Experimental data sets, multivariate methods

On the other hand, factor analysis involves other manipulations of the eigen vectors and aims to gain insight into the structure of a multidimensional data set. The use of this technique was first proposed in biological structure-activity relationship (i. e., SAR) and illustrated with an analysis of the activities of 21 di-phenylaminopropanol derivatives in 11 biological tests [116-119, 289]. This method has been more commonly used to determine the intrinsic dimensionality of certain experimentally determined chemical properties which are the number of fundamental factors required to account for the variance. One of the best FA techniques is the Q-mode, which is based on grouping a multivariate data set based on the data structure defined by the similarity between samples [1, 313-316]. It is devoted exclusively to the interpretation of the inter-object relationships in a data set, rather than to the inter-variable (or covariance) relationships explored with R-mode factor analysis. The measure of similarity used is the cosine theta matrix, i. e., the matrix whose elements are the cosine of the angles between all sample pairs [1,313-316]. 

For effective control of crystallizers, multivariable controllers are required. In order to design such controllers, a model in state space representation is required. Therefore the population balance has to be transformed into a set of ordinary differential equations. Two transformation methods were reported in the literature. However, the first method is limited to MSNPR crystallizers with simple size dependent growth rate kinetics whereas the other method results in very high orders of the state space model which causes problems in the control system design. Therefore system identification, which can also be applied directly on experimental data without the intermediate step of calculating the kinetic parameters, is proposed. 

In the resolution of any multicomponent system, the main goal is to transform the raw experimental measurements into useful information. By doing so, we aim to obtain a clear description of the contribution of each of the components present in the mixture or the process from the overall measured variation in our chemical data. Despite the diverse nature of multicomponent systems, the variation in then-related experimental measurements can, in many cases, be expressed as a simple composition-weighted linear additive model of pure responses, with a single term per component contribution. Although such a model is often known to be followed because of the nature of the instrumental responses measured (e.g., in the case of spectroscopic measurements), the information related to the individual contributions involved cannot be derived in a straightforward way from the raw measurements. The common purpose of all multivariate resolution methods is to fill in this gap and provide a linear model of individual component contributions using solely the raw experimental measurements. Resolution methods are powerful approaches that do not require a lot of prior information because neither the number nor the nature of the pure components in a system need to be known beforehand. Any information available about the system may be used, but it is not required. Actually, the only mandatory prerequisite is the inner linear structure of the data set. The mild requirements needed have promoted the use of resolution methods to tackle many chemical problems that could not be solved otherwise. 

The improvement in computer technology associated with spectroscopy has led to the expansion of quantitative infrared spectroscopy. The application of statistical methods to the analysis of experimental data is known as chemometrics [5-9]. A detailed description of this subject is beyond the scope of this present text, although several multivariate data analytical methods which are used for the analysis of FTIR spectroscopic data will be outlined here, without detailing the mathematics associated with these methods. The most conunonly used analytical methods in infrared spectroscopy are classical least-squares (CLS), inverse least-squares (ILS), partial least-squares (PLS), and principal component regression (PCR). CLS (also known as K-matrix methods) and PLS (also known as P-matrix methods) are least-squares methods involving matrix operations. These methods can be limited when very complex mixtures are investigated and factor analysis methods, such as PLS and PCR, can be more useful. The factor analysis methods use functions to model the variance in a data set. 

In chemometrics, multivariate calibration methods provide a convenient way to determine several components in a mixture within one experimental step, without the tedious operation of separation of these components. The method of calculation usually used is PLS method. Artificial neural network is also often used especially when the data set exhibits obvious nonlinearity. But it is prone to overfitting. Therefore, several types of techniques have been developed to prevent overfitting. At the same time, support vector regression, as a method suitable to treat nonlinear data without serious overfitting, can be used as a new method of computation in multivariate calibration. An example of using SVR in multivariate calibration will be described as follows. 

After descriptors have been derived, CODESSA has several advanced methods for determining correlations between descriptors and the input experimental data (draining set ). These include five types of regression analysis, a principal components analysis (PCA) treatment, four different types of multivariate analysis, and a unique heuristic method (CODESSA s default approach). These methods help the user to choose significant descriptors, determine the relationships between sets of descriptors, and evaluate the statistical significance of particular models. An intuitive and powerful graphical user interface (GUI) is used for file and information management, as well as to display the results of the correlation searches. 

PCA [12, 16] is a multivariate statistics method frequently applied for the analysis of data tables obtained from environmental monitoring studies. It starts from the hypothesis that in the group of original data, there is a set of reduced factors or dominant components (sources of variation) which influence the observed data variance in an important way, and that these factors or components cannot be directly measured (they are hidden factors), since no specific sensors exist for them or, in other words, they cannot be experimentally observed. 

A different approach to mathematical analysis of the solid-state C NMR spectra of celluloses was introduced by the group at the Swedish Forest Products Laboratory (STFI). They took advantage of statistical multivariate data analysis techniques that had been adapted for use with spectroscopic methods. Principal component analyses (PCA) were used to derive a suitable set of subspectra from the CP/MAS spectra of a set of well-characterized cellulosic samples. The relative amounts of the I and I/3 forms and the crystallinity index for these well-characterized samples were defined in terms of the integrals of specific features in the spectra. These were then used to derive the subspectra of the principal components, which in turn were used as the basis for a partial least squares analysis of the experimental spectra. Once the subspectra of the principal components are validated by relating their features to the known measures of variability, they become the basis for analysis of the spectra of other cellulosic samples that were not included in the initial analysis. Here again the interested reader can refer to the original publications or the overview presented earlier. ... 

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