espite the tremendous growth in the use of robots during the last D five years, no standard robot performance and calibration tests exist. Currentfy, several commitees formed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) are working on the development of such standards on the intemational level. In the US, several technical committees of the Robotic Industries Association (RIA) in...

Most contemporary methods for the quantification of DNA methylation employ bisulfite conversion and PCR amplification. However, many reports have indicated that bisulfite-mediated PCR methodologies can result in inaccurate measurements of DNA methylation owing to amplification biases. To calibrate analytical biases in quantification of gene methylation, especially those that arise during PCR, w...

The NIST Analytical Chemistry Division has supplied transmittance verification and wavelength calibration standard reference materials (SRMs) specialized to the needs of chemical and pharmaceutical spectrophotometric analysis since 1970. Growing demand for UV/visible standards stems from the increasingly routine use of spectrophotometers for pharmaceutical quality control and from the escalatio...

An ongoing program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is aimed at improving and standardizing heat-flux sensor calibration methods. The current calibration needs of U.S. science and industry exceed the current NIST capability of 40 kW/m2 irradiance. In achieving this goal, as well as meeting lower-level non-radiative heat flux calibration needs of science and industry,...

Real-time PCR is dependent upon a calibration function for quantification. While long-term storage of standards saves cost and time, solutions of DNA are prone to degradation. We present here the benchmark treatment for preservation of DNA standards, involving storage in 50% glycerol-double-distilled water, whereby a deviation of 0.2 threshold cycle (C(T)) values resulted after 100 days of stor...

Uncertainties in source color measurements with a tristimulus colorimeter are estimated for calibration factors determined, based on a known source spectral distribution or on accurate measurements of the spectral responsivities of the colorimeter channels. Application is to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) colorimeter and an International Commission on Illumination (CI...