Nationality: hierarchy

Figure 15.1 The hierarchy of standards organizations which provides a framework for traceability from the bench-top to internationally agreed standards (the national hierarchy for the UK is shown as an example)...

Standard reference materials provide a necessary but insufficient means for achieving accuracy and measurement compatibiUty on a national or international scale. Good test methods, good laboratory practices, well-qualified personnel, and proper intralaboratory and intedaboratory quaUty assurance procedures ate equally important. A systems approach to measurement compatibiUty is ikustrated in Figure 2. The function of each level is to transfer accuracy to the level below and to help provide traceabiUty to the level above. Thus traversing the hierarchy from bottom to top increases accuracy at the expense of measurement efficiency. 

Wilkinson, R. G. (1999), Health, hierarchy, and social anxiety , in N. E. Adler, M. Marmot, B. S. McEwen and J. Stewart (Eds), Socioeconomic Status and Health in Industrial Nations Social, Psychological and Biological Pathways, Vol. 896, New York Academy of Sciences, New York, 48-63. 

The form and the process of regulation offer a whole range of possibilities, from hierarchy to the market, via various hybrid situations. The efficient regulator will be that which succeeds in developing an intervention that provides a better response to the characteristics of the transaction. For their part, lobbies are characterized by their nationality, size, reputation and experience. The empirical application considers a sample of active ingredients in three therapeutic groups for which the author identifies the regulatory forms adopted in each of the two countries. 

The main driving force towards recycling has been national and international plastic waste management policy. Within the EU, the policy is based on waste hierarchy, meaning that the first choice is waste prevention and then waste recovery (reuse, recycling and energy recovery), with preference to material recovery. Thus the type of legislation found is ... 

The concepts of calibration and especially of metrological traceability were elaborated by physicists as mentioned above. The reference or top of the calibration hierarchy preferably is the definition of an SI unit, which is realized or embodied as a primary measurement standard. By direct comparison, the quantity value of a secondary measurement standard can be established. Subsequent comparisons may furnish quantity values of reference measurement standard, working measurement standard, and routine measurement standard with which the object carrying the measure and is compared to obtain its measurement result which then retrospectively is metrologically traceable to the SI unit. The primary measurement standard, as the definition of metrological traceability says, is preferably an international or national measurement standard. 

At the metrological top, the CGPM defines SI units, and its executive, the CIPM, oversees their dissemination [12], The rather newly established CCQM organizes Key Comparisons of measurements on reference materials among the national metrology institutes to ensure adequate measurement capabilities at the highest metrological level. Several of these materials are relevant to calibration hierarchies in laboratory medicine. 

One key element of metrology is traceability of a measurement result to the Si-system ensuring comparable results. Traceability is defined as the property of the result related to national or international standards through an unbroken chain of comparisons all having stated uncertainties. The overall objective in the hierarchy of measurement procedures is dedicated to the highest available analytical quality. This principle is... 

Fig. 1 Metrological traceability and hierarchy of procedures and materials (according to ISO/IEC 17511). uc(y) Uncertainty BIPM International Bureau of Weights and Measures NMI National Metrology Institute ACL Accredited Calibration Laboratory MCL Manufacturer s Calibration Laboratory ML Manufacturer s Laboratory Mf Manufacturer...

Traceability, which is generally applied in metrology, can be illustrated by a hierarchy of standards at the top there is the national standard, traceable to the SI units, which realizes a specific unit, followed by the reference standard and the working standard. The results of measurements carried out using one of the standards of this hierarchy are comparable. In chemical measurements it is possible to transfer the metrological hierarchy of standards to reference materials (RMs) which are the standards of chemical composition. 

The hierarchy established among the different methods and materials suggests an easy organization (Tietz, 1979). However, serious practical problems have hampered fast progress. In the United States and in Europe, the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS) and the European Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (ECCLS) have been founded. These standardization organizations promote the development and the ultimate use of reference materials and methods. The National Bureau of Standards (NBS) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the United States (Bayse, 1982), and the European Community Bureau of Beference (BCR) in Europe, undertake projects oriented more toward the preparation of certified reference materials (BCR, 1982). 

There are profound opportunities for both industry and the individual to prevent the generation of waste indeed, pollution prevention is today primarily stimulated by economics, legislation, liability concerns, and the enhanced environmental benefit of managing waste at the source. The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 established pollution prevention as a national policy, declaring that waste should be prevented or reduced at the source wherever feasible, while pollution that cannot be prevented should be recycled in an environmentally safe manner (Ref. 1). The EPA s policy establishes the following hierarchy of waste management ... 

The OFFC Regulation establishes a hierarchy of methods used for sampling and analysis in applying official controls. First priority is given to methods laid down in Community legislation. If these do not exist, methods according to internationally established rules such as those of CEN or those in national legislation should be applied. In the absence of these methods other methods fit for the purpose or developed in accordance with scientific protocols shall be used. In the area of food contact materials analytical methods are laid... 

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