Classification before regression for improving the accuracy of glucose quantification using absorption spectroscopy

This work contributes to the improvement of glucose quantification using near-infrared (NIR), mid-infrared (MIR), and combination of NIR and MIR absorbance spectroscopy by classifying the spectral data prior to the application of regression models. Both manual and automated classification are presented based on three homogeneous classes defined following the clinical definition of the glycaemic ranges (hypoglycaemia, euglycaemia, and hyperglycaemia). For the manual classification, partial least squares and principal component regressions are applied to each class separately and shown to lead to improved quantification results compared to when applying the same regression models for the whole dataset. For the automatic classification, linear discriminant analysis coupled with principal component analysis is deployed, and regressions are applied to each class separately. The results obtained are shown to outperform those of regressions for the entire dataset.