Knowledge Discovery in an Infrared Database

Abstract The paper describes a process of knowledge acquisition in the collection of infrared spectra (infrared database). In fact it is a strategy for the automated generation of correlation tables, i.e. correlations between specific molecular subunits (substructures, chemical groups) and their absorption frequencies. The data in the tables are subsequently converted automatically into rules that can be used to infer the existence of molecular substructures from the IR spectrum of an analysed compound.