Based on independent component analysis (ICA), a new regression method, independent component regression (ICR), was developed to build the
model of NIR spectra and the routine components of plant samples. It is found that ICR and principal component regression (PCR) are completely
equivalent when they are applied in quantitative prediction. However, independent components (ICs) can give more chemical explanation than
principal components (PCs) because independence is a high-order statistic that is a much stronger condition than orthogonality. Three ICs are
obtained by ICA from the NIR spectra of plant samples; it is found that they are strongly correlated to the NIR spectra of water, hydrocarbons and
organonitrogen compounds, respectively. Therefore, ICA may be a promising tool to retrieve both quantitative and qualitative information from
complex chemical data sets