Chemometrics in China

Abstract

The idea of publishing a special issue entitled “Chemometrics in China,” highlighting the best of Chinese research, originated from a discussion between Managing Editor, Paul Trevorrow, and the former Editor-in-Chief, Paul Gemperline who invited Ru-Qin Yu to guest edit such an issue. With the kind help of Professor Hailong Wu, organizer of the regular chemometrics-related sections of Chinese Chemical Society conferences, a list of potential authors was prepared, and an invitation letter from the Editor-in-Chief was distributed to them. In some sense, the Journal of Chemometrics (CEM) epitomizes the development of discipline in China. In volume 4, 1990, the first Chinese paper appeared; a short communication by Professor Maosen Zhang's group of The University of Science and Technology of China1, and in volume 5, 1991, a second Chinese paper from Professor Zhihong Xu's group of Institute of Chemical Metallurgy was published,2 although at that time, Chinese authors used to classify their field as computational chemistry or simply computer chemistry rather than chemometrics. Among 29 research papers published in volume 7, 1993, there were three Chinese papers, one from Professor Nianyi Chen's group of Shanghai Institute of Metallurgy, and two from Hunan University.3-5 The number of Chinese papers published in CEM gradually increased during the 1990s, accounting for five of the 49 papers published6-10 in1996. In the first decade of the millennium, this number reached a peak of nine Chinese papers among the total 68 research papers11-19 in 2009. In the current decade, there are 20 Chinese papers among the total 58 research papers20-39 in 2015. With such expanding representation, it seems appropriate to present a special issue highlighting the best of Chinese research. The development of chemometrics in China was closely associated with research work in different fields of chemistry, as the aforementioned, early authors' work covered the fields of analytical chemistry (Maosen Zhang1), chemical engineering (Zhihong Xu2), and physical chemistry (Nianyi Chen3). In particular, Professor Nianyi Chen was an early pioneer of chemometric research in the field of physical chemistry. Before publishing papers in CEM, the founding editor, Bruce Kowalski, invited Professor Chen to lecture at Center for Process Analytical Chemistry (CPAC) on the topic “Pattern recognition in China” in 1989. In this issue, Professor Wencong Lu presents a mini review highlighting some of the pioneering work of Professor Chen in the field of data mining in material design.40 We were deeply saddened by the passing of Professor Yizeng Liang during the compilation of this special issue. Professor Liang published 26 research papers4-6, 8, 23, 30, 31, 41-59 in the Journal of Chemometrics. In volume 6, 113 to 116, 1992, a laboratory profile60 and a photo of the members of Bergen chemometrics group was published featuring Liang. After defending his PhD thesis in Hunan University in 1988, Liang started his postdoctorial research in Professor Kvalheim's group in 1990. In volume 7, 1993, Liang published his curve resolution work from Kvalheim's group41, 42 and coauthored two additional papers from Hunan University.4, 5 In the present issue, we invited Professor Hongmei Lu to write a paper in memory of Professor Yizeng Liang.61 We hope this issue highlights the best of Chinese chemometrics research. Among others, we invited Professor of Statistics, Qing-Song Xu, to write a paper on the uniform experimental design in chemometrics. The uniform design is an original invention of Chinese scholars with many unique features, although not so well-known in the West. The present special issue is an apt location to include such a mini review highlighting this methodology. Professor Kai-Tai Fang kindly agreed to coauthor this paper.62 We also invited Professor Lu Xu to write a paper concerning the extraction of topological indices from molecular structure63 and Professor Zeng-Ping Chen to write a paper concerning quantitative analysis based on spectral shape deformation.64