Calibration of somatic cell count in milk based on near-infrared spectroscopy

A PLS model for prediction of somatic cell count (SCC) based on near-infrared (NIR) spectra of unhomogenized milk is presented in the study. Samples of raw mills were collected from cows in the early lactation period (from 7th to 29th day after parturition). The NIR spectra were measured in the region 400-1100 nm. As reference method a fluoro-opto-electronic method was applied. Different preprocessing methods were investigated. The robust version of PLS regression was applied to handle outliers present in the dataset and the uninformative variable elimination-partial least squares (UVE-PLS) method was used to eliminate uninformative variables. The final model is acceptable for prediction of SCC in raw milk. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.