scholarly journals Review of potentials and limitations of indirect approaches for estimating reference limits/intervals of quantitative procedures in laboratory medicine

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-53
Author(s):  
Rainer Haeckel ◽  
Werner Wosniok ◽  
Thomas Streichert

Abstract Reference intervals (RIs) can be determined by direct and indirect procedures. Both approaches identify a reference population from which the RIs are defined. The crucial difference between direct and indirect methods is that direct methods select particular individuals after individual anamnesis and medical examination have confirmed the absence of pathological conditions. These individuals form a reference subpopulation. Indirect methods select a reference subpopulation in which the individuals are not identified. They isolate a reference population from a mixed population of patients with pathological and non-pathological conditions by statistical reasoning. At present, the direct procedure internationally recommended is the “gold standard”. It has, however, the disadvantage of high expenses which cannot easily be afforded by most medical laboratories. Therefore, laboratories adopt RIs established by direct methods from external sources requiring a high responsibility for transference problems which are usually neglected by most laboratories. These difficulties can be overcome by indirect procedures which can easily be performed by most laboratories without causing economic problems. The present review focuses on indirect approaches. Various procedures are presented with their benefits and limitations. Preliminary simulation studies indicate that more recently developed concepts are superior to older approaches.

Author(s):  
Graham R.D. Jones ◽  
Rainer Haeckel ◽  
Tze Ping Loh ◽  
Ken Sikaris ◽  
Thomas Streichert ◽  
...  

Abstract Reference intervals are a vital part of the information supplied by clinical laboratories to support interpretation of numerical pathology results such as are produced in clinical chemistry and hematology laboratories. The traditional method for establishing reference intervals, known as the direct approach, is based on collecting samples from members of a preselected reference population, making the measurements and then determining the intervals. An alternative approach is to perform analysis of results generated as part of routine pathology testing and using appropriate statistical techniques to determine reference intervals. This is known as the indirect approach. This paper from a working group of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry (IFCC) Committee on Reference Intervals and Decision Limits (C-RIDL) aims to summarize current thinking on indirect approaches to reference intervals. The indirect approach has some major potential advantages compared with direct methods. The processes are faster, cheaper and do not involve patient inconvenience, discomfort or the risks associated with generating new patient health information. Indirect methods also use the same preanalytical and analytical techniques used for patient management and can provide very large numbers for assessment. Limitations to the indirect methods include possible effects of diseased subpopulations on the derived interval. The IFCC C-RIDL aims to encourage the use of indirect methods to establish and verify reference intervals, to promote publication of such intervals with clear explanation of the process used and also to support the development of improved statistical techniques for these studies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Antje Torge ◽  
Rainer Haeckel ◽  
Mustafa Özcürümez ◽  
Alexander Krebs ◽  
Ralf Junker

Abstract It has been observed that the estimation of reference intervals of leukocytes in whole venous blood leads to higher upper reference limits (uRLs) with indirect methods than has been reported in the literature determined by direct approaches. This phenomenon was reinvestigated with a newer, more advanced indirect method, and could be confirmed. Furthermore, a diurnal variation was observed with lower values during the morning and higher values in the late afternoon and at night. This observation can explain why indirect approaches using samples collected during 24 h lead to higher uRLs than direct methods applied on samples collected presumably in the morning.


2011 ◽  
Vol 133 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
L. P. Wang ◽  
S. Basu ◽  
Z. M. Zhang

The determination of emissivity of layered structures is critical in many applications, such as radiation thermometry, microelectronics, radiative cooling, and energy harvesting. Two different approaches, i.e., the “indirect” and “direct” methods, are commonly used for computing the emissivity of an object. For an opaque surface at a uniform temperature, the indirect method involves calculating the spectral directional-hemispherical reflectance to deduce the spectral directional emissivity based on Kirchhoff’s law. On the other hand, a few studies have used a combination of Maxwell’s equations with the fluctuation-dissipation theorem to directly calculate the emissivity. The present study aims at unifying the direct and indirect methods for calculating the far-field thermal emission from layered structures with a nonuniform temperature distribution. Formulations for both methods are given to illustrate the equivalence between the indirect and the direct methods. Thermal emission from an asymmetric Fabry–Pérot resonance cavity with a nonuniform temperature distribution is taken as an example to show how to predict the intensity, emissivity, and the brightness temperature. The local density of states, however, can only be calculated using the direct method.


Author(s):  
M. Zaman ◽  
K. Kleineidam ◽  
L. Bakken ◽  
J. Berendt ◽  
C. Bracken ◽  
...  

AbstractAgriculture is a significant source of GHGsglobally and ruminant livestock animals are one of the largest contributors to these emissions, responsible for an estimated 14% of GHGs (CH4and N2O combined) worldwide. A large portion of GHG fluxes from agricultural activities is related to CH4 emissions from ruminants. Both direct and indirect methods are available. Direct methods include enclosure techniques, artificial (e.g.  SF6) or  natural  (e.g.  CO2)  tracer techniques,  and   micrometeorological methods using open-path lasers. Under the indirect methods, emission mechanisms are understood, where the CH4 emission potential is estimated based on the substrate characteristics and the digestibility (i.e. from volatile fatty acids). These approximate methods are useful if no direct measurement is possible. The different systems used to quantify these emission potentials are presented in this chapter. Also, CH4 from animal waste (slurry, urine, dung) is an important source: methods pertaining to measuring GHG potential from these sources are included.


Author(s):  
Aslı Yıldırım ◽  
Aslı Yorulmaz

Chloropropanols are known as undesired food contaminants liberated during the processing of various food products. When the adverse effects of chloropropanols, especially 3-monochloropropane-1,2-diol (3-MCPD), 2-monochloropropane-1,3-diol (2-MCPD) and glycidols along with their esters were first understood, the studies about the detection and mitigation of these compounds were accelerated. 3-MCPD, which was detected in food products in higher amounts when compared to other chloropropanols, usually occurs during refining process of vegetable oils, especially in deodorisation step. The novel methods in terms of the analysis of 3-MCPD and other chloropropanols are continuously updated. However, there are two basic methods today namely direct and indirect methods. Direct methods enable to detect all of the esters individually, yet, due to the necessity of a huge number of reference standards, indirect methods are currently more preferred. The first essential step of reducing chloropropanols in food products is to determine the proper analysis method. In this review, general information, new developments in analysis methods, mitigation studies and the toxigolocial data about various chloropropanols were summarized.


2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 388-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabrina B. Orique ◽  
Laurel Despins

Situation awareness (SA) refers to the conscious awareness of the current situation in relation to one’s environment. In nursing, loss or failure to achieve high levels of SA is linked with adverse patient outcomes. The purpose of this integrative review is to examine various instruments and techniques used to measure SA among nurses across academic and clinical settings. Computerized database and ancestry search strategies resulted in 40 empirical research reports. Of the reports included in the review, 24 measured SA among teams that included nurses and 16 measured SA solely in nurses. Methods used to evaluate SA included direct and indirect methods. Direct methods included the Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique and questionnaires. Indirect methods included observer rating instruments and performance outcome measures. To have a better understanding of how nurses’ make decisions in complex work environments, reliable and valid measures of SA is crucial.


Author(s):  
Joseph Henny ◽  
Anne Vassault ◽  
Guilaine Boursier ◽  
Ines Vukasovic ◽  
Pika Mesko Brguljan ◽  
...  

AbstractThis document is based on the original recommendation of the Expert Panel on the Theory of Reference Values of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC), updated guidelines were recently published under the auspices of the IFCC and the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI). This document summarizes proposals for recommendations on: (i) The terminology, which is often confusing, noticeably concerning the terms of reference limits and decision limits. (ii) The method for the determination of reference limits according to the original procedure and the conditions, which should be used. (iii) A simple procedure allowing the medical laboratories to fulfill the requirements of the regulation and standards. The updated document proposes to verify that published reference limits are applicable to the laboratory involved. Finally, the strengths and limits of the revised recommendations (especially the selection of the reference population, the maintenance of the analytical quality, the choice of the statistical method used…) will be briefly discussed.


Author(s):  
Yesim Ozarda ◽  
Kiyoshi Ichihara ◽  
Graham Jones ◽  
Thomas Streichert ◽  
Robab Ahmadian

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Yesim Ozarda

AbstractReference intervals (RIs) and clinical decision limits (CDLs) are fundamental tools used by healthcare and laboratory professionals to interpret patient laboratory test results. The traditional method for establishing RIs, known as the direct approach, is based on collecting samples from members of a preselected reference population, making the measurements and then determining the intervals. For challenging groups such as pediatric and geriatric age groups, indirect methods are appointed for the derivation of RIs in the EP28-A3c guideline. However, there has been an increasing demand to use the indirect methods of deriving RIs by the use of routine laboratory data stored in the laboratory information system. International Federation of Clinical Chemistry (IFCC), Committee on Reference Intervals and Decision Limits (C-RIDL) is currently working on the study for the comparison of the conventional (direct) and alternative (indirect) approaches for the determination of reference intervals. As a matter of fact that, the process of developing RIs is often beyond the capabilities of an individual laboratory due to the complex, expensive and time-consuming process to develop them. Therefore, a laboratory can alternatively transfer and verify RIs established by an external source (i.e. manufacturers’ package inserts, publications). IFCC, C-RIDL has focused primarily on RIs and has performed multicenter studies to obtain common RIs in recent years. However, as the broader responsibility of the Committee, from its name, includes “decision limits”, the C-RIDL also emphasizes the importance of the correct use of both RIs and CDLs and to encourage laboratories to specify the appropriate information to clinicians as needed.


Author(s):  
L. P. Wang ◽  
S. Basu ◽  
Z. M. Zhang

The determination of emissivity of layered structures is critical in many applications, such as radiation thermometry, microelectronics, radiative cooling, and energy harvesting. Two different approaches, i.e., the “indirect” and “direct” methods, are commonly used for computing the emissivity of an object. For an opaque surface at a uniform temperature, the indirect method involves calculating the spectral directional-hemispherical reflectance to deduce the spectral directional emissivity based on Kirchhoff’s law. On the other hand, a few studies have used a combination of Maxwell’s equations with the fluctuation-dissipation theorem to directly calculate the emissivity. The present study aims at unifying the direct and indirect methods for calculating thermal emission from layered structures with a nonuniform temperature distribution. Formulations for both methods are given to illustrate the equivalence between the indirect and the direct methods. Thermal emission from an asymmetric Fabry-Perot resonance cavity with a nonuniform temperature distribution is taken as an example to show how to predict the intensity, emissivity, and the brightness temperature. The local density of states, however, can only be calculated using the direct method.


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