Spectral pattern recognition of in situ FT-IR spectroscopic reaction data using minimization of entropy and spectral similarity (MESS): application to the homogeneous rhodium catalyzed hydroformylation of isoprene

An improved algorithm using minimization of entropy and spectral similarity (MESS) was tested to recover pure component spectra from in situ experimental Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) reaction spectral data, which were collected from a homogeneous rhodium catalyzed hydroformylation of isoprene. The experimental spectra are complicated and highly overlapping because of the presence of multiple intermediate products in this reaction system. The traditional entropy minimization method fails to resolve real reaction mixture spectra, but MESS can successfully reconstruct pure component spectra of unknown intermediate products for real reaction systems by the addition of minimization of spectral similarity. The quantitative measure of spectral similarity between two spectra was given by their inner products. The results indicate that MESS is a stable and useful algorithm for spectral pattern recognition of highly overlapped experimental reaction spectra. Comparison is also made between MESS, entropy minimization, simple-to-use interactive self-modeling mixture analysis (SIMPLISMA), interactive principle component analysis (IPCA), and orthogonal projection approach-alternating least squares (OPA-ALS).     

Survey of the 1997, 1998 and 1999 annual technical reports on patent information activities (part II: I to Z)

The activities of 59 intellectual property offices and organisations worldwide in the field of patent information are summarised for the period 1997–1999. The summary is presented under eight standard headings, as far as relevant, for each country. Activity varies enormously from just a handful of applications through to RU (24K), GB (30K), DE (58K), KR (80K), EP (121K), US (270K utility patents), and Japan (405K); the numbers are continuing to increase significantly in most countries. This part (second of two) covers 35 countries and organisations, with WIPO codes starting I to Z.The author concludes, inter alia, that

(i) the number of patent applications is increasing at such a rate that the granting or registration activities of many IP Offices are unable to keep up;

(ii) the development of electronic filing systems is proceeding apace;

(iii) the IPC, or derivatives such as ECLA, continue to be the primary tools for allocation, classification, and search in all IP Offices, except US and GB;

(iv) automated search systems continue to be developed and are used in tandem with manual search files, commercial and free Internet online databases; and

(v) the use of complex jukebox systems to handle the vast numbers of patent specifications on CD-ROM continues to increase.