Method and system for increasing useful dynamic range of spectrometry device

Method and system for increasing useful dynamic range of an ion mobility mass spectrometer

 A method of increasing the useful dynamic range of an ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) or an IMS-mass spectrometry (IMS-MS) device is provided. The method includes accumulating a first sample of ions over a first time interval 5311 and providing the first sample of ions to an ion detector to provide a first frame. Accumulating a second sample of ions over a second time interval, where the second time interval is different than the first time interval, and providing the second sample of ions to the ion detector to provide a second frame. First data points of the first frame 5317 are selectively combined with second data points of the second frame to provide an accumulation frame of the first and second samples of ions.

Reconstructing a purged data object using a hierarchical data structure

A data processing system is arranged to perform a procedure which includes a plurality of respective tasks, each of which produces and/or processes a respective data object. The system comprises a processor to execute program instructions which maintain a data structure for each one of the tasks, and a memory which is used to store the data object. The data structure stores the instructions and parameters for performing the task. Memory management is carried out by the processor which determines whether to save the data objects to memory or to purge them based on their usage and the capacity of the memory. Where a data object has been purged from memory and is needed again, the purged data object is reconstructed using the associated data structure. In a further embodiment, the invention is used in a mass spectrometer data analysis system.