Bridging the CHASM between pharmaceutical analysis and noninvasive/nondestructive analysis using magnetohydrodynamic acoustic-resonance near-infrared (MAReNIR) spectrometry

The inherent problem with the use of near-IR to study biological samples is that the analytes frequently exist at much smaller concentrations than the other constituents of the sample matrix. In biological systems the matrix includes sodium, potassium, chloride, proteins and other components which cause spectral interference and can vary from patient to patient. In such cases, wavelength selection methods and full-spectral techniques produce excess error because they must attempt to model both variations in major constituents and variations in the analyte.;In order to study certain biological processes it is necessary that the analytical procedure be noninvasive. Noninvasive analysis would be greatly beneficial to the monitoring of blood glucose to reduce the complications from diabetes. Currently diabetics suffer from unnecessary complications due to the pain and inconvenience of standard glucose monitoring. This type of analysis is also the only means of studying the mechanism of carotid plaque formation over time. In the future it is anticipated that noninvasive analysis will be useful for pharmacokinetic and boiavailability studies.;The limitations placed on noninvasive analysis force the application of a new analytical paradigm, which we call CHASM (Computational Holistic Analysis both Simultaneous and Multivariate). CHASM combines several noninvasive analytical techniques to build a computational model of the sample. The various components of the sample can then be quantified and qualified computationally rather than by "wet chemistry" techniques. Computers become faster, cheaper, and easier to use every year, while chemical instrumentation tends to become more specific, expensive, and complicated.;This work introduces MAReNIR (Magnetohydrodynamic Acoustic-Resonance Near-IR Spectrometry) as a prototypical CHASM instrument. A MAReNIR spectrometer uses acoustics and magnetohydrodynamics to determine major constituents of biological materials noninvasively and nondestructively, leaving the near-IR spectrum of the analyte to be used quantitatively with less prediction error. This work demonstrates the reduced analytical error of MAReNIR techniques as compared to chemometric analysis of near-IR spectra. Algorithms are introduced to handle the large quantities of data produced by the CHASM approach. The techniques to measure the MHD effect are also characterized and optimized.