Moving-Window-Improved Monte Carlo Uninformative Variable Elimination Combining Successive Projections Algorithm for Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS)

Abstract

The MC-UVE-SPA method is commonly proposed as a variable selection approach for multivariate calibration. However, the SPA tends to select wavelength variables that are sparsely distributed over the wavelength ranges of the variables selected by the MC-UVE algorithm, and the MC-UVE-SPA cascade cannot improve the problem of wavelength point discontinuity. It is addressed in this paper by proposing a moving-window- (MW-) improved MC-UVE-SPA wavelength selection algorithm. The proposed algorithm improves the continuity of the selected wavelength variables and thereby better exploits the advantages of the MC-UVE algorithm and the SPA to obtain regression models with high prediction accuracy. The MC-UVE, MC-UVE-SPA, and MC-UVE-SPA-MW algorithms are applied for conducting wavelength variable selection for the NIR spectral absorbance data of corn, diesel fuel, and ethylene. Here, partial least squares regression (PLSR) models reflecting the oil content of corn, the boiling point of diesel fuel, and the ethylene concentration are established after conducting wavelength selection using the MC-UVE algorithm, and corresponding multiple linear regression (MLR) models are established after conducting wavelength selection using the MC-UVE-SPA and MC-UVE-SPA-MW algorithms. Experimental results demonstrate that the progressive elimination of uncorrelated and collinear variables generates increasingly simplified partial-spectrum models with greater prediction accuracy than the full-spectrum model. Among the three wavelength selection algorithms, the MC-UVE-SPA selected the least number of wavelength variables, while the proposed MC-UVE-SPA-MW algorithm provided models with the greatest prediction accuracy.