Reliability of analytical information in the XXIst century

One of the most relevant bottlenecks of the progress of analytical sciences is the existence of adequate references in general and, in particular, of measurement standards for analytical processes and their proper use in the context of metrology in chemistry. Keywords such as traceability, uncertain ty, calibration, etc, are crucial to characterise the analytical informatio n. All of them can be summarised by using reliability as an overall analyti cal attribute. The main aim of this paper is the systematic consideration o f this basic approach among the trends in Analytical Chemistry, particularl y in qualitative analysis. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserv ed.