Accuracy and precision in the estimation of peak areas: The effects of apodization

Abstract Weiss, G.H., Kiefer, J.E. and Ferretti, J.A., 1988. Accuracy and precision in the estimation of peak areas: the effects of apodization. Chemometrics and Intelligent Laboratory Systems , 4: 223-229. The problem of finding optimal apodization functions for the numerical estimate of peak areas is investigated. The formalism in such studies is presented and the effects are analyzed for a set of functions of the type exp[(- t / T f ) α ], where α = 1, 2 are the most frequently used values of this parameter. A measure of generalized error that combines bias and instrumental noise effects in peak area measurements is used to compare different apodization functions. It is found that increasing the value of α always decreases the generalized error but at the cost of requiring more precise knowledge of T 2 *. Effects of varying other parameters available to the experimenter are also studied.