SALE, Quality Control of Analytical Chemical Measurements

1 - Description of problem or function: The Safeguards Analytical Laboratory Evaluation (SALE) program is a statistical analysis program written to analyze the data received from laboratories participating in the SALE quality control and evaluation program. The system is aimed at identifying and reducing analytical chemical measurement errors. Samples of well-characterized materials are distributed to laboratory participants at periodic intervals for determination of uranium or plutonium concentration and isotopic distributions. The results of these determinations are statistically evaluated and participants are informed of the accuracy and precision of their results. 2 - Method of solution: Various statistical techniques produce the SALE output. Assuming an unbalanced nested design, an analysis of variance is performed, resulting in a test of significance for time and analyst effects. A trend test is performed. Both within- laboratory and between-laboratory standard deviations are calculated. 3 - Restrictions on the complexity of the problem: Up to 1500 pieces of data for each nuclear material sampled by a maximum of 75 laboratories may be analyzed