Page 40 - Jolliffe I. Principal Component Analysis

1.2. A Brief History of Principal Component Analysis
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Despite the apparent simplicity of the technique, much research is still
being done in the general area of PCA, and it is very widely used. This is
clearly illustrated by the fact that the Web of Science identifies over 2000
articles published in the two years 1999–2000 that include the phrases ‘prin-
cipal component analysis’ or ‘principal components analysis’ in their titles,
abstracts or keywords. The references in this book also demonstrate the
wide variety of areas in which PCA has been applied. Books or articles
are cited that include applications in agriculture, biology, chemistry, clima-
tology, demography, ecology, economics, food research, genetics, geology,
meteorology, oceanography, psychology and quality control, and it would
be easy to add further to this list.