title: The Brazilian National Intercomparison Program (PNI/IRD/CNEN): evaluation of 15 years of data.
abstract: The Instituto de Radioproteção e Dosimetria has been coordinating the National Intercomparison Program (PNI) for 15 years, from 1991 to 2005. The objective is to evaluate the analytical performance of the laboratories in low-level activity concentration radionuclide assays in environmental samples. This work presents an evaluation of PNI data from 42 intercomparison runs, which distributed to 22 Brazilian laboratories 2511 samples evaluating 5768 radionuclide assays involving 32 radionuclides in the period from 1991 to 2004. The laboratory performance was evaluated using the Normalized Standard Deviation used by the U.S. EPA. For comparison aims, the Normalized Deviation, used by BIPM was also applied. Laboratory performance were grouped and evaluated in three periods of 5 years each. The first period shows, an average value of good performance of 71.2%, the second shows an average of 78.6% and the last an average of 82.3%. Performance for each kind of radionuclide is also presented.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Radioproteção e Dosimetria/Comissão Nacional de Energia Nuclear, Avenida Salvador Allende, s/n Recreio dos Bandeirantes, CEP 22780-160, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. tauhata@ird.gov.br
authors.forename: Luiz
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Tauhata
authors.forename: Maria Elizabeth Couto M
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Vianna
authors.forename: Antonio Eduardo
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: de Oliveira
authors.forename: Ana Cristina
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Ferreira
authors.forename: Maura Julia C
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Bragança
authors.forename: Almir Faria
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Clain
authors.forename: Rute Quelvia
authors.initials: RQ
authors.lastname: de Faria
mesh_terms: D001938:Brazil; D011834:Radiation Monitoring; D011847:Radioactive Fallout; D011848:Radioactive Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D011868:Radioisotopes / Q000032:analysis*; D011874:Radiometry / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D011847:Radioactive Fallout; D011848:Radioactive Pollutants; D011868:Radioisotopes