Error of interpretation

The two plots can be superimposed into a biplot as shown in Fig. 32.7. Such a biplot reveals the correspondences between the rows and columns of the contingency table. The compound Triazolam is specific for the treatment of sleep disturbances. Anxiety is treated preferentially by both Lorazepam and Diazepam. The latter is also used for treating epilepsy. Clonazepam is specifically used with epilepsy. Note that distances between compounds and disorders are not to be considered. This would be a serious error of interpretation. A positive correspondence between a compound and a disorder is evidenced by relatively large distances from the origin and a common orientation (e.g. sleep disturbance and Triazolam). A negative correspondence is manifest in the case of relatively large distances from the origin and opposite orientations (e.g. sleep disturbance and Diazepam). 

Visual examination of the plot is fraught with possible errors of interpretation. Since visual examination of a plot is inherently subjective, different analysts might come to different conclusions from the same data plot. 

A formal point of objection is the improper use of percentage notation, which is open to cumbersome handling as well as to error of interpretation. In good mathematical practices, the percentage symbol is the abbreviation of a dimensionless factor (% = 1/100 = 0.01 = 10-2). The abbreviation should never be used in the definitions of formulas and calculations these must be carried through in terms of fractions. Only in the final presentation may a percentage (99.5%) be used in place of the actual fraction (0.995). 

This curious notion of the nature of the elements and the fact that there are just four elements in the terrestrial zone of the universe, Aristotle arrives at somewhat in this way. The only absolute criterion of the existence of matter is the sense of touch. Sight and hearing are subjective phenomena dependent upon our senses, liable to errors of interpretation. The phenomena which affect the tactile sense may be analyzed into four elements, hot and cold, moist and dry. All other properties, color, odor, roughness, smoothness, he asserts are either nonessential or combinations of these four. From these four properties there may be made six pairs ... 

Internal data review is the most effective mechanism for avoiding errors of interpretation and procedure. A three-tiered approach assures that errors and omissions made in Tier 1 Review are detected and corrected in Tier 2 Review. A broad Tier 3 Review often identifies errors and inconsistencies between different analyses that cannot be detected during Tier 1 or 2 Reviews of individual analyses. These errors and inconsistencies can be thus corrected and reconciled before the final report is delivered to the client. 

Finally, it should be remembered that no single type of instrumental test of skin is sufficient a battery of methods (visual, tactile, instrumental) should always be used to guard against errors of interpretation. 

Excess energy terms such as the value E in equation (8) must be either negligible or cancel for thermochemical arguments to lead to accurate bond dissociation energies. There is little evidence that excess energy terms and other errors of interpretation are not more important in more complex cases than the reaction (8). Further, the empirical assumptions used to determine ionization and appearance potentials by electron-impact methods work best for very simple molecules. 

Artefactual increases of as much as 50% in total thyroxine, estimated by a competitive protein-binding assay, and of as much as 30% in triiodothyronine resin uptake are probably due to rapid and continuing lipolytic hydrolysis of triglycerides after blood has been drawn (126). Thyroid function tests should therefore always be performed on blood samples taken before (or a sufficient time after) heparin treatment (127). An increase in serum-free thyroxine concentrations has also been reported after low molecular weight heparin, by up to 171% in specimens taken 2-6 hours after injection. When specimens were obtained 10 hours after injection, the effects were smaller, but with concentrations still up to 40% above normal the results can still cause errors of interpretation (128). 

FRA systems are versatile, and they can be controlled to acquire and analyse the data required to construct Mott-Schottky plots, for example. Unfortunately, the ease of use of FRA-fitting software can lead to errors of interpretation that arise from a failure to relate fitting elements to the physical system. Several equivalent circuits may give the same frequency-dependent impedance response. No a priori distinction between degenerate circuits is possible, ft is necessary to study the system response as a function of additional experimental variables (DC voltage, concentration, mass transport conditions etc.) in order to establish whether the circuit elements are related in a predictable way to a model of the physical system. 

The optimization of a chromatographic process usually calls for a large number of experiments which generate a vast amount of data. If it is performed manually (l.e. with the sole intervention of the operator), the procedure is slow and subject to major errors of interpretation, which may shift the search for the optimal conditions in wrong directions and call for an unnecessarily large number of experiments. 

Figure. 10.18. Residuals as a function of variables (A. Cornish-Bowden, Detection of errors of interpretation in experiments in enzyme kinetics, Methods, 24 (2001) 181).

The advantage of this method lies in its amplidly, a ample examination of the tubes without the aid of the microscope alone being required to determine haemolyas. However, a certain tedmique is evidently necessary to prevent errors of interpretation and permit this method to give all the results which may be expected. In particular, it is indispensable to measure previously the activity of the various reagents in order to know in what proportions they must be used. It is clear, in fact, that if the... 

There are only a handful of investigations of aging of materials at the nanometer size scale. The earliest was done by the author in collaboration with workers at Eastman Kodak in a structural recovery investigation of o-TP confined in controlled pore glasses having a variety of pore sizes [McKenna et al., 1992], This work is of interest because of the errors of interpretation made in that study. The... 

In the classical researches of Natta and his collaborators. X-ray fiber diagrams were the principal structural tool . This method required that the polymer be crystallized, which was often difficult or impossible. Despite its great power. X-ray was subject to errors of interpretation and often failed to reveal significant structural details. 

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