Sample Open-Response Questions

Abstract Internal standards play critical roles in ensuring the accuracy of reported concentrations in LC-MS bioanalysis. How do you find an appropriate internal standard so that analyte losses and experimental variations during sample preparation, chromatographic separation, and mass spectrometric detection could be corrected How is the concentration of an internal standard determined Should internal standard responses be monitored during the analysis of incurred samples What are the main causes for internal standard response variations How do they impact the quantitation Why are stable isotope labeled internal standards preferred And yet one should still have an open-mind in their usage for the analysis of incurred samples. All these questions are addressed in this chapter supported by theoretical considerations and practical examples. 

The questions started with very rudimentary open-ended questions about whether the interviewees knew of any government checks on health and safety matters. So the early questions were about state institutional arrangements for the regulation of occupational health and safety. When asked if they knew of any government checks on health and safety there was a variety of possibilities which could have been mentioned. The Railway Inspectorate was most central, but their institutional affiliations with the Department of Transport and HSE were also relevant. It should be borne in mind that while the Railway Inspectorate have been in existence since the last century, the relationship of HSE to the regulation of the railways at the time of the research was much more recent and indirect than it is now (Ch. 2). This was indeed reflected in the responses with 35.5 per cent (41) of the sample spontaneously referring to the Railway Inspectorate a further 8 per cent (9) when prompted and just 3 per cent (4) mentioned HSE. ... 

There was, however, a high degree of cynicism about the intentions of the policies. The most frequently expressed view among all grades of staff was that one of the most important functions of the policy statements was to remove responsibility for the health and safety of the workforce away from the Board. Two points are important here. First is that the view was expressed quite spontaneously by nearly 25 per cent of the sample, in response to an open question about their views. Secondly, the critics did not suggest that the Board was aiming to enter into a partnership with their staff to promote health and safety but rather that they perceived the Board to be buck passing (a common phrase) ... 

Both interview and questionnaire techniques were used in this survey. Fifty, semi-structured interviews were conducted on-site with a randomly selected, representative, stratified sample of employees. (See Appendix B for an example of some of the prompt questions used in the interview note that this can only be developed after some open interviews/discussion sessions are completed.) A questiormaire was generated from the interview data and distributed to 520 staff to be completed anonymously. This produced a 45 per cent usable response rate for analysis. The objectives were to gain an understanding of the perceptions of quality within the company and readiness for change to provide baseline data for evaluation purposes to identify quality improvement opportunities and potential barriers to change and to help management develop a sense of awareness about quality and quality improvement needs in the plant. The questionnaire included measures of job satisfaction (Warr et aL, 1979), organizational commitment (Porter et al., 1974), perceptions of cooperation and morale in the plant and measures of certain job characteristics associated with quality work performance, such as skill variety, autonomy and feedback (Hackman and Oldham, 1975). 

Nevertheless the main difficulty of the oscillating tip results concerns an accurate description of the viscoelastic response of the nanoprotuberance under the action of the attractive force between the sample and the tip. Many points remain open for the interpretation of the atypical variations of the amplitude. They are mostly linked to the multiple crude assumptions made with the model it is difncult to evaluate a local response when both the tip shape and effective force are unknown. One could discuss for example the sphere-plane surface interaction used, or ask about the local stiffness of the polymer, or question the unique relaxation time which is a to simple polymer viscoelastic response. Among our fit parameters, the sample properties should be independent of the drive amplitudes used. The variations reported in figure 15 indicate that a simple rheological model is unable unable to describe the whole growth process of the nanoprotuberances. 

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