Building a vocabulary

While validation is a common concern for all analysts, the various published procedures are generally presented as specific to a given application sector. Yet human nutrition, animal nutrition, microbiology, the environment, medical biology, drug development or bioanalysis are increasingly using similar physicochemical analysis techniques.

Many years have been devoted to defining terms to characterize the performance and/or validity of a method. Unfortunately, the results are disappointing, as a very extensive glossary has been produced, generating a great deal of confusion. If we compare different texts, we see that the same term can have very varied definitions, sometimes difficult to relate. What's more, different calculation algorithms can be proposed for the same term. ROZET examines this issue in depth, focusing on terms for which a harmonization of definitions...