Review Book

Yes Has treatment of outliers (e.g., Cochran and Grubbs tests) been properly addressed in conformity with AOAC guidelines? Yes Have appropriate statistics been calculated correctly? Qualitative Is the table of parameter estimates in AOAC format? Yes Are the inferences/conclusions in line with the statistical parameter estimates? Yes Do the appropriate statistics (or reference to table) appear immediately beneath the title/ applicability of the method? Yes Is the table presented in AOAC format? Yes Does the repeatibility, reproducibility, sensititivity and HORRAT values appear reasonable given the matrix, analyte and levels? Yes GENERAL COMMENTS ABOUT THE METHOD none. Are there any concerns regarding the safety of the method (if necessary, refer to the review from the Safety Advisor)? none. Are there any concerns regarding the data manipulation, data tables or statistical analyses (if necessary, refer to the review from the Statistics Advisor)? 2 Concerns about statistical treatments and the presentation here: In the "Results of Collaborative Study" section, there is a statement that is repeated several times. "A (parameter estimate) value of xx.xx with 95% confidence interval of ( ‐ x.xx, x.xx) was obtained between...indicating no statistically significant difference between methods." The endings of these sentences should be changed to reflect the nature of the conclusion to the following: Item 1:

"...indicating no statistically significant difference was found by the study."

This is more correct as the current wording asserts zero difference, while the proposed wording only asserts that the study as designed was incapable of finding a difference.

Item 2:

In the discussion section, the paragraph beginning "When combining all 11