Shimadzu Corporation

Shimadzu Co.

Hisamitsu Akamaru

Jun-ichi Kita

Motoo Kinoshita

Hirokazu Taniguchi

Masayuki Okada

Junichi Kita

Kunihiko Okubo

Hiroshi Nakano

Mitsuyoshi Yoshii

Yoshihiro Aoyama

Keiso Kawamoto

Yoshiharu Iwasaki

Juni-Ichi Kita

A sample analysis system is provided with: a reference substance database including measurement results and component classification information of reference substances obtained by each analysis device on information of each reference substance; a reference substance designation unit; a measurement result collation unit to obtain the commonality of the components, the difference between the physical quantities of the respective components, and the degree of coincidence of the measurement results for each analysis device for the designated reference substance; an integration coincidence degree calculation unit to obtain an integration degree of coincidence; and a judgment unit to judge whether or not the difference between the contents of contained components is within an allowable range and classify the corresponding component based on the component classification information.

Sample analysis system

An odor discriminating apparatus includes: a measurement chamber including multiple pieces of odor sensors; a gas introducer for introducing a sample gas into the measurement chamber; concentration adjuster for diluting or condensing the sample gas before introducing the sample gas into the measurement chamber; a vector length computation unit for plotting, in a multidimensional space formed by axes corresponding to detection signals generated by each piece of odor sensors, a measurement point representing a measurement result of the sample gas and for computing a vector length of an odor vector directed from an origin of the multidimensional space to the measurement point; and a controller for feedback-controlling the concentration adjuster so that the vector length computed by the vector length computation unit reaches a predetermined target value.

Odor discriminating apparatus

The present invention provides an odor discriminating apparatus capable of determining the similarities or differences between plural odors with respect to the odor quality and the odor intensity, and showing the measurement result in such a manner that helps the user to correctly understand the result. According to the present invention, plural samples of a reference odor gas, each sample having a different concentration, are measured with m pieces of odor sensors. Based on the measurement result, a calibration curve is created in an m-dimensional space formed by the detection signals of the m pieces of odor sensors (Steps S&#x2013;S). Next, a measurement point Urepresenting the measurement result of a subject odor is plotted in the m-dimensional space. Based on the spatial relation between the measurement point Uand the calibration curve, an index &#x3b8; indicating the difference in the quality between the two odors and another index In indicating the difference in the intensity between the two odors are calculated (Steps S&#x2013;S). Then, using a predetermined conversion rule, &#x3b8; and In are converted into an odor quality difference index and an odor intensity difference index, and the measurement result is plotted on an odor similarity evaluation graph whose abscissa and ordinate correspond to the two indices, respectively (Step S).

The present invention proposes an odor measuring apparatus capable of determining the similarity of the odor of an unknown sample with high objectivity and performing measurements with sensitivity similar to that of the human nose. According to a mode of the invention, an m-dimensional space is created from detection signals of m pieces of odor sensors, and a standard odor vector S representing the result of measurement of a standard odor and another vector Sx representing the result of measurement of an unknown sample are drawn in the space. Then, from the angle &thgr; between the two vectors, a degree of similarity is determined within the range from 0 to 100%, where the degree of similarity is corrected taking account of the difference in sensitivity between the odor sensor and the human nose. The degree of similarity of the unknown odor is calculated for each of plural standard odors measured beforehand, and which standard odor is the closest to the odor of the unknown sample is objectively shown by numeral values.

Odor measuring apparatus

A device for measurement of an odor component in a sample gas prepares many target gases to be actually measured by a plurality of sensors with different response characteristics, each containing the odor component at a different concentration. Detection signals from these sensors are analyzed by a method of multivariate analysis such as the principal component analysis, and the odor component is characterized on the basis of such an analysis. For preparing the target gases, the sample gas containing the odor component is passed through a collector tube containing an adsorbent which adsorbs this odor component at normal and subnormal temperature and desorbs it when heated. After a specified amount of the odor component is adsorbed to the adsorbent, the tube is heated and an inert gas serving as carrier gas is passed through such that the desorbed odor component is carried to the detectors as a target gas. The concentration of the odor component in such a target gas is controlled by the manner of flow of the carrier gas. In order to obtain a dependable result from such an analysis, response characteristics of each of the sensors may be analyzed by examining the relationship between the outputted detection signal and the concentration of the odor component in the target gas. Only those of the sensors which show a monotonically varying or linear response characteristics may be considered trustworthy and only the detection signals from such trustworthy detectors may be used for the analysis.

Growing community of inventors

Kyoto, Japan

Hisamitsu Akamaru