SIMCA (A Chemists Stats Method)

[Michael Antolovich]

Has anyone heard of SIMCA (Soft Independant Modelling of Class Analogy) ?
It apparently is a good method of discriminating 'groups' found in many
chemical problems (I'm looking at pattern recognition applied to HPLC
chromatograms).
I know of one package that uses this method of discriminant analysis
(PIROUTTE, ~$7,000 for a not very stable Academic PC version). Has anyone
seen SIMCA used in other programs (preferably cheaper, or in something
like Mathematica etc, which I may have access to :-).
A good reference to the SIMCA method would be nice as well (I am a
Chemist with a poor Stats background, and I am just coming to grips with
Principal Component Analysis (SIMCA uses PCAs for its calculations).
Thanks,
Michael
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\ Michael Antolovich in sunny North Queensland (where it's bloody hot!) /
\ ch...@marlin.jcu.edu.au /
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