Research & Development Methods Flashcards
7 cards from real CPC practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Research & Development Methods flashcards as text
In Design of Experiments (DoE), a central composite design (CCD) is most commonly used to:
Answer: Fit a second-order response surface model
Central composite designs add axial (star) points to a factorial core specifically to estimate quadratic (second-order) terms in response surface methodology.
Which statistical test is most appropriate when comparing the means of three or more independent experimental groups in a chemistry R&D study?
Answer: One-way ANOVA
One-way ANOVA tests whether the means of three or more independent groups differ significantly, controlling the Type I error rate across multiple comparisons.
In a laboratory notebook, the primary purpose of requiring a witness signature on experimental pages is to:
Answer: Establish legal proof of inventorship and conception date
Witness signatures establish a verifiable, dated record of invention conception, which is critical in patent disputes and intellectual property proceedings.
A scientist observes that repeat measurements of the same sample yield results that cluster tightly together but are consistently offset from the true value. This situation is best described as:
Answer: Low accuracy, high precision
Tight clustering indicates high precision (reproducibility), while a consistent offset from the true value indicates low accuracy (systematic bias).
Plackett-Burman designs are specifically valued in early-stage R&D because they efficiently:
Answer: Screen many factors with a minimal number of runs
Plackett-Burman designs are resolution III screening designs that allow testing of N-1 factors in N runs, making them highly efficient for initial factor screening.
When developing a new analytical method, 'robustness' testing evaluates:
Answer: The effect of small, deliberate variations in method parameters on results
Robustness testing deliberately introduces small changes in parameters such as pH, temperature, or flow rate to determine how sensitive the method is to such variations.
In the context of scale-up from laboratory to pilot plant, which dimensionless number is most important for ensuring similar heat transfer characteristics?
Answer: Nusselt number
The Nusselt number directly characterizes the ratio of convective to conductive heat transfer and is central to matching heat transfer performance during scale-up.