Three-way principal component analysis applied to food analysis: an example Original Research Article

The purpose of the study is to show how the interpretation of a complex multivariate data array can significantly be improved by the application of N-way principal component analysis (PCA). Two food related three-way data sets were studied; a sensory and a chromatographic data array. The Parafac and the Tucker3 models were applied and results were compared. Both N-way models presented here allow visualization of the data structure and give detailed information about the data set, notably allowing to understand relationships between objects and variables.