SUM AND MEAN STANDARD PROGRAMS FOR ACTIVATION-ANALYSIS

Two computer programs in use for over a decade in the Nuclear Methods Group at NIST illustrate the utility of standard software: programs wi dely available and widely used, in which (ideally) well-tested public algorithms produce results that are well understood, and thereby capab le of comparison, within the community of users. SUM interactively com putes the position, net area, and uncertainty of the area of spectral peaks, and can give better results than automatic peak search programs when peaks are very small, very large, or unusually shaped. MEAN comb ines unequal measurements of a single quantity, tests for consistency, and obtains the weighted mean and six measures of its uncertainty.