Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Incertidumbre
Incertidumbre
1 Introduction BIPM
The objective of the paper and the
IEC, the International Electro-
lecture is to give an introduction to
technical Commission
GUM – Guide to the Expression of
Uncertainty in Measurement. IFCC, the International Federa-
It is also to convince the readers and tion of Clinical Chemistry and
the audience that this is something one Laboratory Medicine
needs to know a little about, and make
ILAC, the International Labora-
a decision on what attitude one should
tory Accreditation Cooperation
take to it.
And finally, to strengthen the quality ISO, the International Organi-
assessment concept within the “geo- zation for Standardization
data industry”, regarding accuracy- IUPAC, the International
/uncertainty. Union of Pure and Applied
The author and lecturer is senior geo- Chemistry
desist at Lantmäteriet (The Swedish
IUPAP, the International Union
Mapping, Cadastral and Land Regi-
of Pure and Applied Physics
stration Authority) in Gävle and
Adjoint Professor in Applied Geodesy OIML, the International Organi-
at the Royal Institute of Technology zation of Legal Metrology).
(KTH) in Stockholm.
Since then JCGM has been responsible
for GUM. – So GUM is “more” than an
2 GUM and JCGM ISO standard!
The first GUM embryo was published
in 1980. This was an initiative of BIPM, GUM and GUM related publications:
the Bureau International des Poids et
ISO/IEC Guide 98-3:2008 ”Un-
Mesures. The first official GUM
certainty of Measurement -- Part 3:
document was produced in 1992.
Guide to the Expression of Un-
In 1997 a Joint Committee for Guides certainty in Measurement (GUM:
in Metrology (JCGM) was created by 1995)”.
seven international organizations:
2
0,160
0,140
standardized reporting, flexible (Type
A and Type B), emphasizes common
0,120
0,080
0,060
sense, many examples.
New; numerical methods and Monte
0,040
0,020
0,000
60 64 68 72 Carlo simulations as standard pro-
cedures.
5% 90% 5%
63,7033 70,4559
The use of explicit coverage factors potential - users and customers; and
makes the quality assessments more these users and customers are in the
precise, and 2-intervals (95%) are majority.
closer to the intuitive understanding of There is no real necessity to change the
accuracy/uncertainty than the usual concept, but we need insight and some
1-expressions. Such intervals are used practical GUM attainments – together
in for example navigation. with a translation table between GUM
However, in the GUM document you and our terminology. This is especially
can find the following remainder, re- important if we want to include data
flecting a rather humble attitude: from new applications into our data
bases – and combine them with geo-
”Although this Guide provides a frame-
graphic information.
work for assessing uncertainty, it cannot
substitute for critical thinking, intellectual
honesty, and professional skill. The 13.3 What is natural?
evaluation of uncertainty is neither a As shown in Figure 3, there is a more
routine task nor a purely mathematical natural relation between uncertainty
one; it depends on detailed knowledge of and standard deviation than between
the nature of the measurand and of the accuracy and standard deviation.
measurement. The quality and utility of
the uncertainty quoted for the result of a Accuracy up Uncertainty up
measurement therefore ultimately depend
on the understanding, critical analysis,
and the integrity of those who contribute
to the assignment of its value.”
Geodata
Figure 3: Higher accuracy gives a lower
13.1 Today's Situation standard deviation but higher uncertainty
Activities dealing with geographic gives a higher standard deviation!
information (geodata) have had an
appropriate concept for data quality And: In the classical concept we
statements and reports for more than introduce the term accuracy, but then
200 years – through geodesy and the we only talk about “errors”: Mean
work of C F Gauss and others. errors, gross errors, systematic errors
etc. Is that natural?
So we did not “jump on to the GUM
train”, and here we are “alone on the We also note that 2-expressions can
platform”. be used directly as tolerances for
control measurements.
13.2 Why We Need to Know about
GUM 13.4 The Key to Success
We are responsible for a lot of sur- We should not see GUM as a problem
veying work and capture of geodata, but as a possibility – to broaden and
but we speak a different language improve our own concept regarding
compared to many of our – existing or quality assessment.
7
14 References
ISO/IEC Guide 98-3:2008: ”Uncertainty
of Measurement -- Part 3: Guide to the
Expression of Uncertainty in
Measurement (GUM: 1995)”. (Main-
tained by JCGM as JCGM 100:2008.)
JCGM 200: ”International Vocabulary of
Metrology – Basic and General Concepts
and Associated Terms (VIM)”.
On Lantmäteriet's home page, with
address
http://www.lantmateriet.se/template
s/LMV_Page.aspx?id=15968
the following, Swedish GUM docu-
ments are presented:
Persson C-G (2010a): “Några vanliga
fördelningar (Some Common Distribu-
tions)”.
Persson C-G (2010b): “Sammanlagd
mätosäkerhet och kvantitativa metoder
(Combined Uncertainty and Quantitative
Methods)”.
Persson C-G (2010c): “Exempel – Typ A-
bestämning (Examples of Type A Evalu-
ation)”.
Persson C-G (2010d): “Exempel – Typ B-
bestämning (Examples of Type B Evalu-
ation)”.
Persson C-G (2010e): “Korrelerade mä-
tningar (Correlated Measurements)”.
These form the basis of this presen-
tation.