Methodological aspects of data processing and information systems in metrology

We have the pleasure of bringing to readers' notice a collection of articles of researches from PTB, Berlin, Germany, and of metrologists from St. Petersburg, Russia, research institutes and universities. The aim of issuance is to draw attention to interconnected problems of modern metrology associated with information systems and data processing. The paper address methodological aspects either directly or deal with particular real problems in a way that seems to be worth to become generalized. Typical and different types of approaches are exhibited. Still frequently, mathematical and software tools are regarded as aids to mainly physically dominated measurement processes. On the other side, mathematicians and computer scientists often regard metrological problems only as an application field of mathematical and computational tools. Both viewpoints are extreme and do not meet in general the requirements of modern metrological systems. The idea to start on moving us and colleagues to write the papers and to issue them as a collection came up when the editors were talking in summer 1997 on methodological deficiencies. The use of information processing tools has become widely accepted in metrology. Meanwhile, there is a great variety as well of different mathematical and computational methods used in metrology as of the level of their sophistication. Data processing and information means are becoming more and more integral parts of measurement systems. Well-known examples are signal processing methods in many areas of metrology, the computation of geometric forms in manufacturing measurements of reference databases of biomedical measurement signals. Taking into account the integration as a strategic goal, some novel questions of methodological nature arise. (orig.)SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: RR 3490(7) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekDEGerman