A proposed method to estimate receiver operating characteristic curves for chemical and biological sensor standards

Abstract

The Receiver Operating Characteristic curve (ROC) has long been used in medical applications to compare screening and diagnostic methods. As the threshold used by any screening or diagnostic method is changed, the operating characteristics of the method, such as the number of true positive and false negative determinations changes as well. The ROC curve is one way to characterize the changes in order to compare different methods. This definition, however, is difficult to apply to chemical and biological sensors detecting the release of a toxic agent given that there is more than one ROC curve. There is a continuum of ROC curves corresponding to a continuum of release levels. A new definition of ROC curves has been adopted for chemical and biological sensors which will reduce the continuum of curves to a single curve. This paper presents a methodology to estimate ROC curves using this new definition.