Background and Disclaimers 1

1 Background and Disclaimers

TRAP Version 1.30a
March 12, 2015 (amended June 25, 2015)

TRAP Version 1.30a corrects a problem in the output file of Version 1.30, in which the final estimates
in the parameter table erroneously repeated the initial parameter guess values. These values were
correct in the program interface and were only misreported in the output file. All other information in
the output files was correct, including the parameter confidence limits and Xp values. The remainder
of this informational file simply repeats that from Version 1.30.

The Toxicity Relationship Analysis Program (TRAP) was written to serve a research need for
estimating parameters and errors of sigmoidal toxic response versus exposure relationships. As such,
TRAP is limited in the scope of its applicability to such relationships and to data sets which support
estimating them, entailing certain minimum data requirements that are discussed in the
documentation. TRAP does not address what can be done with the more limited data sets common in
toxicity testing. TRAP also does not address the question of extrabinomial error in tolerance
distribution analysis. Please read the introductory material under Help so that the capabilities and
limitations of TRAP are clear.

TRAP was also written due to certain limitations in other available software (many years ago) regarding
parameter estimation and error analysis, specifically that control values were sometimes assigned
independently of other parameters and how confidence limits on parameters and effects
concentrations were often done. For a three-parameter sigmoidal curve, TRAP estimates the control
value jointly with the other parameters. For nonlinear least-squares regression analysis, parameter
standard errors and confidence limits follow standard practice, but TRAP extends these to the effect
concentration for any level of effect. For distributional analysis, standard errors are based on the
inverse of the information matrix and confidence limits on multiples of these errors, which is standard
practice, but these multiples are based on distributional and degrees-of-freedom considerations that
are not common practice. The documentation does provide descriptions of these procedures, as well
as simulations that demonstrate their performance.

TRAP has received the technical review required to distribute it as a product of the U.S.EPA Mid-
Continent Ecology Division, but has not received the further review and endorsement by other EPA
offices to be sanctioned for regulatory action. Therefore, as with any third-party software, TRAP has
no warranty regarding its application and should not be used without knowledge of its capabilities and
adequate validation of results. TRAP was written with the expectation that the user does has enough
statistical background to appreciate the limitations in these types of analyses and to judge the utility of
the results.

Version 1.30 includes a few minor changes and corrections from the previous version (1.22), but no
added functionality. The most important change is the elimination of the transform options for the
effects variable. Inaccuracies were recently noted in the confidence limits for some data sets when
these transforms were used, but the more important issue, as noted in the documentation for earlier
TRAP versions, was that such transforms have significant limitations compared to weighted
regression, which can readily emulate these transforms if need be. Version 1.30 also more strongly
highlights errors or uncertainties in the analyses to help denote where results should be considered
tentative and needing further analysis. Finally, the help file has been converted to a pdf form from the
original form, this earlier from not being currently supported on many systems.

Finally, because it was developed for research use, TRAP is not as refined and bug-free as typical
commercial software. I would appreciate hearing about any problems or bugs or suggestions, so that I
can make further improvements. Please contact me if you have any questions or need further
assistance.

Russell Erickson
erickson.russell@epa.gov

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2 MED Toxicity Relationship Analysis Program - Version 1.21

218-529-5157
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Mid-Continent Ecology Division
6201 Congdon Blvd.
Duluth, MN 55804

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