https://doi.org/10.1351/goldbook.10048
Manipulation of raw data prior to a specified data analysis treatment.
Notes:
- The term "pre-processing" is preferred to the term "pre-treatment" to reduce confusion with physical sample preparation or treatment prior to experimental analysis.
- Aside from the three main categories of data pre-processing methods (mean centering, scaling and transformation), data pre-processing can refer to any other procedures carried out on the raw data, including mass binning and peak selection. In the case of multivariate images, this can also include region-of-interest selection and image filtering or binning.
- All data pre-processing methods imply some assumptions about the nature of the variability in the data set. It is important that these assumptions are understood and appropriate for the data set involved.
- More than one data pre-processing method can be applied to the same data set. The order of data pre-processing is important and can affect assumptions made on the nature of variance in the data set.