## 3 Results and Discussion
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c} \hline  & **Equation 1** & \(r\) & **Bias (CU/g)** & **SE\({}_{B}\)** & **CI\({}_{B}\) (95\%)** & **ULOQ** & **Repeatability** (CU/g)** \\ \hline \multicolumn{2}{c}{Malit flour (g)} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \\
0.05 & AA = \((\text{LN}-20)/0.215 & 0.956 & 3.99 & 12.18 & \(-\)1.55–9.54 & 2445.1 & 8.55 \\
0.1 & AA = \((\text{LN}-20)/0.386 & 0.984 & 2.41 & 7.64 & \(-\)1.07–5.89 & 1363.0 & 6.42 \\
0.2 & AA = \((\text{LN}-20)/0.834 & 0.973 & \(-\)0.65 & 11.61 & \(-\)5.94–4.63 & 629.4 & 4.69 \\
0.3 & AA = \((\text{LN}-20)/1.616 & 0.926 & \(-\)4.35 & 21.47 & \(-\)14.12 \(\pm\) 5.42 & 325.2 & 4.69 \\ \hline \multicolumn{2}{c}{Malit extract (mL)} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{} \\
0.5 & AA = \((\text{LN}-20)/0.1452 & 0.970 & 2.93 & 10.63 & \(-\)1.91–7.77 & 3618.8 & 7.67 \\
1.0 & AA = \((\text{LN}-20)/0.2304 & 0.974 & 3.38 & 9.35 & \(-\)0.88–7.63 & 2280.6 & 5.56 \\
2.0 & AA = \((\text{LN}-20)/0.4154 & 0.977 & 1.89 & 9.66 & \(-\)2.50–6.29 & 1264.9 & 4.31 \\
3.0 & AA = \((\text{LN}-20)/0.6445 & 0.965 & \(-\)0.91 & 13.41 & \(-\)7.01–5.20 & 815.3 & 4.91 \\
4.0 & AA = \((\text{LN}-20)/0.9832 & 0.954 & \(-\)2.40 & 15.95 & \(-\)9.66–4.86 & 534.4 & 3.00 \\
5.0 & AA = \((\text{LN}-20)/1.4179 & 0.907 & \(-\)3.87 & 24.50 & \(-\)15.03–7.28 & 370.6 & 3.14 \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 3: Agreement between standard Ceralpha method and modified Falling Number method (linear relationship between Liquefaction Number and \(\alpha\)-amylase activity). modified methods also decreased with increasing amounts of added malt flour and malt extract. This was to be expected, since it is known that the relative repeatability coefficient is significantly lower for samples with small FN than for samples with higher FN (as indicated in the standard method ISO 3093) [3]. To improve the accuracy of the estimate, nonlinear regression was also used to fit the FN data (Table 4). As expected, the correlation coefficients were higher than when linear regression and LN were used for estimation. The smallest coefficient (\(r\) = 0.973) was found when 0.01 g of malt flour and 5 mL of malt extract were used. In contrast to the linear estimation of LN, all calculated biases were positive but lower; between 0.68 and 3.10 CU/g when malt flour was used and between 0.59 and 1.20 CU/g when malt extract was used. The modified method using 0.3 g of malt flour or 3 mL of malt extract showed the lowest \(SE_{B}\) and the narrowest 95% CI, with SEB values of 7.07 and 9.37 and CIs [\(-\)2.53, 3.90] and [\(-\)3.15-5.37], respectively. However, the ULOQs were too low to consider these amounts of malt flour and malt extract as suitable for performing the modified procedure, since some highly active malts will not fall within the measurable range. Furthermore, the repeatability of the modified methods was observed to decrease with increasing amounts of malt flour and malt extract. Considering the combination of the small bias (<2 CU/g), low \(SE_{B}\) (<10 CU/g), narrow 95% CI, high ULOQ (>400 CU/g), and relatively acceptable repeatability (<10 CU/g), the best agreement between the standard Ceralpha method and the modified method was found for the modified method with 0.1 g of added malt flour or 2 mL of added malt extract. Since there is not much difference between the agreement of the methods when malt extract is used instead of malt flour, it can be concluded that the modified method does not require an extraction step and in this way the time required for the analysis can be reduced.