CHEMICAL RANK ESTIMATION FOR EXCITATION-EMISSION MATRICES USING A MORPHOLOGICAL APPROACH

The chemical rank of excitation-emission matrices obtained in fluoresc ence spectroscopy is determined using a morphological approach. The EE Ms are decomposed by the singular value decomposition method. In order to distinguish different patterns of spectral (primary) eigenvectors from noise (secondary) eigenvectors, a morphological function is devel oped to pick out the spectral eigenvectors, the number of which is the chemical rank of the data matrix. The sample theory and the significa nce level of the morphological function are also provided. Compared wi th frequency analysis, the present approach is more convenient and is better at distinguishing the spectral and noise eigenvectors. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.