Category Archives: Eigenvector News
Properties of PLS
Sep 28, 2008
As part of my sabbatical here at the Automatic Control Laboratory at EPFL, I was asked to give a seminar. I wanted to talk about some of the work I’d done lately concerning properties of PLS, and differences between PLS algorithms, pretty much the same material I’d presented as a poster at CAC-2008 in Montpellier.
I was asked to make the presentation a little more tutorial in nature, so I included more background on multivariate calibration. The result is “Properties of Partial Least Squares Regression and Differences between Algorithms,” which I presented Friday, September 26, 2008. Enjoy!
BMW
Eigenvector Company Profile
Aug 25, 2008
“Who are those guys?” *
If anybody asks you that about us, we’ve got an answer for them in 16 slides: The Eigenvector Company Profile. It’s a short profile of EVRI, including some information about our company history, software products, personnel, short courses and consulting services.
“Hey, Butch?”
“What?”
“They’re very good.”
BMW
* With apologies to Butch Cassidy.
Definition of Academic
Aug 25, 2008
Eigenvector offers academic discounts on our software and short courses, such as our upcoming Basic Chemometrics in Rome. Everyone, of course, likes a discount, so we get a lot of questions regarding how to qualify as an academic.
If you do a Google search on “definition academic” you’ll come up with quite a few choices. Most of them, like TheFreeDictionary.com, include something to the effect of “Of, relating to, or characteristic of a school, especially one of higher learning.” Based on this, we define academic as degree granting institution. Thus, we do not consider research institutes, such as national laboratories, to be academic, and ask that they pay industrial rates.
There are some other definitions of academic. In particular I like “Scholarly to the point of being unaware of the outside world” and “Theoretical or speculative without a practical purpose or intention.” If you are willing to admit that your institution fits this definition, then I suppose we would give you the academic rate. However, I’d have to see this on letterhead and signed by the laboratory director. I doubt that we’ll find anyone willing to put that in writing, but if we do, I’ll post it here!
BMW
Chuck Miller to Chair Next IDRC “Chambersburg” Meeting
Aug 11, 2008
I’m pleased to announce that Eigenvector’s Dr. Charles E. “Chuck” Miller has been elected chair of the 2010 International Diffuse Reflectance Conference, aka the “Chambersburg” Meeting. IDRC has been held every other year since 1982 and is one of the premier conferences on NIR spectroscopy and related fields. It is organized by the Council for Near infrared Spectroscopy, CNIRS.
The 2008 IDRC meeting ran from August 3-8 in its usual location, on the campus of Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. IRDC is organized in a Gordon Conference-like format, with longer talks, moderated discussions, morning and evening sessions, and afternoons off for further scientific exchange or recreation. Chuck will be responsible for organizing the program for the next meeting, to be held in August, 2010.
This year at IDRC Chuck presented “Chemometrics in Process Analytical Technology (PAT)-A Six Sigma Perspective.” When at Dupont, Chuck became a “Six Sigma Green Belt.” His presentation outlines his experience with Six Sigma and explores the relationship between Six Sigma, PAT and chemometrics.
Congratulations to Chuck! We’re sure the 2010 Chambersburg meeting will be a smashing success!
BMW
Chemometrics Short Course in Rome, October 27-29, 2008
Jul 16, 2008
Some time ago I asked Rasmus Bro if he would be interested in teaching a short course with me in Europe this fall. He said, “Yes, and I really want to go to Rome!” Fortunately, I’d been in contact lately with Dr. Giovanni Visco of Rome University Chemistry Department regarding the CMA4CH meeting.
Dr. Visco has been kind enough to put us in touch with CASPUR, the nearby “Interuniversity Consortium for Supercomputing and Research,” which has good facilities for teaching a computer based course. We’re currently planning on teaching an introductory 3-day course October 27-29, 2008. The course will include:
- Linear Algebra for Chemometricians
- MATLAB for Chemometricians
- Principal Components Analysis
- Clustering
- Regression and Partial Least Squares
- Classification
- Variable Selection
Obviously, we’ll have to do a little editing of these courses to fit this 4.5 days worth of material into 3 days! If you have questions, please drop me a line (bmw@eigenvector.com).
See you in Rome this fall!
BMW
Sabbatical at EPFL
Jul 16, 2008
In September of 2007 I received an offer I couldn’t refuse. When Professor Dominique Bonvin of Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) wrote and asked if there was a chance to have me spend some time there in 2008, it didn’t take long for me to send back a positive response.
Besides the fact that EPFL is in a beautiful location, (on Lake Geneva in Switzerland), Dominique’s group there at the Automatic Control Laboratory has research interests that are well aligned with Eigenvector’s, and, of course, our users. For instance, they have worked on issues surrounding MSPC and curve resolution for investigating reacting systems.
I’ll be working with Michael Amrhein on model updating schemes for batch processes. This is rather timely as we work more and more with monitoring batch processes, including semiconductor manufacturing and bioreactors. Model updating is important because these process exhibit considerable drift with time.
I’ll be spending a little more than 2 months at EPFL, arriving in the last couple days of August and leaving in the first few days of November. My wife (and assistant!) Jill, will be along, as will daughters Clare and Mattie. It should be pretty much business as usual at EVRI, though it make take a few days on either end to set up operations to process orders, etc.
I look forward to this time to “sharpen the saw.”
BMW
CAC-2008 in Montpellier, France
Jun 23, 2008
The Eleventh Conference on Chemometrics in Analytical Chemistry, CAC-2008, begins next week in Montpellier, France. The conference runs from June 30 through July 4.
All indications are that it will be a great conference. The organizers say that attendance is will be close to 350, which must be a record for CAC.
Eigenvector will be there, of course. Our Jeremy Shaver will present Automatic Sample Weighting for Inferential Modeling of Historical In-Control Process Data, which is concerned with the problem of developing calibration models from data where the bulk of the samples are tightly clustered, with only a few samples exhibiting significant variation.
I’ll be there as well, presenting Tools for Multivariate Calibration Robustness Testing with Observations on Effects of Data Preprocessing. We all want calibration models that are robust, and thus, have good longevity. But how do you tell how brittle a model is? This talk demonstrates some tools for assessing model performance in the face of changes in the samples and instruments.
I’m also presenting a poster, Properties of PLS, and Differences between NIPALS and Lanczos Bidiagonalization. I’ll write about this a little more in my next post, but suffice it to say that there is a bit of controversy of late about various algorithms for Partial Least Squares Regression and the residuals they generate.
Eigenvector is of course proud to be a sponsor of CAC. We are sponsoring the Best Poster Contest, and will present the winner with $500USD (about 322€ today). I personally really like poster sessions. Its a great time to really talk with people about their research, and its generally much more of an exchange of scientific ideas than a talk, which are primarily one-way communications.
So, if you are going to CAC, look us up. Jeremy and I are always happy to answer questions about our products and services, and are always looking for user input on features for PLS_Toolbox, Solo, etc.
See you at CAC!
BMW
Pietro Cosentino wins Best Presentation Prize at CMA4CH 2008
Jun 5, 2008
The Multivariate Analysis and Chemometrics Applied to Environment and Cultural Heritage conference, CMA4CH, was held on Ventotene Island, Italy, June 1-4, 2008. This somewhat specialized conference focuses on how multivariate techniques can be used to improve understanding of the environment and cultural artifacts.
EVRI was pleased to be a sponsor of CMA4CH, and provided a copy of Solo 4.2 for the Best Presentation. The prize was won by Pietro Cosentino for “Identification of precious artefacts and stones: the sonic imprint.” The paper presents a new non-invasive technique for fingerprinting objects, such as stones and statues, by measuring their response to vibrations imposed by an external “tweeter.” Co-authors include P. Capizzi, G. Fiandaca, R. Martorana, P. Messina and I. Razo Amoroz, all of the University of Palermo.
Congratulations to Pietro and co-workers on a very interesting piece of work! We trust that they will find Solo quite useful was they go forward and test their method on new samples.
BMW
EigenU 2008 Recap
May 12, 2008
Wow, what a week!
Fourteen courses, forty students, and eight instructors all in six days. This has to be as much chemometrics as has ever been learnt in one week in one place, ever.
OK, I may be a bit biased, but the third edition of Eigenvector University went really well. Students from as far away as Japan and Kuwait converged on the Washington Athletic Club for a series of basic to advanced chemometrics courses May 4-9, 2008. The entire Eigenvector consulting staff was on hand, plus our associate Rasmus Bro.
The week started on Sunday morning with a full Linear Algebra for Chemometricians class (that’s dedication!) and continued with MATLAB for Chemometricians that afternoon. On Monday, our parallel track of specialty and advanced courses was added with Using PLS_Toolbox and Solo Models On-line.
Evening events included the Tuesday night’s joint EigenU/CPAC Poster Session, Wednesday night’s PLS_Toolbox/Solo PowerUser Tip & Tricks, and the Workshop Dinner at Torchy’s Thursday.
We were pleased to see the attendees get out and enjoy the local terrain. Students explored the waterfront and Pike Place Market, took ferry rides to Bainbridge Island, and enjoyed the workout facilities and spa treatments at the WAC. Friends were made all around.
As usual, the WAC staff took great care of us and kept us well fed. Numerous comments were made about how good the lunches were. Spouses joined many of the workshop participants for the Thursday dinner at Torchy’s, which was the culinary highlight of the week.
Thanks to everyone, students and Eigenvectorians, for making it a fun and informative week!
BMW
EigenU 2008 Best Posters
May 11, 2008
This year the Eigenvector University poster session was held in conjunction with the Center for Process Analytical Chemistry’s spring meeting dinner event. The EigenU crowd hopped a bus at the WAC and was whisked out to the University of Washington, where they hooked up with CPAC at the UW Club. Almost 20 posters were presented, about two-thirds of which came from UW/CPAC students, with the balance from EigenU attendees. Posters were judged by the Eigenvectorians in attendance (Neal, Jeremy, Rasmus, Willem, Scott, Chuck, Bob, and myself).
Lead authors for the winning posters were Paroma Chakravarty of the University of Minnesota and Rebecca Milczarek of the University of California at Davis. Each received Apple iPod nanos for their winning efforts.
Paroma’s contribution, “Determination of phase transformation in pharmaceutical solid dosage form (tablet) by multivariate analysis,” described how Principal Components Analysis was used to analyze Raman spectroscopic data to monitor phase transformation between hydrates of thiamine hydrochloride. Her co-authors included Marc Champagne and Leslie King of Eli Lilly and Raj Suryanarayanan of University of Minnesota. Ms. Chakravarty used the PCA routines from PLS_Toolbox, and provided a very succinct interpretation of the results.
Rebecca’s poster, “Assessment of tomato pericarp mechanical damage using multivariate analysis of magnetic resonance images,” demonstrated how MRIs can be used to detect bruising. Bruised tomatoes disintegrate during peeling, leading to loss of product. Co-authors included Mikal E. Saltveit of UC Davis and T. Casey Garvey of ConAgra Foods. The poster was presented by co-author Professor Michael J. McCarthy of UC Davis. Ms. Milczarek used PLS with the image tools from MIA_Toolbox to analyze the data.
Many thanks to all who presented their work or attended the poster session!
BMW
What’s New for EigenU 2008
Mar 5, 2008
This year’s Eigenvector University will be May 4-9. For the this third edition of EigenU we’ll once again be at the posh Washington Athletic Club in beautiful downtown Seattle.
As before, EigenU will include 14 short courses, a poster session (with Apple iPod nanos for the best two posters!), and a conference dinner at Torchy’s. But we do have a number of things that are new this year:
- This year’s Poster Session will be held on the University Washington campus at the UW Club in conjunction with a Center for Process Analytical Chemistry dinner event. This is a chance for EigenU participants to network with CPAC sponsors and faculty.
- We’ve added a new class, PLS_Toolbox/Solo PowerUser Tips & Tricks. This special short course is dedicated to users both old and new who want to get the most out of our software. This Wednesday evening event will include lots of great “how to’s” and dinner.
- With all the new options we’ve added for automating predictions with your multivariate models, we’ve expanded Using PLS_Toolbox/Solo Models On-Line to a full day. Find out how to use Solo_Predictor, Model_Exporter and a host of other options to their best advantage.
- We’ve also expanded Advanced Preprocessing to a full day. Proper data preprocessing is often the key to robust and precise multivariate models.
For complete information, see the EigenU homepage. Our block of rooms at the WAC will be released March 10. Early, (discounted) registration ends March 28, and so make your plans to attend EigenU now!
Thanks!
BMW
…and another thing about Model_Exporter
Feb 28, 2008
We recently got a chance to test the .m file output of Model_Exporter with National Instruments’ LabVIEW. The Full version of LabVIEW includes MathScript, which is quite compatible with MATLAB for basic calculations. We’ve just verified that PLS_Toolbox and Solo models will work with LabVIEW applications after exporting them with Model_Exporter. You don’t have to have a copy of MATLAB present to run them.
This is good news for LabVIEW users, who can now take full advantage of the power of PLS_Toolbox/Solo for their on-line applications!
So how easy is it?
Simple! Once you have a model in the Analysis GUI, just select File/Export Model/To Predictor/Predictor M-file (see image below). Save the model to an m-file.
Next, set up LabVIEW to create a variable called “x” in MathScript containing the measured data and call the exported m-file to make the prediction. The result would be several variables in LabVIEW including the predicted value, along with T2 and Q values, socres, contributions, etc. Any of these could then be plotted, or used for whatever control action is desired.
With Model_Exporter, that’s all it takes to get your PLS_Toolbox/Solo models running in LabVIEW!
BMW
PLS_Toolbox/Solo Maintenance Program
Feb 19, 2008
You may have noticed that Eigenvector has recently changed the way software upgrades are handled. Our old model was based on the version number of the software. With PLS_Toolbox, we had always charged for every other upgrade of version number of 0.1 or greater. For instance, if you bought PLS_Toolbox 1.5, you got 2.0 for free, but had to pay to upgrade to 2.1. Once upgraded to 2.1, you got 3.0 for free, and so on. This was a little confusing to users at times, because the version didn’t go up in even increments, and the time between upgrades was variable as well (see A History of PLS_Toolbox).
We’re now moving to a maintenance contract model that specifies a time period for support, including free upgrades and maintenance releases. Why the change? Well, first off, we’re now planning on releasing upgrades on a more regular schedule, approximately twice a year. We have a long list of new features and methods that we’ll be adding to PLS_Toolbox and Solo, and we want to get those to you as soon as possible. So version number changes are going to accelerate. Secondly, we have a large number of users who would prefer a model that provided predictable costs. This way they can budget for continued upgrades and maintenance. Beyond that, The MathWorks uses this model for MATLAB and users are accustomed to it.
So how are we going to price it? The general rule is that maintenance will cost approximately 20% of the new license cost for industrial users ($199/year for single PLS_Toolbox licenses) and 25% a year for academics ($99/year). Users can purchase yearly maintenance by logging into their account and selecting it from the list under the Buy/Upgrade tab.
For industrial users, an upgrade under the old system ($495) is the same cost as 2.5 years of maintenance under the new system. But with our more rapid pace of development, we expect you’ll see at least 4 significant upgrades in that time. So the value to our customers should be better than ever.
The policy for Solo will mirror the policy for PLS_Toolbox.
Please write if you have questions!
BMW
Eigenvector Now a Teenager
Feb 12, 2008
Hi Folks:
While dropping off my 15 year-old at school today it occurred to me that, like her, EVRI was now a teenager. Eigenvector Research was founded on January 1, 1995. So I guess that means we turned 13 last month. Yikes!
Teenagers are often associated with mood-swings, disdain for authority, a cynical outlook, and the more than occasional outburst. I hope that’s not us! Well, OK, we do try to maintain a healthy amount of skepticism, and we do certainly let people know what we think–that’s our job as consultants. But the staff of EVRI is also goal-oriented, dedicated, talented, smart, helpful, and easy to get along with (just like my teenager).
I guess its a sign of maturity when you don’t think much about your birthdays. Our history is long enough now that most of our anniversaries are not significant milestones. EVRI is just 13, but between us we have over 100 man-years of chemometrics experience and expertise.
At any rate, you don’t have be afraid of us, just because we’re 13! Give us a call and we promise not to bite your head off. 🙂
BMW
EigenU Post-mortem and Thanks!
May 12, 2007
Well, we made it through another EigenU: 6 days, 14 classes and 35 students. Plus, a poster session, a PLS_Toolbox User Group Meeting and a workshop group dinner. Thanks to everybody that came! We hope you enjoy using your new skills, and that they enhance your productivity, aid you in the discovery process, and improve the quality of the products you are involved with. Try to start working with your data as soon as possible. If you do that, you’ll have a new skill that will serve you well the rest of your professional life.
We’d also like to thank the WAC for their hospitality and attention to detail. We really enjoyed the lunches, receptions and dinner. Thanks to Rick Cardona for making the arrangements, and Joshua, James, Danny, Douglas, Kevin and everybody else who took care of us all week.
Next year’s EigenU is tentatively scheduled for April 27-May 2, 2008. We plan to offer a couple new courses, including one in Robust Methods (PLS_Toolbox and Solo include robust PCA and PLS). Until then, you can find us teaching courses at the Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies (FACSS) conference and Eastern Analytical Symposium (EAS).
Thanks again to everybody that came. As usual, we learned a lot from you too. And thanks for testing the next version of PLS_Toolbox. You’ll see that out soon, and thanks to you, it’ll be better than ever!
See you next year, if not before.
BMW
Welcome to “The View from Eigenvector”
Apr 14, 2007
The word “view” has many definitions. One of them is “a scene or vista,” and in fact, the picture at the top of this page is what I see out my office window here in Wenatchee, Washington. The mountains on the left and center are the Stuart range, and on the right you see Mt. Cashmere. I enjoy this view immensely, and the mountains here, along with the lakes and rivers, are a big part of why most of us “Eigenvectorians” are here in Washington.
Another definition of “view” is “an individual and personal perception, judgment, or interpretation; an opinion,” and that is what “The View from Eigenvector” will mostly be about. In this space you can expect to find editorials on the state of the field of chemometrics, announcements about software and staff, discussions of the pros and cons of particular modeling approaches, explanations as to why we do things they way we do here at EvRI, etc.
Thanks for checking in on us!
BMW