Algorithm combination strategy to obtain the second‐order advantage: simultaneous determination of target analytes in plasma using three‐dimensional fluorescence spectroscopy

Although a number of algorithms have established to obtain the well‐known second‐order advantage that quantifies analytes of interest in the presence of interferents, each has associated problems. In this work, for the first time, the optimization procedure of trilinear decomposition has been divided into three subparts, and a novel strategy is developed for assembling the advantages of the alternating trilinear decomposition (ATLD) algorithm, the self‐weighted alternating trilinear decomposition (SWATLD) algorithm, and the parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) algorithm. The performance of the proposed strategy was evaluated using a simulated data set, a published fluorescence data set together with a new fluorescence data set that simultaneously quantifies procaine and tetracaine in plasma. Results show that the novel method can accurately and effectively estimate the qualitative and quantitative information of analytes of interest. Besides, the resolved profiles are very stable with respect to the number of components as long as the employed number is chosen to be equal or larger than the underlying one. Additionally, the study confirms that better prediction can be obtained by the new strategy when compared with ATLD, SWATLD, and PARAFAC as well as the strategy that employs direct trilinear decomposition method as initial values for PARAFAC. Moreover, the strategy can be directly extended to third‐order or higher‐order data analysis. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.