Nonstationarity in statistical process control — issues,cases, ideas

Statistical process control (SPC) is a powerful framework that is used in many industries to decrease process variability and to pinpoint special cause variation. Although a broad range of techniques have been developed to do so, often the real‐life situation does not fully comply with the basic assumptions that are made in SPC resulting in poor results. One of the main violations against the assumptions is the fact that industrial processes rarely behave in a stationary manner — this is evidently the case for biological processes but is also an important issue when monitoring industrial processes. Besides, the ever increasing amount of data, with a clear shift towards multivariate and even multiway quality control, makes the classical univariate approach not feasible anymore. These two observations pose important challenges to statisticians to develop novel SPC algorithms that are broadly applicable in modern industries. In this contribution we discuss both issues and use two very different case studies to show the reader recent directions and developments in the SPC landscape. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fast mapping of inhomogeneities in the popular metallic perovskite Nb:SrTiO3 by confocal Raman microscopy

Confocal Raman microscopy was applied in order to investigate the homogeneity of donor doping in Nb:SrTiO₃ single crystals. Measurements of local Raman spectra revealed a systematic relation between the intensity of the Raman signal and the donor content of the crystals. We successfully elaborated a correspondence between the electronic structure and the intensity of the Raman lines using a crystal with macroscopic inhomogeneity as a demonstration sample. By mapping the distribution of the intensity of the Raman signal, we identified a characteristic inhomogeneous structure related to the presence of clusters with sizes of 5 µm to 20 µm, indicating inhomogeneous donor distribution caused by flaws introduced during crystal growth. Hence, we propose confocal Raman microscopy as a convenient technique for investigating the homogeneity and quality of doped perovskite surfaces, which are needed for various technological applications. (© 2014 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH &Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Diazadithia[7]helicenes: Synthetic Exploration,Solid‐State Structure,and Properties

Diazadithia[7]helicenes were synthesized from the readily available building block ethyl 7‐chloro‐8‐formylthieno[3,2‐f]quinoline‐2‐carboxylate by a Wittig reaction–photocyclization strategy. The helicene core was functionalized by nucleophilic aromatic substitution with a variety of nucleophiles (e.g., O‐, N‐, and C‐centered) and palladium‐catalyzed reactions such as Suzuki coupling and Buchwald–Hartwig amination. Racemization studies confirmed that the enantiopure forms of these [7]helicenes are conformationally stable compared to their lower analogues. The solid‐state structures of the novel diazadithia[7]helicenes were determined by single‐crystal X‐ray diffraction. The crystal structures of these azathia[7]helicenes show columnar stacking in antiparallel fashion. The HOMO–LUMO gaps of the new compounds were determined on the basis of electrochemical and optical measurements.     

Photophysics and Fluorimetric Titrations of Fluorescent Ion Indicators

A test based on time-resolved fluorescence experiments (Anal. Biochem. 245, 28–37, 1997) allows one to assess the interference of the excited-state association with the fluorimetric determination of the ground-state dissociation constant K _d of fluorescent ion:indicator complexes. If an inflection point occurs in the plot of the fluorescence signal vs – log[ion] in the ion concentration range where both decay times are invariant, this inflection point can be associated with the correct K _d. Here we apply this test to the fluorescent ion indicators SBFO (for Na⁺), Mag-fura-2 (for Mg²⁺), and APTRA-BTC (for Ca²⁺). In all three cases the decay times are invariant in the concentration ranges of the respective ions where the fluorescence titrations show unique inflection points, indicating that the fluorimetrically determined K _d values are the true K _d values.