title: A new regression method based on independent component analysis.
abstract: Based on independent component analysis (ICA), a new regression method, independent component regression (ICR), was developed to build the model of NIR spectra and the routine components of plant samples. It is found that ICR and principal component regression (PCR) are completely equivalent when they are applied in quantitative prediction. However, independent components (ICs) can give more chemical explanation than principal components (PCs) because independence is a high-order statistic that is a much stronger condition than orthogonality. Three ICs are obtained by ICA from the NIR spectra of plant samples; it is found that they are strongly correlated to the NIR spectra of water, hydrocarbons and organonitrogen compounds, respectively. Therefore, ICA may be a promising tool to retrieve both quantitative and qualitative information from complex chemical data sets.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, PR China; Department of Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, PR China.
authors.forename: Xueguang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Zhenyu
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Hou
authors.forename: Wensheng
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Cai