User’s Guide to the QDE Toolkit Excel Tools for Presenting Metrological Comparisons by B.M. Wood, R.J. Douglas & A.G. Steele Guide Version 1.14 for QDE Toolkit Version 1.14 October 2000 National ResearchConseil national Council Canadade recherches

Why such a Toolkit? As metrologists, how are we to cope with reviewing and discussing the many, many comparisons that are planned in support of the CIPM MRA? We will be examining candidate KCRVs, tabulating MRA degrees of equivalence, and documenting decisions made for the MRA Appendix C… Repetitive parts of all these tasks should be automated. This toolkit is the authors’ response to these challenges. It is offered in the belief that others may find it useful.

About the Present Toolkit The Toolkit runs from within Microsoft Excel to automate some of the analysis and presentation required for the international comparisons that are proliferating in metrology. It includes the calculation of confidence, and of confidence intervals, in the Quantified Demonstrated Equivalence (QDE) formalism. (Wood and Douglas, Metrologia 35, (1998)) Even those who choose not to use the confidence interval formalism may like some other features of the Toolkit. Presentation of comparisons in forms suitable for MRA submissions and decisions are included. Some functions are available that are not fully documented in the User’s Guide

What we see the Toolkit becoming So far the toolkit contains a variety of functions and macros to automate much of the work for calculating, interpreting and presenting comparison data in the formats that we have encountered. As other researchers develop different analysis techniques and presentation styles, our intention is to automate those as well. We encourage you to suggest or contribute extensions to this toolkit to make it better suit your needs.

Toolkit Distribution Rather than distributing the Toolkit and Guide yourself, please ask other potential users to register by sending an to By registering with us, your colleague can obtain the latest version of the Toolkit and its User’s Guide (this document). Perhaps most importantly, we can notify registered users of any errors, flaws or problems which have been identified. A website is planned detailing revision history, known problems, FAQs, other documentation, papers and perhaps a discussion group. We plan to coordinate Toolkit extensions to address other specific common needs and provide a forum for validation discussions.

About the Toolkit User’s Guide We are still in the process of improving and enhancing both the QDE Toolkit and this User’s Guide. We feel that the toolkit is ready for use outside NRC. In order to avoid problems associated with having different versions in use, we ask you not to distribute this Toolkit or the Guide to others. We will provide the latest version of this software and documentation to anyone who registers. This User’s Guide is available as a Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt) file or as an Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) file.

Using the Toolkit Okay, the background and introduction is over…let’s get on with explaining what you’ve just downloaded, and how you can use it to simplify your tasks. Only For Excel Experts? This User’s Guide is not intended to be an introduction in the use of Excel. You should be familiar with Excel basics: navigating, entering and editing data, formatting, cutting and pasting, annotating and graphing. This Guide to the Toolkit is intended to be quite complete, even at the risk of being verbose. We particularly appreciate feedback on points that need better explanations.

What is the QDE Toolkit? The QDE Toolkit is a collection of MS Excel functions and macros written to perform various calculations common to most metrological comparisons. QDE Toolkit functions return a single value, while the macros generate more involved output such as an entire table. The QDE Toolkit functions and macros are made available by including Visual Basic Modules in an Excel Workbook. Visual Basic programmers can add other functions and macros to the QDE Toolkit, using the supplied Visual Basic Modules as a template. The QDE Toolkit is already included within the example Excel Workbook. The Workbook has some test data so that you can see how the data should be organized and so that you can gain experience by testing out the functions and macros.

What is in the QDE Toolkit? The QDE Toolkit includes a variety of statistical functions, such as a weighted mean and functions for calculating uncertainties. Weighted means can be used to explore a wide variety of KCRVs, since the weights can be manually adjusted to exclude outliers or impose “cutoff” limits. These functions work now but are not yet documented. Of course, the Toolkit also includes functions for evaluating QDE 0.95, with and without correlations, as well as other confidence intervals (such as QDE 0.68 ) and demonstrated confidence (QDC). The Toolkit macros automatically generate equivalence tables from lists of laboratory results of deviations and uncertainties. The use of these macros will be explained and demonstrated in this User’s Guide.

Selection of KCRV & U KCRV Different CCs have tried the Mean, Weighted Mean and Median for the KCRV, with and without Weight Limits and Selective Exclusion. A clear definition of both KCRV and U KCRV simplifies the statistics. For example, the CCEM has used ‘the mean of the travelling artifacts as determined by the weighted mean of the values from laboratories using independent realizations of the SI; the weight given by (1/U lab ) 2 and U KCRV given by the weighted uncertainty.’ Whatever the definition, it must be agreed upon by the participants and the CC. The description must also be sufficiently detailed to allow subsequent recalculation from the Appendix B data.

Functions for KCRV & U KCRV Try out the various statistical functions of the toolkit to explore the consequences of different choices for the KCRV. Select a particular worksheet cell, then Paste Function. Function category is User Defined, where several specialized routines appear in the Function Name list. Further documentation to follow!

Tables of Equivalence - Input Data After the KCRV and its uncertainty have been chosen, the table detailing the bilateral degrees of equivalence can be created. The input data for this table has three pieces of information for each laboratory: name (or acronym), deviation from the KCRV, and claimed uncertainty. We recommend that the KCRV be entered as a separate item, preferably at the end of the list, with a deviation of zero and the KCRV uncertainty, if any. The input data must be listed in columns A,B, and C in an Excel worksheet; the first row of each column must be used to label the data: Name, Deviation, Uncertainty.

The input data must be listed in columns A,B, and C in an Excel spreadsheet; the first row of each column must be used to label the data: Name, Deviation, Uncertainty. Tables of Equivalence - Input Data leave a blank row to denote the end of the data put column titles in the first row put comparison data in the next rows put lab names in first column, deviation in second column, uncertainty in third column

Tables of Equivalence - Input Constraints The first row must contain the column labels (A1, B1, C1). The data must start in the next row (A2, B2, C2). Toolkit macros adapt to any number of laboratories, and the first blank row indicates the end of the data list. The KCRV need not be a separate entry but we recommend it always be entered as a “virtual lab”, preferably as the last row of the data set. Multiple candidate KCRVs can be included, listing them as the last few rows. The uncertainties are listed as standard (k=1) uncertainties as recommended by the MRA. The uncertainties are assumed to be uncorrelated. We defer treating correlations until later.

Tables of Equivalence - Run the Macro To run one of the table of equivalence macros, begin by selecting a cell corresponding to the upper left hand corner of the equivalence table to be created. Select the Tools menu, which drops down. In the drop down menu, select Macro, which cascades. In the cascaded menu, select Macros…, which opens a dialog box containing the available macros for your worksheet. The next slides show what this looks like in Excel.

Tables of Equivalence - Run the Macro Run the macro from the “Tools” drop-down menu list Select the top left ‘anchor’ cell for table output

Tables of Equivalence - Run the Macro Select the macro from the list... …then Run it

Tables of Equivalence - Run the Macro The table is “anchored” with the top left corner in the cell which you selected The table extends beyond what is shown, and includes all of the 10x10 bilateral degrees of equivalence for this example data set of nine labs + KCRV The table output format is determined by the input data format

Tables of Equivalence - The Output The tables can be formatted differently after they have been generated by the macro. These formatting features include font name, font size, font color, number of displayed digits, etc. The table can be ‘cut and pasted’ into other documents. To change the order of the laboratories, to add other laboratories or to change the input values the macro must be run again. Simply select the output anchor cell, and repeat the steps to run the macro. Note: some tables of strings require re-running the macro to modify the number of digits displayed.

Tables of Equivalence - The Macros The Toolkit includes the following macros : tk_mraCCQM_TableBuilder CCQM format for MRA Degree of Equivalence tk_mraDOE_TableBuilder MRA Degree of Equivalence (DOE) with  U  formatting tk_mraDOEandQDE_TableBuilder DOE and QDE % confidence interval in one table tk_mraQDC_MatrixBuilder Demonstrated confidence for agreement within  U lab (k=2)

The Toolkit includes : tk_mraCCQM_TableBuilder It creates a table in the format circulated by C.Thomas of BIPM who is in charge of the database. This format was proposed by the CCQM to meet the needs of chemical metrology. It is a full, anti-symmetric table of ordered pairs of data with row minus column differences in the first cell and expanded (k=2) uncertainties in the second cell. The choice of the particular cell bolding and cell outlines reflect our understanding of their most recently accepted format. Tables of Equivalence - CCQM Format

tk_mraCCQM_TableBuilder : output is row-column difference and (U 1 2 +U 2 2 ) 0.5 as values in each “double” element of the table

Tables of Equivalence - Formatting The format of each column of the input data is reflected in the equivalence tables. In particular, the number of decimal places used for the input data differences and for the uncertainties is retained in the equivalence tables. This is also true for the font typeface and size. Individual or groups of table cells can still be formatted using Excel’s standard features which allow you to change cell height and width, colours, borders, etc. Different tables can be created on the same sheet. Simply select a new output ‘anchor’ cell and run a different macro.

Tables of Equivalence - Different Data Sets The macro works in the same fashion with other data sets, or with alternate KCRV choices. Simply paste the new data (in this case electrical) into the first three columns of a worksheet and run the tk_mraCCQM_TableBuilder macro to create the output.

Tables of Equivalence - CCQM format Changing the input data is easy... …and so is generating a new table

Other Tables of Equivalence The Toolkit offers several other tables of equivalence for use by metrologists and others to more fully communicate the equivalence relationships.These include tables which present: the MRA degree of equivalence in a more standard fashion for physical measurements, (  ± U  ), the single parameter QDE 0.95 description, and the single probability parameter, quantified demonstrated confidence for agreement in a specified interval, QDC. Reference: Wood and Douglas, Metrologia 35, (1998) This paper covers the essentials of probability calculus for computing confidence in an interval centred on the concept of equivalence.

The Toolkit includes : tk_mraDOE_TableBuilder : creates a table: row-column difference ± (U 1 2 +U 2 2 ) 0.5 as a string in each element of the table MRA Degree of Equivalence Table

Macros : tk_mraDOE_TableBuilder tk_mraDOE_TableBuilder : output is row-column difference ± (U 1 2 +U 2 2 ) 0.5 as a string in each element of the table

Degree of Equivalence and QDE 0.95 The Toolkit includes : tk_mraDOEandQDE_TableBuilder creates a table: row-column difference ± (U 1 2 +U 2 2 ) 0.5 as a string in above diagonal elements of the table and the 95% confidence interval for agreement, QDE 0.95, in the below diagonal elements

Macros : tk_mraDOEandQDE_TableBuilder tk_mraDOEandQDE_TableBuilder : output is row-column difference ± (U 1 2 +U 2 2 ) 0.5 as a string in above diagonal elements and QDE 0.95 in below diagonal elements

Demonstrated Confidence within  U lab The Toolkit includes: tk_mraQDC_TableBuilder creates a table of probability for agreement of the column lab value with the row lab value within the confidence interval created by the claimed (k=2) uncertainty of the row lab,  U lab, and the pair uncertainty. This macro is still under development.

Macros : tk_mraQDC_TableBuilder tk_mraQDC_TableBuilder : output is the QDC probability for agreement of the column lab value with the row lab value within the confidence interval created by the claimed (k=2) uncertainty of the row lab and the pair uncertainty.

Hints and tips Each data set can be summarized using each of the available table builder macros, to provide you with the maximum amount of information and flexibility. Different tables can be created on the same sheet. Simply select a new output ‘anchor’ cell and run a different macro.

Multiple Tables on a Single Page Running each of the table builder macros on a single page provides maximum information regarding your data set. Impressive!

Comments and Other Resources To read more about QDE and and its application to the interpretation of comparison results we are making various publications (in pdf format) and several presentations (PowerPoint and pdf format) available. Further documentation of the table builder macros and the other statistical functions is expected soon. More complicated examples with different types of correlations should also be available soon.

Correlations A great deal has and will be written about correlations as it concerns comparison results. The implication of correlations on the use of the table builder macros is surprisingly little. You must identify the correlation effects. You must state how the effects are to be accounted for between laboratories and between one laboratory and the KCRV. If the effect is fully correlated in all labs then it is easily incorporated into the input data. Known correlations between pairs of laboratories is also addressable but its macro is not yet ready for distribution. We are not providing automated tools for identifying and assessing correlation effects…that is still your job!

Need More Information? For more information please do not hesitate to contact us. QDE Mailing Barry Wood Rob Alan We intend to maintain a single distribution list of people using the Toolkit. Send us your address and we will make sure you are kept up to date with corrections, enhancements, and supporting documentation.