Investigation of the Fourier Transform for Analyzing Spectroscopic Data by Computerized Learning Machines

Abstract

This paper investigates the use of the fast Fourier transform as an aid in the analysis and classification of spectroscopic data. The pattern obtained after transformation is viewed as a weighted average and/or as a frequency representation of the original spectroscopic data. In pattern recognition the Fourier transform allows a different (i.e., a frequency) representation of the data which may prove more amenable to linear separation according to various categories of the patterns. The averaging property means that the information in each dimension of the original pattern is distributed over all dimensions in the pattern resulting from the Fourier transformation. Hence the arbitrary omission or loss of data points in the Fourier spectrum has less effect on the original spectrum. This property is exploited for reducing the dimensionality of the Fourier data so as to minimize data storage requirements and the time required for development of pattern classifiers for categorization of the data. Examples of applications are drawn from low resolution mass spectrometry.