFI or O2 even with the bare eye41. 

Absorbance- and reflectance-based measurements are widespread, as there are many enzymatic reaction products or intermediates that are colored or if not, can react with the appropriate indicator. Sensors using acetylcholinesterase for carbamate pesticides detection are an example of indirect optical fiber biosensors. This enzyme catalyses the hydrolysis of acetylcholine with concomitant decrease in pH41 ... 

SAMs was correlated to the affinities of the Fn-specific monoclonal antibodies. Although antibody-based measurements could not distinguish between conformational (structural) and orientational changes in the adsorbed proteins, they provided information about the biological activity of adsorbed proteins. 

C.J. McNeil and P. Manning, Sensors-based measurements of the role and interactions of free radicals in cellular systems. Rev. Mol. Biotech. 82, 443-455 (2002). 

Reasonably reliable pATbh+ values for the protonation of weak bases or of weakly basic substrates can be obtained via equation (17), together with m slope parameters that can be used to classify basic molecules as to type, and for an estimate of the solvation requirements of the protonated base. Measurements at temperatures other than 25°C can be handled using equation (22), and enthalpies and entropies for the protonation can be obtained. Protonation-dehydration processes are covered by equation (26). Medium effects on the... 

The predictions of this model (normalized to meteoritic abundance for solar metallicity) are illustrated in Fig. 9.6 and compared with observational data for beryllium in stars, based on ground-based measurements of the near-UV Be II doublet A 3130. Assuming that surface Be can suffer some destruction in some of the metal-rich disk stars, there is fair agreement down to about 0.1 of solar abundance, but the secondary trend predicted at still lower metallicities is too steep. 

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