VERSUS EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

Standardization provides methodologies by which independent investigations of the same situation are able to derive the same conclusions. However, standardization is sometimes also perceived as absolute and accurate, beyond which one should not investigate matters deeper. Moreover, often enough the engineering community tends to neglect the science (or lack of it) underlying standardized methods and just follows prescriptions. Standardization provides algorithms that can be turned into software code. Software developers are always looking for ready-made algorithms with great market potential. The responsibility of the accuracy of these methods does not lie with the developers but with the standards organizations. This is not the case with algorithms based on pure scientific research where the full responsibility lies with those who turn it into software applications. Faced with a choice between prescribed methods of standardization with simple mathematical code vs. accurate scientific findings, PEMARD applied the latter developing complicated mathematical computation, albeit slower, yet delivering more accurate results in its commercially available software application1