title: Diagnosis of abnormal patterns in multivariate microclimate monitoring: a case study of an open-air archaeological site in Pompeii (Italy).
abstract: Chemometrics has been applied successfully since the 1990s for the multivariate statistical control of industrial processes. A new area of interest for these tools is the microclimatic monitoring of cultural heritage. Sensors record climatic parameters over time and statistical data analysis is performed to obtain valuable information for preventive conservation. A case study of an open-air archaeological site is presented here. A set of 26 temperature and relative humidity data-loggers was installed in four rooms of Ariadne's house (Pompeii). If climatic values are recorded versus time at different positions, the resulting data structure is equivalent to records of physical parameters registered at several points of a continuous chemical process. However, there is an important difference in this case: continuous processes are controlled to reach a steady state, whilst open-air sites undergo tremendous fluctuations. Although data from continuous processes are usually column-centred prior to applying principal components analysis, it turned out that another pre-treatment (row-centred data) was more convenient for the interpretation of components and to identify abnormal patterns. The detection of typical trajectories was more straightforward by dividing the whole monitored period into several sub-periods, because the marked climatic fluctuations throughout the year affect the correlation structures. The proposed statistical methodology is of interest for the microclimatic monitoring of cultural heritage, particularly in the case of open-air or semi-confined archaeological sites.
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Physics (UD Industrial Engineering), Universitat Politècnica de València, Camino de Vera s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain; Valencian Institute for Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage (IVC+R), C/Genaro Lahuerta 25-3°, 46010 Valencia, Spain. Electronic address: palomamerello@outlook.com.
authors.forename: Paloma
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Merello
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Physics (UD Industrial Engineering), Universitat Politècnica de València, Camino de Vera s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain; Center of Physical Technologies, Universitat Politècnica de València, Camino de Vera s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain. Electronic address: fjgarcid@upvnet.upv.es.
authors.forename: Fernando-Juan
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: García-Diego
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Statistics, Operations Research and Quality, Universitat Politècnica de València, Camino de Vera s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain. Electronic address: mazarcas@eio.upv.es.
authors.forename: Manuel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zarzo
mesh_terms: D000397:Air Pollution / Q000032:analysis / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D001106:Archaeology; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D006813:Humidity; D007558:Italy; D008834:Microclimate; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D052638:Particulate Matter / Q000032:analysis; D013696:Temperature
chemical_list: D052638:Particulate Matter
keywords: Cultural heritage; Multivariate monitoring; Outlier detection; Preventive conservation; Relative humidity sensors; Temperature sensors