MAMA Software Features: Errors, Uncertainty, and Standards

Abstract

This document reviews the sources of uncertainty, standards, and the UQ development plan for the MAMA software. Our intention is to allow users to generate quantification data with uncertainty based on the contributing back end sources. We do not intend to add in front end uncertainty into the software itself, due to the numerous different instruments that could be used, and the enormous variation in factors that would add to that uncertainty among different users, samples, and sample prep routines. We could not possibly or reasonably address them all. We will however, add in the uncertainty component from the image scale bar, which must be provided by the user as an input to the software, and could be used to incorporate any front end uncertainty. (Note: the detailing of these front end uncertainties is beyond the scope of this software effort.) The verification testing we have done generates uncertainties that are fundamentally pixel based. Given the uncertainty in the scale bar, we can then propagate the uncertainty and convert to uncertainty in all calculated results in microns (or whatever unit the scale bar is in.) Users can then add any additional instrumentation and sample prep uncertainty to the resulting output as appropriate for the data calculation and analysis being performed.