National measures

NRCC Institute for National Measurements Standards, National Research... 

The UK Government has, for more than six years, funded the Valid Analytical Measurement (VAM) Programme, which is aimed at improving the quality and comparability of analytical measurements. The work undertaken within VAM is key to the underpinning of a modern physico-chemical and biochemical National Measurement System, By disseminating the activities of VAM across international boundaries and linking with other national measurement system VAM also aims to ensure the comparability of data worldwide. Thus VAM provides an infrastructure under which reliable measurements can be made for trade, regulation and health and safety provision. 

The BERM symposia have served further to clarify understanding of the basic attributes of a good reference standard that is indispensable for establishing new frontiers in the science of measurements, and to highlight the invaluable infrastructure and proven record of metrological excellence available at the National Measurement Institutes to accomplish such tasks. 

Greater co-operation among producers could be developed. The World Wide Web has provided a model of sharing information based on very clear technical principles and formats, but with no formal bureaucracy or external control. Researchers using the Web can move easily among computers of many research institutions that are linked to the Internet. Perhaps the National Measurement Institutions that produce RM could make their instruments and laboratories just as open and available to researchers who are characterizing a new material (Rasberry 1998). 

Science cannot be performed without an accurate system of measurement, which is globally standardized and compulsory. Units and standards of measurement are agreed upon and harmonized on an international basis by the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures in Sevres, France, and by the International Organization for Standardization in Geneva, Switzerland. The units and standards are then laid down in national laws. Nearly all countries have accepted the Systeme International d Unites (SI units) as their system of measurement. This also applies to countries that had been accustomed to use British units like Australia, Canada, South Africa and the United States. In Britain, SI units are official from January 2010. The valid standards are available from the competent bureaus, for example Bureau International des Poids et Mesures, www.bip.fr National Measurement Institute (Australia), www.measurement.gov.au National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, USA), www.physics.nist.gov/ Pubs/SP811/... 

The international community has a legitimate interest in the adequacy of national measures to apply effective physical security to avoid theft or seizure of nuclear material by unauthorized subnational individuals or groups. Assurance of this adequacy through IAEA monitoring under an international convention would be a desirable approach. 

National Bureau of Standards. 1982. The mechanism of anaerobic (microbial) corrosion. Report to the Office of Naval Research, Arlington, VA., by Iverson WP, Olson GJ, National Bureau of Standards, National Measurement Lab, Washington, DC. Task No. NR-205-046. 

LGC has a strong interest in the quality of analytical measurements and played a lead role in the development of the UK s initiative on Valid Analytical Measurement (VAM). This is a programme supported by the UK government as part of the DTI programmes supporting the national measurement system. 

The preparation of this book was supported under contract with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) as part of the National Measurement System (NMS) Valid Analytical Measurement (VAM) Programme. The latter aims to improve the quality of analytical measurement in the UK. 

Graham Trout, National Measurement Institute, Pymble, Australia. 

STL are accredited by the Department of Trade and Industry via the National Measurement Accreditation Scheme (NAMAS). This covers all aspects of laboratory operations, such as organization of the laboratory and methodology, equipment and staff training, quahty-control systems and storage of data. The company acquired the first accreditation in the UK for the analysis of organic compounds by GC-MS. It also operates appropriate procedures to conform with the Department of Health s Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) recommendations. 

The laboratories are inspected annually by the National Measurement Accreditation Scheme (NAMAS) and for conformity to GLP. Part of the inspection is a vertical audit, which involves tracing a sample from the moment it is dehvered to the laboratory to when the result is reported. All the records of its passage through the system are traced. For... 

Acknowledgements Michael Verrall and Greg Hitchen (CSIRO) assisted in SEM work. The National Measurement Institute allowed use of the absorbance spectrophotometer. Western... 

The Directive applies to any national measures to control price or restrict the range of products covered by national health insurance systems. The specific articles of the Directive cover the various schemes operational within the Community and demands that objective and verifiable criteria are met in their implementation (see also page 532 Chapter 17.15.4). 

NAMAS National Measurement Accreditation Service (now PAPAS)... 

The Valid Analytical Measurement (VAM LGC 2005) program of the LGC (the U.K. National Measurement Institute for chemical measurements) typifies a modern approach to quality in chemical measurements. The program s six principles are a clear exposition of the important aspects of making reliable analytical measurements ... 

Many countries have established national measurement institutes to oversee their metrology systems and obligations to the Treaty of the Metre. Sometimes chemistry and other sciences are separated (as in the National Physical Laboratory and the LGC in the United Kingdom), but increasingly chemical mea-... 

Analysis by an expert laboratory of high metrological quality. This will often be one or more reference laboratories such as a national measurement institute. 

The organizer of an interlaboratory study to assign a quantity value to a reference material is usually a national or international certifying authority, such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (United Nations), the Community Bureau of Reference (European Union), or a national measurement institute. 

The top of the chain is the SI unit of amount-of-substance concentration mol dm 3 (mol L1). A certificate from the National Measurement Institute gives confidence to the certifying authority that the amount-of-substance... 

If the analyst in a field laboratory can identify a CRM for calibration of working calibration solutions, and its certificate gives sufficient evidence that the CRM embodies a metrologically traceable quantity value, then his or her work is just about done (figure 7.10). The intricacies of what national measurement institutes and calibration laboratories did to ensure that the CRM has metrologically traceable quantity values are all paid for in the certificate. 

Perhaps if you have a resourceful and supportive national measurement institute, you might be able to persuade it to organize an interlaboratory certification to provide appropriate calibration materials, as has been done in Australia by the grain industry for protein measurements. 

A huge demand arose from householders to obtain radon measurements in their homes. This led me to set up a national measurement service, providing high-quality measurements at one-fifth of what had been the going price. Many entrepreneurs visited me to learn the technology, and set up similar measurement services, causing my low price to prevail in the industry. 

The certification procedure for seven trace metals (Ba, Ca, Li, Mg, Mn, Na and Sr) in the certified reference material FEBS-1 (National Research Council Canada, Institute for National Measurement Standards, Ottawa, Canada) based on fish otolith matrix by isotope dilution - ICP-MS in comparison to ICP optical emission spectrometry and X-ray fluorescence analysis, is described by Sturgeon et al4X The isotope dilution technique is also employed for species analysis in biological systems,46 e.g., for the determination of mercury species in tuna material,54 or in aquatic systems using cold vapour ICP-MS.55... 

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