Category Archives: Short Courses

If you are in the market for training in multivariate methods you have a number of choices. In North America, you could attend classes given by CAMO, ProSensus, or Umetrics. Here are 10 reasons you should come to the 8th Annual EigenU 2013, May 12-17 in Seattle, instead:

1. More experienced instructors – Courses at EigenU 2013 will be led by the EVRI staff including Neal B. Gallagher, Jeremy M. Shaver, Robert T. Roginski, and Randy Bishop, plus our Associate Rasmus Bro, and of course myself. Together we’ve got over 100 man-years of chemometric experience.
2. Wider variety of courses – In addition to our beginning track including PCA and PLS, we offer 11 advanced and specialty courses including Robust Methods, Calibration Transfer/Instrument Standardization, Batch SPC, Variable Selection and Multivariate Image Analysis. Plus new this year, we have the Bring Your Own Data (BYOD) Workshop where you’ll be able to work with your own data while you learn hands-on with EVRI’s team of instructors.
3. Method-centric instruction – At EigenU we provide the background required to truly understand chemometric methods; we don’t just show you what buttons to push. Our goal is to make the literature in the field accessible to our graduates. Deeper understanding of the methods leads to better analysis!
4. Beautiful Seattle, WA – With Puget Sound and the Olympics to the West and Lake Washington and the Cascades to the East, the Emerald City is distractingly scenic. Plus, it is home to the Space Needle, Pike Place Market, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Mariners, the largest ferry system in the US, plus tons of other attractions. It is definitely not New Jersey!
5. The Washington Athletic Club – EigenU is held at the WAC, the nation’s premier city athletic club. The historic 21 story facility includes 5 floors of fitness facilities, 10 floors of Euro-styled techno-centric sleeping rooms, full service spa, and 3 restaurants.
6. The food – From the continental breakfast, including the WAC’s signature sticky buns, through the gourmet plated lunches, to afternoon snack bars, our guests always rave about the food.
7. Networking – EigenU attendance is typically about 40 scientists and engineers with a range of chemometric expertise and wide variety of interests. This means you’ll have plenty of opportunity to find colleagues with common problems and complimentary solutions.
8. Evening events – EigenU provides ample opportunity to continue your chemometric learning and networking into the evening. This includes Tuesday’s PLS_Toolbox/Solo User Poster Session, Wednesday’s PowerUser Tips & Tricks Session, and Thursday’s Workshop Dinner, which is one more opportunity to enjoy the WAC’s fabulous food. Present a poster at the Tuesday evening User Session and you could win an Apple iPad mini or iPod nano!
9. Flexible, multi-platform software – With PLS_Toolbox, MIA_Toolbox and EMSC_Toolbox, EVRI offers the most comprehensive set of chemometric tools available plus the flexibility of MATLAB. Our stand-alone packages Solo and Solo+MIA offer all the point and click tools of their MATLAB-based siblings. Plus they’re all available for Windows, Linux and MacOS. On-line options available too!
10. Costs less – In spite of all its advantages, EigenU actually costs less than similar courses from CAMO, Umetrics and ProSensus.

So it probably isn’t surprising that EigenU attendees are more than satisfied. Here’s what a couple of them had to say:

“I attended the Eigenvector University 2010 earlier this year. It was the best short-course I have ever taken on any subject. I highly recommend it if you’re looking for a short-course, immersion kind of training.” – James M. Roberts, GSK

“What you are offering here is unmatched.” – David A. Russell, Dupont.

Discount registration ends soon, register and pay by April 10 for the best prices.

See you at EigenU!

BMW

Our Basic/Intermediate Chemometrics course at FOSS in Hillerød, Denmark, concluded today. It has been a good week; Rasmus and I have really enjoyed it. We’ve had lots of good discussion with plenty of examples offered by class members. And our students have been very attentive–note that they have the same thing on their screens as I have on mine!

Many thanks to FOSS and especially Lars Nørgaard for inviting us here. FOSS took good care of us, providing ample coffee, great snacks for breaks, and great lunches in their cafeteria. We’ve also had a couple nice evenings out, including a very nice dinner at Ristorante La Perle. We can see why everybody in Hillerød goes there for their birthday.

Thanks to everyone who attended!

BMW

I’m leaving in the morning to go to Hillerød, Denmark, where we are holding a Beginning/Intermediate Chemometrics course. I’ll be teaching with Rasmus Bro, which I always enjoy. Rasmus has a very relaxed lecturing style and is very good at explaining chemometric concepts. I always learn something, even when it is about subjects I’m already pretty good at.

The course will be held at FOSS World Headquaters. FOSS is very big in applications of spectroscopy to problems in food and beverages, grain, feed, meat etc. Chemometrics is a critical part of this and FOSS has a substantial chemometrics group. That group is headed up by Lars Nørgaard, the former Head of the Department of Food Science at University of Copenhagen.

I think of Lars more as a chemometrician, however, rather than a manager. PLS_Toolbox owes a number of things to Lars, including Inteval-PLS (iPLS) and ‘color-by.’ iPLS is a method for selecting variables and also elucidating from which part of the spectrum calibration models get their predictive information. The ‘color-by’ feature uses the color of data points in a plot to indicate the value of another variable. It really helps spot trends. I first saw this feature in LatentiX, with which Lars was involved.

We have a nearly full class lined up and with Lars, Rasmus and myself it should make for a lively group. Plus, we’ll be teaching with the just released PLS_Toolbox 6.5. I’ll need to spend some time learning about 6.5’s new features myself. I’m looking forward to it!

BMW

The Sixth Annual Eigenvector University starts tomorrow, May 15. The computers are set up, the catering is finalized and the notes are printed. We’re ready to go! I’m always glad when we get to this point. The prep work gets tedious sometimes but I always enjoy the classes.

Once again we’ll have 40+ participants from North America and Europe. We’re looking forward to some good interaction with a diverse set of students. I see we have enrollees from the pharmaceutical industry, medical device companies, national laboratories, food products, mining, and instrument manufacturers. And of course a strong contingent of academicians. Should be a good mix!

Perhaps my favorite parts of teaching is when somebody asks a really good question. One that makes you think hard and delve into the background of the methods we work with. Hopefully, we’ll get some of those–they provide good fodder for this blog!

I’ll report back this week with any interesting developments.

BMW

The Sixth Edition of Eigenvector University, EigenU 2011, is filling up. Many of our most popular classes are more than half full. This includes Linear Algebra for Chemometricians, MATLAB for Chemometricians, Chemometrics I: PCA, Chemometrics II: Regression and PLS, Variable Selection, and Common Chemometric Mistakes (and how to avoid them).

This year EigenU runs from Sunday, May 15 through Friday, May 20. As before, it will be held at the nation’s premier city athletic club, the Washington Athletic Club, in the heart of Seattle.

Early discount registration ends soon. To receive the early discount rates, registration must be received with payment by April 15.

See you in May!

BMW

Following a successful premier of our new course, Using the Advanced Features of PLS_Toolbox/Solo 6.0, we’re pleased to announce that we will be repeating the course in Leuven, Belgium on November 22, 2010. The course is being arranged in conjunction with CQ Consultancy.

And, yes! It was a successful premier! We had 28 students at the initial offering on the University of Barcelona campus. Many, many, thanks to Romà Tauler and Anna de Juan for hosting the event, and of course many thanks to the attendees for coming. We used a beta of Solo 6.0 for the course, and I’m happy to say it ran quite smoothly. It should be ready for release by mid-October.

BMW