Category Archives: Eigenvector News

EigenU 2012, the Seventh Annual Eigenvector University, was held last week at the Washington Athletic Club in Seattle. Our Tuesday evening PLS_Toolbox/Solo User poster session gave EigenU attendees a chance to unwind with hors d’oeuvres and beverages and discuss some chemometric applications. This year’s posters were judged by Paul Geladi, professor of Chemometrics at SLU, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

Bob Moision of Aerospace Corp. claimed first prize with “Application of MCR to VIIRS On-Orbit Anomaly Investigation.” Bob’s poster described how multivariate analysis was used with ToF-SIMS data in an investigation into the cause of the unexpected poor sensitivity of the Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite. Bob is show below accepting his Apple iPod nano.

Second prize was awarded to Gordon Allison of Aberystwyth University for “Diagnosis of TSE disease in cattle and sheep using metabolomic analysis and computer learning technologies- GC/MS approaches.” The poster summarized results of a project aimed to identify novel, non-prion markers of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) disease in samples of blood plasma from infected cattle and sheep that consistently indicate infection and which could be used for disease diagnosis in living animals before the appearance of clinical symptoms. Gordon is shown below accepting his nano from Eigenvector Vice-President Neal Gallagher.

This year’s poster session included a father-daughter project: Clare Wise presented “Analysis of Historical Stehekin River Flow Data with Principal Components Analysis and Multivariate Curve Resolution.” The poster described how PCA and MCR can be used on the daily Stehekin River flow data to model spring runoff and to find interesting years since measurements were started in 1927. Clare, who will be a freshman in Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado next fall, is shown with her poster, and me, below.

Thanks to everyone who presented and attended this year’s poster session!

BMW

I had the privilege of being involved with two award sessions at this week’s Eastern Analytical Symposium (EAS). I was very pleased to be invited to speak in the session honoring former Eigenvectorian Charles E. “Chuck” Miller for Outstanding Achievements in Near Infrared Spectroscopy. Chuck elected to have talks from speakers that represented phases in his career. This included Robert Thompson, Chuck’s advisor from Oberlin College, Tormod Næs, from his time at University of Washington’s Center for Process Analytical Chemistry (CPAC) and Matforsk (now Nofima), Cary Sohl of DuPont, and myself. Chuck, now with Merck, presented “26 Years of NIR Technology – From One Person’s Perspective,” which chronicled his career and influences, along with the progression of NIR over the period.

The session was organized by Katherine Bakeev of CAMO. Pictured below are Katherine, Tormod, Cary, Chuck, EAS President David Russell, and myself.

The session provided ample evidence of the intertwined evolution of chemometrics and NIR, with two primarily chemometric talks and two NIR talks with aspects of chemometrics.

I was also our representative at the session honoring Beata Walczak of the University of Silesian in Poland. Beata was the recipient of the EAS Award for Outstanding Achievements in Chemometrics, sponsored once again by Eigenvector Research. Beata and I are pictured below with the award.

The award session, organized by Peter D. Wentzell of Dalhousie University, had an “omics” theme with talks on metabolomics and proteomics. Speakers included Peter, Tobais Karakach of the Institute for Marine Biosciences, Sarah Rutan of Virginia Commonwealth University and Michal Daszykowski, also of Silesian. Beata presented “Chemometrics in Proteomics,” an overview of her work in the field highlighting methods for aligning samples from 2-D gel electrophoresis.

Congratulations to both Chuck and Beata on two very well-deserved awards!

BMW

This year’s Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies meeting (FACSS) was quite vibrant. The number of participants was up from recent years, with close to 1200 registrants. Attendance at the technical sessions and traffic at the exhibit was good.

As usual, EVRI was there in force. Our booth crew is shown above, including me, Chief of Technology Development Jeremy M. Shaver, Vice-President Neal B. Gallagher, and Senior Research Scientist Randy Bishop.

We especially enjoyed the Monday evening reception, where we gave away beer in our Eigenvector logo bottle koozies. Anna Cavinato of Eastern Oregon University is shown at left with a beer and koozie along with all the usual trade show accoutrements (including badge, necklace, wine glass, frisbee, product literature, t-shirt, etc.). We also made sure we were first in line on Tuesday when HORIBA Scientific gave away free hot dogs and beer for lunch.

The organizers of FACSS also announced that the conference name has been changed to SCIX, short for Scientific Exchange. SCIX 2012 will be in Kansas City, Missouri.

As noted in the previous post, the Eigenvectorians also presented four talks, Jeremy co-taught the Analytical Raman Spectroscopy Workshop, Neal co-chaired a session on General Forensics, and Eigenvector sponsored sessions on Chemometrics and Data Fusion and Chemometrics for Process Analysis. On top of that there was booth duty, attending talks, reviewing posters, and the Raman and SAS receptions. It was a busy time!

EVRI would like to thank the organizers of FACSS 2011, especially Exhibits Chair Mike Carrabba, Workshop Chairs Brandye Smith-Goettler and Heather Brooke, and of course Cindi Lilly and her crew. Great meeting! See you next year!

BMW

The eighteenth meeting on Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry, SIMS XVIII, was held last week in Riva del Garda, Italy. The meeting has been held biannually starting in 1977. As Nicolas Winograd pointed out in the opening lecture, it is a testament to the importance and vibrancy of the field that such a specialized meeting has continued to thrive. SIMS XVIII attracted nearly 400 participants divided roughly equally between Asia, the Americas, and Europe, with Asia being the somewhat largest third and the Americas the smallest.

I was pleased to see an increase in the number of papers that utilized multivariate analysis (MVA) in general and PLS_Toolbox and MIA_Toolbox in particular. In her talk, “Critical Issues in Multivariate Analysis of ToF SIMS Spectra, Images and Depth Profiles,” Bonnie Tyler noted that the number of publications in SIMS utilizing MVA is currently exponentiating, a trend which started about 10 years ago. Interestingly, I first taught a course utilizing SIMS data in 2001 at the Sanibel Island ASMS Meeting. That said, I still saw plenty of presentations and posters with 8-12 images at different AMUs that all looked the same: instances where PCA would result in a drastic reduction in the number of images to review plus some corresponding noise reduction.

Interesting talks where our software was used included:

• “ToF-SIMS Technique for Nano-Surface Analysis of Biosensors and Tissues” by Tae Geol Lee, Ji-Won Park, Sojeong Yun, Heesang Song, Hyegeun Min, Hyun Jo Jung, Taek Dong Chung, Ki-Chul Hwang, Hark Kyun Kim, Dae Won Moon and Daehee Hwang
• “Development of ToF-SIMS Enzyme Screening Assays” by Robyn Goacher, Elizabeth Edwards, Charles Mims and Emma Master
• “Evaluation of white radish sprouts growth influenced by magnetic fields using TOF-SIMS and MCR” by Satoka Aoyagi, Katsushi Kuroda, Ruka Takama, Kazuhiko Fukushima, Isao Kayano, Seiichi Mochizuki and Akira Yano
• “Multivariate Image Analysis of Chemical Heterogeneities Observed in Microarray Printed Polymers” by David Scurr, Andrew Hook, Daniel Anderson, Robert Langer, Morgan Alexander and Martyn Davies

I presented “Deconvolving SIMS Images using Multivariate Curve Resolution with Contrast Constraints,” by myself and Willem Windig. The talk demonstrated how in MCR contrast can be maximized in either the estimated spectra or concentrations/images. The solutions for each of these cases will give an indication of the range of solutions in the given MCR problem which all fit the data equally well. In many instances, one of the two solutions will be preferred, or both may be interpretable to illustrate different features of the data.

SIMS XVIII also included another installment of our “Chemometrics in SIMS” course. I was happy to present this course to another eager group of future chemometricians!

The SIMS XVIII conference was a great success. The technical program was very interesting and went off without a hitch. Riva del Garda is a beautiful location, perhaps the most scenic conference venue I have experienced. Congratulations to the organizers! I’m already looking forward to SIMS XIX in Jeju Island, Korea in 2013.

BMW

The 10th Wold Medal was presented at the Scandinavian Symposium on Chemometrics, SSC12, in Billund, Denmark, this evening. Professor Rasmus Bro accepted the award from past winner Johan Trygg of Umeå University. Rasmus credited Lars Munck for development of the group at University of Copenhagen and enabling him to flourish there. He also mentioned the late Sijmen de Jong as being one of the great people he worked with and dedicated the award to him.

The Wold Medal, named for Herman Wold, father of Partial Least Squares (PLS) methods, honors individuals who have contributed greatly to the field of chemometrics. Rasmus is a worthy recipient, having published over 100 papers in the field, particularly in multi-way analysis. Prof. Bro is also know for his teaching, MATLAB-based multi-way software, and as being a great ambassador for the field. Rasmus is shown below with the Wold medal.

Past recipients of the Wold medal include Svante Wold, Agnar Höskuldsson, Harald Martens, John MacGregor, Rolf Carlson, Olav Kvalheim, Pentti Minkinen, Michael Sjöström and Johan Trygg.

Congratulations Rasmus! Well deserved!

BMW

The next six months promise to be a busy time for the Eigenvectorians. We’ll be hitting the road to eight conferences in the US and Europe. I’ve listed below the conferences we’ll be attending, the talks and courses we’ll be giving, and our exhibits. (Note: not all talks have been accepted yet!)

SSC12, Billund, Denmark, June 7-10

• A Guide to Orthogonalization Filters Used in Multivariate Image Analysis and Conventional Applications, by Barry M. Wise (BMW), Jeremy M. Shaver (JMS) and Neal B. Gallagher (NBG)
• We will also offer Advanced Preprocessing at SSC12 on June 7

AOAC PacNW, Tacoma, Washington, June 21-22

• Simultaneous Analysis of Multivariate Images from Multiple Analytical Techniques, by JMS, and Eunah Lee of HORIBA Scientific
• We’ll also have an exhibit table at AOAC, so please stop by!

NORM 2011, Portland, Oregon June 26-29

• A Guide to the Orthogonalization Filter Smörgåsbord, by BMW, JMS and NBG

SIMS XVIII, Riva del Garda, Italy, September 18-23

• Deconvolving SIMS Images using Multivariate Curve Resolution with Contrast Constraints, by BMW and Willem Windig (WW)

ICRM, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, September 25-29

• Analysis of Hyperspectral Images using Multivariate Curve Resolution with Contrast Constraints, by BMW and WW

FACSS, Reno, Nevada, October 2-7

• Multivariate Modeling of Batch Processes Using Summary Variables, by BMW and NBG
• Detection of Adulterants in Raw Materials Utilizing Hyperspectral Imaging with Target and Anomaly Detection Algorithms, by Lam K. Nguyen and Eli Margilith of Opotek, NBG and JMS
• A Comparison of Detection Strategies for Solids and Organic Liquids on Surfaces Using Long Wave Infrared Hyperspectral Imaging, by NBG, and Thomas A. Blake and James F. Kelly of PNNL
• Visualizing Results: Data Fusion and Analysis for Hyperspectral Images, by JMS, Eunah Lee and Karen Gall
• EVRI will also offer Advanced Preprocessing and Intro to Multivariate Image Analysis at FACSS
• EVRI will also be at the FACSS Exhibit in Booth #29

AIChE Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN, October 16-21

• Correlating Powder Flowability to Particle Size Distribution using Chemometric Techniques by Christopher Burcham of Eli Lilly and Robert T. Roginski (RTR)

EAS, Somerset, NJ, November 14-17

• Orthogonalization Filter Preprocessing in NIR Spectroscopy, by BMW, JMS and NBG
• Eigenvector is once again proud to sponsor the EAS Award for Achievements in Chemometrics, this year honoring Beata Walczak
• BMW will assist Don Dahlberg with a new short course, Intermediate Chemometrics without Equations
• EVRI can also be found at the EAS Exposition in Booth #508

Now that you know where we’re going to be, we hope you’ll stop by and say hello!

BMW