  The vector meson mass is extracted from a large sample of partially quenched,
two-flavor lattice QCD simulations. For the first time, discretisation,
finite-volume and partial quenching artefacts are treated in a unified
framework which is consistent with the low-energy behaviour of QCD. This
analysis incorporates the leading infrared behaviour dictated by chiral
effective field theory. As the two-pion decay channel cannot be described by a
low-energy expansion alone, a highly-constrained model for the decay channel of
the rho-meson is introduced. The latter is essential for extrapolating lattice
results from the quark-mass regime where the rho is observed to be a physical
bound state.
