Multi-platform integration based on NIR and UV–Vis spectroscopies for the geographical traceability of the fruits of Amomum tsao-ko

Abstract

Due to the world-wide concern relating to herb quality and safety, there is a momentum to authenticate the geographical origin of herb with multi-platform techniques. This study attempted to assess multi-platform information as a practical strategy for the geographical traceability of the fruits of Amomum tsao-ko. To this aim, one hundred and eighty dried fruits of A. tsao-ko from five geographical regions were analyzed by near infrared (NIR) and ultraviolet visible (UV–Vis) spectroscopy. On this basis, two variable dimension reduction strategies, including principal component analysis (PCA) and sequential and orthogonalized partial-least squares (SO-PLS), and two variables selection strategies, including variable importance in projection (VIP) and sequential and orthogonalized covariance selection (SO-CovSel), were performed to extract the feature information in the two blocks. Partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) classification algorithm combined with fused matrices was used to identify the geographical origins. The results of PLS-DA models indicated that SO-PLS and SO-CovSel, taking advantage of the sequential modeling coupled to orthogonalization, could not only identify the common information presented in the two blocks but also provide more concise methods without any loss of classification ability, which could be employed in authenticating the geographical regions of the fruits of A. tsao-ko, effectively.