Step 1 – Starting a new assessment
It is possible to run an assessment from any folder in CARES NG®, apart from the folder CARES Data which is read only.
- Go into the folder where you want to store your assessment
- Choose Create > Assessment
- You can now assign a name to your assessment. For this tutorial, type Test Assessment in the input field
- Click on Create
Step 2 – Select the assessment type
Choose the type of assessment you want to run:
- Dietary
- Residential
- Exposure only
For this tutorial, select Dietary.
Step 3 – Select the timeframe
Choose a timeframe. For this example, select Chronic. A tick sign has appeared in the New Assessment step of the wizard sidebar. Click on Next or on Population in the sidebar to move to the next step.
Step 4 – Select the demographics
The wizard contains as default populations the list of the regulatory populations determined by the guidelines of the Environmental Protection Agency. You can choose a single population or any combination of these populations. For this tutorial, select the population Children 1-2.
Click Next or on Chemical/Toxicology in the sidebar.
Step 5 – Select the chemical / toxicology data
Please refer to page How to create a new table for creating a new chemical table. For this tutorial, create a table called Test Chemical Table with the data below. Click on Validate Data to validate the table; it is possible to include only validated tables in the assessment.
| population | chemical name | CAS number | route | time frame | POD | uncertainty factor | absorption factor | Q* | decay factor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Children 1-2 | Chemical X | 1111-11-11 | Oral | Chronic | 0.5 | 100 | 1 |
Insert a chemical table in the dietary assessment
The assessment wizard does not contain any default chemical table; you have to select the toxicology/chemical data you want to use. Click on Select a file which is in the top right corner of the white space window.
A pop-up window opens; this window allows you to browse the folders present in the software and select the appropriate chemical table. Go to the folder where the Test Chemical Table was saved and select it.
Two new tabs, called Chemicals and Toxicology, will appear in the assessment wizard. The tab Chemicals contains the list of the unique chemical names included in the chemical table just selected. In this example, there is only one chemical called Chemical X. Click on the check-box beside Chemical X to select it.
Click on Toxicology to see toxicology data in the chemical table that are considered relevant for this assessment, based on the selections you have made in the previous steps.
When you are happy with the selection of the chemical and toxicology information, click on Next or on Foods in the sidebar.
Step 6 – Select the food data
The Foods step of the dietary assessment requires a Food table as input. The Food table might require the use of another type of table, called Residue Concentration table. Both these tables must be created outside of the wizard as explained in the page How to create a new table. This step of the manual presents you an example for each.
Create a new Residue Concentration table
For this tutorial, create a Residue Concentration table called Test Residue Concentration with the following data.
| Sample ID | CAS number | Concentration | LOD |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1111-11-11 | 0 | 0.1 |
| 2 | 1111-11-11 | 0 | 0.1 |
| 3 | 1111-11-11 | 0 | 0.1 |
| 4 | 1111-11-11 | 0 | 0.3 |
| 5 | 1111-11-11 | 0 | 0.3 |
| 6 | 1111-11-11 | 0 | 0.3 |
| 7 | 1111-11-11 | 0 | 0.3 |
| 8 | 1111-11-11 | 0 | 0.3 |
| 9 | 1111-11-11 | 0 | 0.3 | 10 | 1111-11-11 | 2.3 | 2 | 11 | 1111-11-11 | 2.4 | 2 | 12 | 1111-11-11 | 2.9 | 2 |
Create a new Food table
For this tutorial, create a Food table and call it Test Food Table. Selects the foods included in the table below and input the following data.
| Food Code | SFC Code | Residue source | Residue value | Perc Crop treated | MF 1 | MF 2 | MF 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1100008000 | 211 | Values | 5 | 0.5 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 1100266001 | 240 | Field | Select a file | 0.2 | 0.6 | 1 | 1 |
| 2403280000 | 130 | Monitoring | Select a file | 0.2 | 0.2 | 1 | 0.5 |
Click on Select a file in the Residue Value (ppm) column. The usual popup window opens; browse the file system and select the Test Residue Concentration table. This has to be done for all the foods that are linked with Field or Monitoring residue data.
Insert a Food table in the dietary assessment
In the Foods step of the dietary assessment, click on Select a Food table. The usual pop-up window opens and you can now select the appropriate Food table. Go to the folder where you have saved the Test Food Table, click on the table name and then click on 
You are then required to make the following choices by selecting or not the items in this checklist:
- Include PCT
- Include Processing Factors
- Apply LOD Rules
Leave all the three options selected. Click on Next or on Statistics in the sidebar.
Step 7 – Select the calculations and statistics
This list of checkboxes allows you to customize the output of the dietary assessment. The list changes according to the options selected in the previous steps of the wizard. In particular, it depends on the type of assessment and the time-frame chosen in the first step of the wizard. Please refer to the Aggregate risk characterization and Cumulative risk characterization pages for more information. For this tutorial, select all the checkboxes.
Step 8 – Run the assessment
If you are happy with the selections made in the previous steps, click on the button Run at the bottom of the assessment wizard.
Now you are back in the folder where you have created the assessment. The new assessment is in the list of the assessments present in the folder. The assessment has a tag beside its name that shows the different stages of the assessment run.
The job running area appears in the top right of the screen. When the job running area disappears, the assessment run is finished.
If you click on 
in the blue bar at the top of your screen, a drop-down will be opened with the list of all the activities performed so far in the software (running assessments, importing tables, etc.). The activity related to the run of the assessment Test Assessment is the first in the list. The assessment can be in one of the two following states:
- Assessment Completed: no errors occurred during the run and now you can open the assessment and see the results. To do that, click on Open-assessment
- Assessment Failed: an error occurred during the run and the program was not able to calculate the results. It is possible to see a summary of the error by clicking on View-report