Three statistical paradigms for the assessment and interpretation of measurement uncertainty

Abstract

Since its adoption, the ISO Guide has sparked a revolution in uncertainty analysis. Of course, even with all of the positive contributions from the development and adoption of the ISO Guide, there will always be a need to improve the assessment of uncertainty in particular applications and to extend it to cover new areas. Among other work along these lines, the International Committee on Weights and Measures Joint Committee on Guides in Metrology is currently working on several supplements to the ISO Guide. Other authors have also recently made many important contributions to the theory and practice of uncertainty analysis. The goals of this chapter are to discuss different approaches to uncertainty assessment from a statistical point of view and to relate them to the methods that are currently being used in metrology or are being developed within the metrology community. The particular statistical paradigms under which different methods for uncertainty assessment are described include the frequentist, Bayesian, and fiducial paradigms. Each approach is illustrated using common examples and computer code for carrying out each analysis is illustrated using open-source software.