Q
- QA
- quality assurance
- QAPP
- quality assurance project plan
- QC
- quality control
- qualifier
- See (data validation) qualifier
- qualitative analysis
- identification of components of a sample, or testing for the presence of a
component (cf. quantitative analysis)
- quality assurance (QA)
- “an integrated system of management activities involving planning,
implementation, documentation, assessment, reporting, and quality improvement
to ensure that a process, item, or service is of the type and quality needed
and expected by the customer.”
[EPA 2000]
- quality assurance officer
- employee of an organization with primary responsibility for oversight of the organization’s quality
system — also called quality assurance manager
- quality assurance project plan (QAPP)
- “a document describing in comprehensive detail the necessary quality
assurance, quality control, and other technical
activities that should be implemented to ensure that the results of the work
performed will satisfy the stated performance criteria.”
[EPA 2000]
- quality control (QC)
- “the overall system of technical activities that measures the
attributes and performance of a process, item, or service against defined
standards to verify that they meet the stated requirements established by the
customer; operational techniques and activities that are used to fulfill
requirements for quality.”
[EPA 2000]
- quality control sample (QC sample)
- sample, either real or artificially prepared,
analyzed routinely with other normal samples, which is used primarily to
assess the measurement process and not merely to
determine the value of the measurand —
e.g., method blank, laboratory
duplicate, laboratory control sample,
matrix
spike
- quality manual
- official document or collection of such documents that describe a
laboratory’s quality system
- quality system
- “a structured and documented system describing the policies,
objectives, principles, organizational authority, responsibilities,
accountability, and implementation plan of an organization or ensuring quality
in its work processes, products (items), and services. The quality system
provides the framework for planning, implementing, documenting, and assessing
work performed by the organization and for carrying out required quality
assurance and quality control.”
[EPA 2000]
- quantify
- 1. to measure the value of
(a particular quantity) with
good relative precision
2. to measure the value of (a particular quantity)
- quantification capability
- ability of a measurement process to quantify
the measurand, typically described in terms of the
minimum quantifiable value
- quantification limit
- minimum quantifiable value
- quantile
- If X is a random variable and p is a real number between
0 and 1, then a p-quantile of X is any number xp
such that
Pr(X < xp)
≤ p
and
Pr(X ≤ xp)
≥ p
(see also percentile).
- quantitative analysis
- quantification of components of a sample (cf. qualitative
analysis)
- quantity
- See (measurable) quantity
- quench curve
- plot of detection efficiency versus a
quench indicator
- quench; quenching
- in liquid scintillation
counting, any process that decreases the amount of light energy produced by the
scintillator
and detected by the photomultiplier tube
- quench indicating parameter (QIP); quench indicator
- in liquid scintillation counting, a quantity that is measured for each
source and used to estimate the degree of
quenching for that source