Tsenkovas primary area of interest is the use of NIRS and multivariate analyses for biodiagnostics and biomonitoring related to functional studies in life science, biotechnology, and agriculture. Tsenkova founded the Aquaphotomics Research Department at Kobe University, the first such department in the world, solely devoted to the aquaphotomics studies, where she holds a position of the specially appointed professor. Prof. Since 2015, she serves as an adjunct professor at the prestigious Medical Faculty of Keio University in Tokyo. Tsenkova started working at Kobe University where, as a tenured professor, she taught Fluid Mechanics and Biomeasurement Technology. Tsenkova was awarded a Japanese Monbusho Scholarship for post-doctoral studies on sensors for robotic milking at Obihiro University, Japan and in 1992, she moved to Hokkaido University as a researcher, to develop NIRS technology for biomonitoring. Her investigations in near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) started by developing a sensor for disease diagnostics (mammary gland inflammation) at Moscow Agricultural Academy of Science, Russia. Roumiana Tsenkova holds both masters and doctoral degrees in Automation Engineering from the Technical University, Rousse, Bulgaria, as well as a second doctorate in Agriculture from Hokkaido University, Japan. The research described in this book served as a basis for the development of the novel discipline aquaphotomics and is of interest to anyone working in this field. A special section of the book is dedicated to exploration of potential interfering factors that may influence the analysis and contribute to the robustness of the models.
The author has found the water light interaction discussed to be an immensely rich source of information, not only on milk composition but also on the physiological status of the animals involved. The measurements and experimental results presented here are all based on the utilization of usually neglected near-infrared regionsregions with strong absorbance of water. Moving beyond the standard milk components such as fat, protein, or lactose, this book presents near-infrared spectroscopy as a method that can also be used in disease diagnostics. The totality of this work presents extensive possibilities for milk spectral measurements that can be carried out in dairy. This book is the result of more than 20 years of experience in working with near-infrared spectroscopy for raw milk analysis.