No surprise here — except that it was a surprise, a little bit anyway, that as I add more and more peak finding algorithms to the bank of data on surfactant protein D, and understand that the input values for those algorithms are “human” intuitions (knowledge), then it is no surprise that as I find peaks just by visually scanning a grayscale plot of SP-D that I can hear my thoughts… 1) what is the relationship between the peak I am examining and the peaks along the entire molecule; 2) what is the relationship between the width of the peak and the entire plot, 3) height of the peaks that i consider noise.  I have never considered myself to have any knowledge of algorighms… i have no interest in math or equations or programming, but thats actually what I do when I examine a plot and pick my own “peaks”.

For me it was an interesting revelation.  I value my input now more than I did previously as the whole search for signal processing programs to analyze SP-D grayscale peaks was because somehow I felt that my peak choices were not “scientific” (and of course if i submit a manuscript, you would have felt that my peak choices were not “scientific” either, as you review the submission.  In fact however, the “ai” in my mind, is superior to any of the peak finding programs (for this very narrow, and specific peak finding task (as i would not suggest that in some of the noisy data from other applications i could even begin to find peaks……. but specifically in this data, where there are a reasonable number, say something around 10-20 peaks, my input is considerably more sensible than the algorithms I have found optimal in Octave, excel template (PVDT), scipy, and LTI… just saying…  LOL, why should i reject my own observations and accept ignorant input.

Yes I introduce BIAS in my peak finding, i call it LEARNING HERE. Ultimately I will compare the data from my peak counts, to those algorithms.

I see the comments that say  “you have to “fine tune” these algorithms”…. thats what the cortex does, fine tune.  Signal processing provides as much opportunity for introducing learned BIAS as image processing, the whole thing gets reduced to integrity of research, sample number and common sense.

I am NOT talking about really noisy data, ….  where casual inspection would be nearly useless.