Title: data pre-processing
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - data pre-processing
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.10048
Status: current

Definition
Manipulation of raw data prior to a specified data analysis treatment.

Notes
1) The term "pre-processing" is preferred to the term "pre-treatment" to reduce confusion with physical sample preparation or treatment prior to experimental analysis.
2) 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.
3) 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.
4) 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.

Related Terms
- mean centering: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/10053
- raw data: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/10058
- scaling: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/10060

Source
- PAC, 2016, 88, 407. 'Vocabulary of concepts and terms in chemometrics (IUPAC Recommendations 2016)' on page 409 (https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2015-0605)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/10048/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/10048/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/10048/xml

Citation: Citation: 'data pre-processing' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.10048
License: The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms.
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Disclaimer: The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using.
Accessed: 2026-04-18T17:23:43+00:00