Minimizing the Costs of a Calibration

The traditional analyst depended on a few general rules of thumb for guidance while he coped with technical intricacies his modem counterpart has a multitude of easy-to-use high-precision instraments at his disposal and is 

Example 33 Assume that a simple measurement costs 20 currency units n measurements are performed for calibration and m for replicates of each of five unknown samples. Furthermore, the calibration series of n measurements must be paid for by the unknowns to be analyzed. The slope of the calibration line is = 1.00 and the residual standard deviation is Sres = 3, cf. Refs. 75, 95. The n calibration concentrations will be evenly spaced between 50 and 150% of nominal, that is for n = 4 x, 50, 83, 117, 150. For an unknown corresponding to 130% of nominal, should be below 3.3 units, respectively 3.3 = 10.89. What combination of n and m will provide the most economical solution Use Eq. (2.4) for S x and Eq. (2.18) for Vx-Solution since Sxx is a function of the x-values, and thus a function of n (e.g. n = 4 Sxx = 5578), solve the three equations in the given order for various combinations of n and m and tabulate the costs per result, c/5 then select the 

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