Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Computational methods in biomedical optical imaging'

This dissertation merges the optical design and computational aspects of imaging systems to create novel devices that solve engineering problems in optical science and attempts to expand the solution space available to the optical designer. This dissertation is divided into two parts: the first discusses a new active illumination depth sensing modality, while the second part discusses a passive illumination system called plenoptic, or lightfield, imaging. The new depth sensing modality introduced in part one is called depth through controlled aberration. This technique illuminates a target with a known, aberrated projected pattern and takes an image using a traditional, unmodified imaging system. Knowing how the added aberration in the projected pattern changes as a function of depth, we are able to quantitatively determine depth of a series of points from the camera. A major advantage this method permits is the ability for illumination and imaging axes to be coincident. Plenoptic cameras capture both spatial and angular data simultaneously. This dissertation present a new set of parameters that permit the design and comparison of plenoptic devices outside the traditionally published plenoptic 1.0 and plenoptic 2.0 configurations. Additionally, a series of engineering advancements are presented, including full system ray traces of raw plenoptic images, Zernike compression techniques of raw image files, and non-uniform lenslet arrays to compensate for plenoptic system aberrations. Finally, a new snapshot imaging spectrometer is proposed based off the plenoptic configuration.

Raman spectroscopy is a powerful tool in the field of biomedicine for disease diagnosis owing to its potential to provide the molecular fingerprint of biological samples. However due to the inherent weak nature of the Raman process, there is a constant quest for enhancing the sensitivity of this technique for enhanced diagnostic efficiency. This thesis focuses on achieving this goal by integrating advanced methods with Raman spectroscopy. Firstly this thesis explores the applicability of a laser based fluorescence suppression technique – Wavelength Modulated Raman Spectroscopy (WMRS) - for suppressing the broad luminescence background which often obscure the Raman peaks. The WMRS technique was optimized for its applications in single cell studies and tissue studies for enhanced sensing without compromising the throughput. It has been demonstrated that the optimized parameter would help to chemically profile single cell within 6 s. A two fold enhancement in SNR of Raman bands was demonstrated when WMRS was implemented in fiber Raman based systems for tissue analysis. The suitability of WMRS on highly sensitive single molecule detection techniques such as Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) and Surface Enhanced Resonance Raman Spectroscopy (SERRS) was also explored. Further this optimized technique was successfully used to address an important biological problem in the field of immunology. This involved label-free identification of major immune cell subsets from human blood. Later part of this thesis explores a multimodal approach where Raman spectroscopy was combined with Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) for enhanced diagnostic sensitivity (>10%). This approach was used to successfully discriminate between ex-vivo adenocarcinoma tissues and normal colon tissues. Finally this thesis explores the design and implementation of a specialized fiber Raman probe that is compatible with surgical environments. This probe was originally developed to be compatible with Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) environment. It has the potential to be used for performing minimally invasive optical biopsy during interventional MRI procedures.

The functional performance of membrane oxygenators is directly related to the perfusion dynamics of blood flow through the fiber bundle. Non-uniform flow and design characteristics can limit gas exchange efficiency and influence susceptibility of thrombus development in the fiber membrane. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a powerful tool for predicting properties of the flow field based on prescribed geometrical domains and boundary conditions. Validation of numerical results in membrane oxygenators has been predominantly based on experimental pressure measurements with little emphasis placed on confirmation of the velocity fields due to opacity of the fiber membrane and limitations of optical velocimetric methods. A novel approach was developed using biplane X-ray digital subtraction angiography to visualize flow through a commercial membrane artificial lung at 1–4.5 L/min. Permeability based on the coefficients of the Ergun equation, α and β, were experimentally determined to be 180 and 2.4, respectively, and the equivalent spherical diameter was shown to be approximately equal to the outer fiber diameter. For all flow rates tested, biplane image projections revealed non-uniform radial perfusion through the annular fiber bundle, yet without flow bias due to the axisymmetric position of the outlet. At 1 L/min, approximately 78.2% of the outward velocity component was in the radial (horizontal) plane verses 92.0% at 4.5 L/min. The CFD studies were unable to predict the non-radial component of the outward perfusion. Two-dimensional velocity fields were generated from the radiographs using a cross-correlation tracking algorithm and compared with analogous image planes from the CFD simulations. Velocities in the non-porous regions differed by an average of 11% versus the experimental values, but simulated velocities in the fiber bundle were on average 44% lower than experimental. A corrective factor reduced the average error differences in the porous medium to 6%. Finally, biplane image pairs were reconstructed to show 3-D transient perfusion through the device. The methods developed from this research provide tools for more accurate assessments of fluid flow through membrane oxygenators. By identifying non-invasive techniques to allow direct analysis of numerical and experimental velocity fields, researchers can better evaluate device performance of new prototype designs.

Diffuse optical tomography (DOT) is an imaging technique where near infrared (NIR) photons are used to probe biological tissue. DOT allows for the recovery of three-dimensional maps of tissue optical properties, such as tissue absorption and scattering coefficients. The application of DOT as a tool to aid in the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is explored in this work. Algorithms for improving the image reconstruction process and for enhancing the clinical value of DOT images are presented in detail. The clinical data considered in this work consists of 99 fingers from subjects with RA and 120 fingers from healthy subjects. DOT scans of the proximal interphalangeal (PIP) joint of each finger is performed with modulation frequencies of 0, 300, and 600 MHz. A computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) framework for extracting heuristic features from DOT images and a method for using these same features to classify each joint as affected or not affected by RA is presented. The framework is applied to the clinical data and results are discussed in detail. Then, an algorithm for recovering the optical properties of biological media using the simplified spherical harmonics (SPN) light propagation model is presented. The computational performance of the algorithm is analyzed and reported. Finally, the SPN reconstruction algorithm is applied to clinical data of subjects with RA and the resulting images are analyzed with the CAD framework. As the first part of the CAD framework, heuristic image features are extracted from the absorption and the scattering coefficient images using multiple compression and dimensionality reduction techniques. Overall, 594 features are extracted from the images of each joint. Then, machine-learning techniques are used to evaluate the ability to discriminate between images of joints with RA and images of healthy joints. An evolution-strategy optimization algorithm is developed to evaluate the classification strength of each feature and to find the multidimensional feature combination that results in optimal classification accuracy. Classification is performed with k-nearest neighbors (KNN), linear (LDA) and quadratic discriminate analysis (QDA), self-organizing maps (SOM), or support vector machines (SVM). Classification accuracy is evaluated based on diagnostic sensitivity and specificity values. Strong evidence is presented that suggest there are clear differences between the tissue optical parameters of joints with RA and joints without RA. It is first shown that data obtained at 600 MHz leads to better classification results than data obtained at 300 and 0 MHz. Analysis of each extracted feature shows that DOT images of subjects with RA are statistically different (p < 0.05) from images of subjects without RA for over 90% of the features. Evidence shows that subjects with RA that do not have detectable signs of erosion, effusion, or synovitis (i.e. asymptomatic subjects) in MRI and US images have optical profiles similar to subjects who do have signs of erosion, effusion, or synovitis; furthermore, both of these cohorts differ from healthy controls subjects. This shows that it may be possible to accurately identify asymptomatic subjects with DOT scans. In contrast, these subjects remain difficult to identify from MRI and US images. The implications of these results are profound, as they suggest it may be possible to identify RA with DOT at an earlier stage compared to standard imaging techniques. Results from the feature-selection algorithm show that the SVM algorithm (with a third order polynomial kernel) achieves 100.0% sensitivity and 97.8% specificity. Lower bounds for these results (at 95.0% confidence level) are 96.4% and 93.8%, respectively. Image features most predictive of RA are from the spatial variation of optical properties and the absolute range in feature values. The optimal classifiers are low dimensional combinations (< 7 features). Robust cross- validation is performed to ensure the generalization of these classification results. The SPN -based reconstruction algorithm uses a reduced-Hessian sequential quadratic programming (rSQP) PDE-constrained optimization approach to maximize computational efficiency. The complex-valued forward model, or frequency domain SPN equations (N = 1, 3), is discretized using the finite-volume method and solved on unstructured computational grids using the restarted GMRES algorithm. The image reconstruction algorithm is presented in detail and its performance benchmarked against the ERT algorithm. The algorithm is subsequently used to recover the absorption and scattering coefficient images of joints scanned in the RA clinical study. While the SPN model is inherently less accurate than the ERT model, it is nevertheless shown that the images obtained with the SP3-based reconstruction algorithm are sufficiently accurate and allow for the diagnosis of RA at clinically relevant sensitivity [87.9% (78.1%, 100.0%)] and specificity [92.9% (84.6%, 100.0%)] values (the 95.0% confidence interval is specified in brackets). In contrast to results obtained with the SP3 model, the images generated with the SP1 algorithm yield significantly lower sensitivity [66.7% (46.6%, 100.0%)] and specificity [81.0% (64.8%, 100.0%)] values. While some numerical accuracy is sacrificed by selecting the SP3 model over the ERT model, the superior computational performance of the SP3 algorithm allows for computation of the absorption and the scattering coefficient images in under 15 minutes and requires less than 200 MB of RAM per finger (compared to the over 180 minutes and over 6 GB of RAM needed by the ERT-based algorithm). Overall, results indicate that the SP3-based reconstruction algorithm provides computational advantages over the ERT-based algorithm without sacrificing significant classification accuracy. In contrast, the SP1 model provides computational advantages compared to the ERT at the expense of classification accuracy. This indicates that the frequency-domain SP3 model is an ideal light propagation model for use in DOT scanning of finger joints with RA. Altogether, the results presented in this dissertation underscore the high potential for DOT to become a clinically useful diagnostic tool. The algorithms and framework developed as part of this dissertation can be directly used on future data to help further validate the hypotheses presented in this work and to further establish DOT imaging as a valuable diagnostic tool.

Diffuse optical tomography (DOT) is one of the promising imaging modalities that pro- vides functional information of the soft biological tissues in-vivo, such as breast and brain tissues. The near infrared (NIR) light (600-1000 nm) is the interrogating radiation, which is typically delivered and collected using fiber bundles placed on the boundary of the tissue. The internal optical property distribution is estimated via model-based image reconstruction algorithm using these limited boundary measurements. Image reconstruction problem in DOT is known to be non-linear, ill-posed, and some times under-determined due to the multiple scattering of NIR light in the tissue. Solving this inverse problem requires regularization to obtain meaningful results, with Tikhonov-type regularization being the most popular one. The choice of the regularization parameter dictates the reconstructed optical image quality and is typically chosen empirically or based on prior experience. An automated method for optimal selection of regularization parameter that is based on regularized minimal residual method (MRM) is proposed and is compared with the traditional generalized cross-validation method. The results obtained using numerical and gelatin phantom data indicate that the MRM-based method is capable of providing the optimal regularization parameter. A new approach that can easily incorporate any generic penalty function into the diffuse optical tomographic image reconstruction is introduced to show the utility of non-quadratic penalty functions. The penalty functions that were used include, quadratic (`2), absolute (`1), Cauchy, and Geman-McClure. The regularization parameter in each of these cases were obtained automatically using the generalized cross-validation (GCV) method. The reconstruction results were systematically compared with each other via utilization of quantitative metrics, such as relative error and Pearson correlation. The reconstruction results indicate that while quadratic penalty may be able to provide better separation between two closely spaced targets, it's contrast recovery capability is limited and the sparseness promoting penalties, such as `1, Cauchy, Geman-McClure have better utility in reconstructing high-contrast and complex-shaped targets with Geman-McClure penalty being the most optimal one. Effective usage of image guidance by incorporating the refractive index (RI) variation in computational modeling of light propagation in tissue is investigated to assess its impact on optical-property estimation. With the aid of realistic patient breast three-dimensional models, the variation in RI for different regions of tissue under investigation is shown to influence the estimation of optical properties in image-guided diffuse optical tomography (IG-DOT) using numerical simulations. It is also shown that by assuming identical RI for all regions of tissue would lead to erroneous estimation of optical properties. The a priori knowledge of the RI for the segmented regions of tissue in IG-DOT, which is difficult to obtain for the in vivo cases, leads to more accurate estimates of optical properties. Even inclusion of approximated RI values, obtained from the literature, for the regions of tissue resulted in better estimates of optical properties, with values comparable to that of having the correct knowledge of RI for different regions of tissue. Image reconstruction in IG-DOT procedure involves reduction of the number of optical parameters to be reconstructed equal to the number of distinct regions identified in the structural information provided by the traditional imaging modality. This makes the image reconstruction problem to be well-determined compared to traditional under- determined case. Still, the methods that are deployed in this case are same as the one used for traditional diffuse optical image reconstruction, which involves regularization term as well as computation of the Jacobian. A gradient-free Nelder-Mead simplex method was proposed here to perform the image reconstruction procedure and shown to be providing solutions that are closely matching with ones obtained using established methods. The proposed method also has the distinctive advantage of being more efficient due to being regularization free, involving only repeated forward calculations.

Diffuse optical tomography (DOT) is one of the promising imaging modalities that pro- vides functional information of the soft biological tissues in-vivo, such as breast and brain tissues. The near infrared (NIR) light (600-1000 nm) is the interrogating radiation, which is typically delivered and collected using fiber bundles placed on the boundary of the tissue. The internal optical property distribution is estimated via model-based image reconstruction algorithm using these limited boundary measurements. Image reconstruction problem in DOT is known to be non-linear, ill-posed, and some times under-determined due to the multiple scattering of NIR light in the tissue. Solving this inverse problem requires regularization to obtain meaningful results, with Tikhonov-type regularization being the most popular one. The choice of the regularization parameter dictates the reconstructed optical image quality and is typically chosen empirically or based on prior experience. An automated method for optimal selection of regularization parameter that is based on regularized minimal residual method (MRM) is proposed and is compared with the traditional generalized cross-validation method. The results obtained using numerical and gelatin phantom data indicate that the MRM-based method is capable of providing the optimal regularization parameter. A new approach that can easily incorporate any generic penalty function into the diffuse optical tomographic image reconstruction is introduced to show the utility of non-quadratic penalty functions. The penalty functions that were used include, quadratic (`2), absolute (`1), Cauchy, and Geman-McClure. The regularization parameter in each of these cases were obtained automatically using the generalized cross-validation (GCV) method. The reconstruction results were systematically compared with each other via utilization of quantitative metrics, such as relative error and Pearson correlation. The reconstruction results indicate that while quadratic penalty may be able to provide better separation between two closely spaced targets, it's contrast recovery capability is limited and the sparseness promoting penalties, such as `1, Cauchy, Geman-McClure have better utility in reconstructing high-contrast and complex-shaped targets with Geman-McClure penalty being the most optimal one. Effective usage of image guidance by incorporating the refractive index (RI) variation in computational modeling of light propagation in tissue is investigated to assess its impact on optical-property estimation. With the aid of realistic patient breast three-dimensional models, the variation in RI for different regions of tissue under investigation is shown to influence the estimation of optical properties in image-guided diffuse optical tomography (IG-DOT) using numerical simulations. It is also shown that by assuming identical RI for all regions of tissue would lead to erroneous estimation of optical properties. The a priori knowledge of the RI for the segmented regions of tissue in IG-DOT, which is difficult to obtain for the in vivo cases, leads to more accurate estimates of optical properties. Even inclusion of approximated RI values, obtained from the literature, for the regions of tissue resulted in better estimates of optical properties, with values comparable to that of having the correct knowledge of RI for different regions of tissue. Image reconstruction in IG-DOT procedure involves reduction of the number of optical parameters to be reconstructed equal to the number of distinct regions identified in the structural information provided by the traditional imaging modality. This makes the image reconstruction problem to be well-determined compared to traditional under- determined case. Still, the methods that are deployed in this case are same as the one used for traditional diffuse optical image reconstruction, which involves regularization term as well as computation of the Jacobian. A gradient-free Nelder-Mead simplex method was proposed here to perform the image reconstruction procedure and shown to be providing solutions that are closely matching with ones obtained using established methods. The proposed method also has the distinctive advantage of being more efficient due to being regularization free, involving only repeated forward calculations.

Photoacoustic imaging is a hybrid biomedical imaging technique combining optical ab- sorption contrast with ultrasonic resolution. It is a non-invasive technique that is scalable to reveal structural, functional, and molecular information of the tissue under investiga- tion. The important step in photoacoustic tomography is image reconstruction, which enables quanti cation of tissue functional properties. The photoacoustic image recon- struction problem is typically ill-posed and requires an utilization of regularization to provide meaningful results. The aim of this thesis work is to develop methods that can improve photoacoustic image reconstruction, especially in realistic imaging scenar- ios, where the utility of standard image reconstruction methods is limited in terms of providing good quality photoacoustic images. The photoacoustic image reconstruction problem is typically solved using either weighted or ordinary least squares (LS), with regularization term being added for stabil- ity, which account only for data imperfections (noise). Numerical modeling of acoustic wave propagation requires discretization of imaging region and is typically developed based on many assumptions, such as speed of sound being constant in the tissue, making it imperfect. Two variants of total least squares (TLS) were proposed, namely ordinary TLS and Sparse TLS, which account for model imperfections. The ordinary TLS is implemented in the Lanczos bidiagonalization framework to make it computationally efficient. The Sparse TLS utilizes the total variation penalty to promote recovery of high frequency components in the re- constructed image. The Lanczos truncated TLS (Lanczos T-TLS) and Sparse TLS methods were compared with the recently established state-of-the-art methods, such as Lanczos Tikhonov and Exponential Filtering. The TLS methods exhibited better performance for experimental data as well as in cases where modeling errors were present, such as few acoustic detectors malfunctioning and speed of sound variations. Also, the TLS methods do not require any prior information about the errors present in the model or data, making it attractive for real-time scenarios. The model-based reconstruction methods, such as Tikhonov regularization scheme, require an appropriate selection of explicit regularization parameter, which is a com- putationally expensive procedure. The Tikhonov scheme promotes the smooth features in the reconstructed image due to the smooth regularizer, thus leading to loss of sharp features. A simple and computationally efficient extrapolation method was developed, which provides the solution at zero regularization, by assuming that the solution is a function of regularization. The reconstructed results using this method were shown in three variants (Lanczos, Traditional, and Exponential) of Tikhonov ltering on numer- ical and experimental phantom data. The proposed extrapolation method performance was shown to be superior than the standard error estimate technique with an added advantage of being atleast four times faster in terms of computation, and providing an improvement as high as 2.6 times in terms of standard gures of merit. Photoacoustic signals collected at the boundary of tissue are always band-limited. A deep neural network (DNN) with ve fully connected layers (similar to the decoder network) was proposed to enhance the bandwidth of the detected photoacoustic signal, thereby improving the quantitative accuracy of the reconstructed photoacoustic images. A least square based deconvolution method that utilizes the Tikhonov regularization framework was used for comparison with the proposed network. The DNN-based method was evaluated using both numerical and experimental data. The results show that the DNN-based method was capable of enhancing the bandwidth of the detected photoa- coustic signal, which in turn improves the contrast recovery and quality of reconstructed photoacoustic images without adding any signi cant computational burden. Analytical photoacoustic image reconstruction methods such as back-projection re- quire large amount of data for accurate reconstruction of initial pressure distribution. Model-based iterative algorithms are proven to provide quantitatively accurate recon- structions compared to analytical methods in limited data cases. These methods start from an initial guess of the solution (obtained through analytical methods) and itera- tively improve the solution via applying regularization. These are challenging to deploy in real-time due to their high computational complexity and also difficulty in choosing optimal reconstruction parameters. A deep convolutional neural network, with archi- tecture similar to SRGAN, a generative adversarial network (GAN) to obtain images of super resolution (SR), was utilized in the photoacoustic image reconstruction pro- cess to provide desired image characteristics obtainable by model-based algorithms with computation effciency equal to analytical methods. The network was trained with back- projected reconstruction as input and output being ground truth image. The proposed method was evaluated using both numerical and experimental phantoms and was shown to be superior compared to the state-of-the-art model-based methods. Moreover, the proposed method takes approximately one second on the GPU, making the approach attractive in real-time.

Computational imaging has been playing an important role in understanding and analysing the captured images. Both image segmentation and restoration has been in-tegral parts of computational imaging. The studies performed in this thesis has been focussed toward developing novel algorithms for image segmentation and restoration. Study related to usage of Morozov Discrepancy Principle in Di use Optical Imaging was also presented here to show that hyper parameter selection could be performed with ease. The Laplacian of Gaussian (LoG) and Canny operators use Gaussian smoothing be-fore applying the derivative operator for edge detection in real images. The LoG kernel was based on second derivative and is highly sensitive to noise when compared to the Canny edge detector. A new edge detection kernel, called as Helmholtz of Gaussian (HoG), which provides higher di suavity is developed in this thesis and it was shown that it is more robust to noise. The formulation of the developed HoG kernel is similar to LoG. It was also shown both theoretically and experimentally that LoG is a special case of HoG. This kernel when used as an edge detector exhibited superior performance compared to LoG, Canny and wavelet based edge detector for the standard test cases both in one- and two-dimensions. The linear inverse problem encountered in restoration of blurred noisy images is typically solved via Tikhonov minimization. The outcome (restored image) of such min-imitation is highly dependent on the choice of regularization parameter. In the absence of prior information about the noise levels in the blurred image, ending this regular-inaction/hyper parameter in an automated way becomes extremely challenging. The available methods like Generalized Cross Validation (GCV) may not yield optimal re-salts in all cases. A novel method that relies on minimal residual method for ending the regularization parameter automatically was proposed here and was systematically compared with the GCV method. It was shown that the proposed method performance was superior to the GCV method in providing high quality restored images in cases where the noise levels are high Di use optical tomography uses near infrared (NIR) light as the probing media to recover the distributions of tissue optical properties with an ability to provide functional information of the tissue under investigation. As NIR light propagation in the tissue is dominated by scattering, the image reconstruction problem (inverse problem) is non-linear and ill-posed, requiring usage of advanced computational methods to compensate this. An automated method for selection of regularization/hyper parameter that incorporates Morozov discrepancy principle(MDP) into the Tikhonov method was proposed and shown to be a promising method for the dynamic Di use Optical Tomography.

Computational imaging has been playing an important role in understanding and analysing the captured images. Both image segmentation and restoration has been in-tegral parts of computational imaging. The studies performed in this thesis has been focussed toward developing novel algorithms for image segmentation and restoration. Study related to usage of Morozov Discrepancy Principle in Di use Optical Imaging was also presented here to show that hyper parameter selection could be performed with ease. The Laplacian of Gaussian (LoG) and Canny operators use Gaussian smoothing be-fore applying the derivative operator for edge detection in real images. The LoG kernel was based on second derivative and is highly sensitive to noise when compared to the Canny edge detector. A new edge detection kernel, called as Helmholtz of Gaussian (HoG), which provides higher di suavity is developed in this thesis and it was shown that it is more robust to noise. The formulation of the developed HoG kernel is similar to LoG. It was also shown both theoretically and experimentally that LoG is a special case of HoG. This kernel when used as an edge detector exhibited superior performance compared to LoG, Canny and wavelet based edge detector for the standard test cases both in one- and two-dimensions. The linear inverse problem encountered in restoration of blurred noisy images is typically solved via Tikhonov minimization. The outcome (restored image) of such min-imitation is highly dependent on the choice of regularization parameter. In the absence of prior information about the noise levels in the blurred image, ending this regular-inaction/hyper parameter in an automated way becomes extremely challenging. The available methods like Generalized Cross Validation (GCV) may not yield optimal re-salts in all cases. A novel method that relies on minimal residual method for ending the regularization parameter automatically was proposed here and was systematically compared with the GCV method. It was shown that the proposed method performance was superior to the GCV method in providing high quality restored images in cases where the noise levels are high Di use optical tomography uses near infrared (NIR) light as the probing media to recover the distributions of tissue optical properties with an ability to provide functional information of the tissue under investigation. As NIR light propagation in the tissue is dominated by scattering, the image reconstruction problem (inverse problem) is non-linear and ill-posed, requiring usage of advanced computational methods to compensate this. An automated method for selection of regularization/hyper parameter that incorporates Morozov discrepancy principle(MDP) into the Tikhonov method was proposed and shown to be a promising method for the dynamic Di use Optical Tomography.

The emerging theory of compressed sensing has been nothing short of a revolution in signal processing, challenging some of the longest-held ideas in signal processing and leading to the development of exciting new ways to capture and reconstruct signals and images. Although the theoretical promises of compressed sensing are manifold, its implementation in many practical applications has lagged behind the associated theoretical development. Our goal is to elevate compressed sensing from an interesting theoretical discussion to a feasible alternative to conventional imaging, a significant challenge and an exciting topic for research in signal processing. When applied to imaging, compressed sensing can be thought of as a particular case of computational imaging, which unites the design of both the sensing and reconstruction of images under one design paradigm. Computational imaging tightly fuses modeling of scene content, imaging hardware design, and the subsequent reconstruction algorithms used to recover the images.

This thesis makes important contributions to each of these three areas through two primary research directions. The first direction primarily attacks the challenges associated with designing practical imaging systems that implement incoherent measurements. Our proposed snapshot imaging architecture using compressive coded aperture imaging devices can be practically implemented, and comes equipped with theoretical recovery guarantees. It is also straightforward to extend these ideas to a video setting where careful modeling of the scene can allow for joint spatio-temporal compressive sensing. The second direction develops a host of new computational tools for photon-limited inverse problems. These situations arise with increasing frequency in modern imaging applications as we seek to drive down image acquisition times, limit excitation powers, or deliver less radiation to a patient. By an accurate statistical characterization of the measurement process in optical systems, including the inherent Poisson noise associated with photon detection, our class of algorithms is able to deliver high-fidelity images with a fraction of the required scan time, as well as enable novel methods for tissue quantification from intraoperative microendoscopy data. In short, the contributions of this dissertation are diverse, further the state-of-the-art in computational imaging, elevate compressed sensing from an interesting theory to a practical imaging methodology, and allow for effective image recovery in light-starved applications.

Dissertation

In this dissertation, two recent problems from tomographic imaging are studied, and results from numerical simulations with synthetic data are presented. The first part deals with ultrasound modulated optical tomography, a method for imaging interior optical properties of partially translucent media that combines optical contrast with ultrasound resolution. The primary application is the optical imaging of soft tissue, for which scattering and absorption rates contain important functional and structural information about the physiological state of tissue cells. We developed a mathematical model based on the diffusion approximation for photon propagation in highly scattering media. Simple reconstruction schemes for recovering optical absorption rates from boundary measurements with focused ultrasound are presented. We show numerical reconstructions from synthetic data generated for mathematical absorption phantoms. The results indicate that high resolution imaging with quantitatively correct values of absorption is possible. Synthetic focusing techniques are suggested that allow reconstruction from measurements with certain types of non-focused ultrasound signals. A preliminary stability analysis for a linearized model is given that provides an initial explanation for the observed stability of reconstruction. In the second part, backprojection schemes are proposed for the detection of small amounts of highly enriched nuclear material inside 3D volumes. These schemes rely on the geometrically singular structure that small radioactive sources represent, compared to natural background radiation. The details of the detection problem are explained, and two types of measurements, collimated and Compton-type measurements, are discussed. Computationally, we implemented backprojection by counting the number of particle trajectories intersecting each voxel of a regular rectangular grid covering the domain of detection. For collimated measurements, we derived confidence estimates indicating when voxel trajectory counts are deviating significantly from what is expected from background radiation. Monte Carlo simulations of random background radiation confirm the estimated confidence values. Numerical results for backprojection applied to synthetic measurements are shown that indicate that small sources can be detected for signal-to-noise ratios as low as 0.1%.

Photoacoustic tomography (PAT) is a scalable imaging modality having huge potential for imaging biological samples at very high depth to resolution ratio, thereby playing pivotal role in the areas of neuroscience, cardiovascular research, tumor biology and evolution research. The crucial step in PAT is the image reconstruction or the solving the inverse problem. The reconstruction can be performed by using analytical and model-based methods. The reconstruction schemes like backprojection, filtered backprojection, time reversal, delay and sum, or Fourier-based inversion have shown potential in providing qualitative reconstructions with an advantage of having lower computational complexity, but fails in irregular geometries and limited data scenarios. Model based reconstruction involves inverting a model-matrix that is generated either using impulse response or discretizing the solution of wave equation. Inversion in limited data scenarios is difficult due to ill-conditioned nature of the problem. Therefore typically prior statistics about the image is applied in form of regularization during the inversion. The prior works have attempted to choose the regularization in an automated fashion by minimizing some error metric like residual. In contrary, other schemes were proposed to mitigate the effects of regularization by using deconvolution approach using model-resolution matrix. Another perspective of regularization lies in its ability to define the resolution characteristic in the imaging domain. The resolution characteristics are heavily influenced by factors like ultrasound transducer sensitivity field, depth dependent fluence, bandwidth of the detector, and detector position etc. This thesis work attempts to develop advanced regularization methods that were based on numerical models as well as semi-norm of the data-fidelity terms The first half of thesis proposes two regularization schemes, developed with the standard Tikhonov framework, that are spatially varying to address problems pertaining to robustness to noise characteristics in the data and non-uniform resolution arising due to limited tomographic measurement positions. Model information is utilized to perform a model-resolution based spatially varying regularization having potential to mitigate resolution concerns arising due to limited detection positions. Secondly, fidelity embedded regularization, based on orthonormality between the columns of system matrix, is studied to perform robust reconstruction without necessarily requiring the noise statistics in the acquired data. The reconstruction schemes were compared with Tikhonov and total-variation based methods using numerical simulation and in-vivo mice data. The performance of the proposed spatially varying regularization schemes were superior (with upto 2 dB SNR improvements) than the Tikhonov/total-variation based regularization. The second half of this thesis work is based on singular value decomposition (SVD) which is widely used in regularization methods to know about the filtering applied to its spectral (eigen) values of the system. The state of the art methods like Tikhonov, total variation and sparse recovery based schemes assume equal weight to all the singular values (in the data fidelity term) irrespective of the amount of noise in the data. A fractional framework was developed, wherein the singular values are weight using a fractional power. The fractional power controls the amount of damping or smoothness in the reconstructed solution. The fractional framework was implemented for Tikhonov, `1-norm and total-variation a-priori constraints. In this work, automated way of choosing the fractional power was developed. Both theoretically and with numerical experiments it was shown that the fractional power is inversely related to the data noise level for fractional Tikhonov scheme. The fractional framework was on-par/outperforms the standard reconstructions i.e. Tikhonov, `1-norm and total-variation on numerical simulations, experimental phantoms and in-vivo mice data using figure of merits like contrast to noise ratio (CNR) and Pearson correlation (PC).

abstract: Mechanical properties of cells are important in maintaining physiological functions of biological systems. Quantitative measurement and analysis of mechanical properties can help understand cellular mechanics and its functional relevance and discover physical biomarkers for diseases monitoring and therapeutics. This dissertation presents a work to develop optical methods for studying cell mechanics which encompasses four applications. Surface plasmon resonance microscopy based optical method has been applied to image intracellular motions and cell mechanical motion. This label-free technique enables ultrafast imaging with extremely high sensitivity in detecting cell deformation. The technique was first applied to study intracellular transportation. Organelle transportation process and displacement steps of motor protein can be tracked using this method. The second application is to study heterogeneous subcellular membrane displacement induced by membrane potential (de)polarization. The application can map the amplitude and direction of cell deformation. The electromechanical coupling of mammalian cells was also observed. The third application is for imaging electrical activity in single cells with sub-millisecond resolution. This technique can fast record actions potentials and also resolve the fast initiation and propagation of electromechanical signals within single neurons. Bright-field optical imaging approach has been applied to the mechanical wave visualization that associated with action potential in the fourth application. Neuron-to-neuron viability of membrane displacement was revealed and heterogeneous subcellular response was observed. All these works shed light on the possibility of using optical approaches to study millisecond-scale and sub-nanometer-scale mechanical motions. These studies revealed ultrafast and ultra-small mechanical motions at the cellular level, including motor protein-driven motions and electromechanical coupled motions. The observations will help understand cell mechanics and its biological functions. These optical approaches will also become powerful tools for elucidating the interplay between biological and physical functions.
Dissertation/Thesis
Doctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 2016

Diffuse optical tomography uses near infrared (NIR) light as the probing media to re-cover the distributions of tissue optical properties with an ability to provide functional information of the tissue under investigation. As NIR light propagation in the tissue is dominated by scattering, the image reconstruction problem (inverse problem) is non-linear and ill-posed, requiring usage of advanced computational methods to compensate this. Diffuse optical image reconstruction problem is always rank-deficient, where finding the independent measurements among the available measurements becomes challenging problem. Knowing these independent measurements will help in designing better data acquisition set-ups and lowering the costs associated with it. An optimal measurement selection strategy based on incoherence among rows (corresponding to measurements) of the sensitivity (or weight) matrix for the near infrared diffuse optical tomography is proposed. As incoherence among the measurements can be seen as providing maximum independent information into the estimation of optical properties, this provides high level of optimization required for knowing the independency of a particular measurement on its counterparts. The utility of the proposed scheme is demonstrated using simulated and experimental gelatin phantom data set comparing it with the state-of-the-art methods. The traditional image reconstruction methods employ ℓ2-norm in the regularization functional, resulting in smooth solutions, where the sharp image features are absent. The sparse recovery methods utilize the ℓp-norm with p being between 0 and 1 (0 ≤ p1), along with an approximation to utilize the ℓ0-norm, have been deployed for the reconstruction of diffuse optical images. These methods are shown to have better utility in terms of being more quantitative in reconstructing realistic diffuse optical images compared to traditional methods. Utilization of ℓp-norm based regularization makes the objective (cost) function non-convex and the algorithms that implement ℓp-norm minimization utilizes approximations to the original ℓp-norm function. Three methods for implementing the ℓp-norm were con-sidered, namely Iteratively Reweigthed ℓ1-minimization (IRL1), Iteratively Reweigthed Least-Squares (IRLS), and Iteratively Thresholding Method (ITM). These results in-dicated that IRL1 implementation of ℓp-minimization provides optimal performance in terms of shape recovery and quantitative accuracy of the reconstructed diffuse optical tomographic images. Photoacoustic tomography (PAT) is an emerging hybrid imaging modality combining optics with ultrasound imaging. PAT provides structural and functional imaging in diverse application areas, such as breast cancer and brain imaging. A model-based iterative reconstruction schemes are the most-popular for recovering the initial pressure in limited data case, wherein a large linear system of equations needs to be solved. Often, these iterative methods requires regularization parameter estimation, which tends to be a computationally expensive procedure, making the image reconstruction process to be performed off-line. To overcome this limitation, a computationally efficient approach that computes the optimal regularization parameter is developed for PAT. This approach is based on the least squares-QR (LSQR) decomposition, a well-known dimensionality reduction technique for a large system of equations. It is shown that the proposed framework is effective in terms of quantitative and qualitative reconstructions of initial pressure distribution.

Diffuse optical tomography uses near infrared (NIR) light as the probing media to re-cover the distributions of tissue optical properties with an ability to provide functional information of the tissue under investigation. As NIR light propagation in the tissue is dominated by scattering, the image reconstruction problem (inverse problem) is non-linear and ill-posed, requiring usage of advanced computational methods to compensate this. Diffuse optical image reconstruction problem is always rank-deficient, where finding the independent measurements among the available measurements becomes challenging problem. Knowing these independent measurements will help in designing better data acquisition set-ups and lowering the costs associated with it. An optimal measurement selection strategy based on incoherence among rows (corresponding to measurements) of the sensitivity (or weight) matrix for the near infrared diffuse optical tomography is proposed. As incoherence among the measurements can be seen as providing maximum independent information into the estimation of optical properties, this provides high level of optimization required for knowing the independency of a particular measurement on its counterparts. The utility of the proposed scheme is demonstrated using simulated and experimental gelatin phantom data set comparing it with the state-of-the-art methods. The traditional image reconstruction methods employ ℓ2-norm in the regularization functional, resulting in smooth solutions, where the sharp image features are absent. The sparse recovery methods utilize the ℓp-norm with p being between 0 and 1 (0 ≤ p1), along with an approximation to utilize the ℓ0-norm, have been deployed for the reconstruction of diffuse optical images. These methods are shown to have better utility in terms of being more quantitative in reconstructing realistic diffuse optical images compared to traditional methods. Utilization of ℓp-norm based regularization makes the objective (cost) function non-convex and the algorithms that implement ℓp-norm minimization utilizes approximations to the original ℓp-norm function. Three methods for implementing the ℓp-norm were con-sidered, namely Iteratively Reweigthed ℓ1-minimization (IRL1), Iteratively Reweigthed Least-Squares (IRLS), and Iteratively Thresholding Method (ITM). These results in-dicated that IRL1 implementation of ℓp-minimization provides optimal performance in terms of shape recovery and quantitative accuracy of the reconstructed diffuse optical tomographic images. Photoacoustic tomography (PAT) is an emerging hybrid imaging modality combining optics with ultrasound imaging. PAT provides structural and functional imaging in diverse application areas, such as breast cancer and brain imaging. A model-based iterative reconstruction schemes are the most-popular for recovering the initial pressure in limited data case, wherein a large linear system of equations needs to be solved. Often, these iterative methods requires regularization parameter estimation, which tends to be a computationally expensive procedure, making the image reconstruction process to be performed off-line. To overcome this limitation, a computationally efficient approach that computes the optimal regularization parameter is developed for PAT. This approach is based on the least squares-QR (LSQR) decomposition, a well-known dimensionality reduction technique for a large system of equations. It is shown that the proposed framework is effective in terms of quantitative and qualitative reconstructions of initial pressure distribution.

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a biomedical imaging technique with many current applications. A limitation of the technique is its shallow depth of imaging. A major factor limiting imaging depth in OCT is multiple-scattering of light. This thesis proposes an integrated computational imgaging approach to improve depth of imaging in OCT. In this approach ultrasound patterns are used to modulate the refractive index of tissue. Simulations of the impact of ultrasound on the refractive index are performed, and the results are shown in this thesis. Simulations of the impact of the modulated refractive index on the propagation of light in tissue are needed. But there is no suitable simulator available. Thus, we implemented a Monte Carlo method to solve integral equations that could be used to perform these simulations. Results for integral equations in 1-D and 2-D are shown.

Diffuse optical tomography uses near infrared (NIR) light as the probing media to recover the distributions of tissue optical properties. It has a potential to become an adjunct imaging modality for breast and brain imaging, that is capable of providing functional information of the tissue under investigation. As NIR light propagation in the tissue is dominated by scattering, the image reconstruction problem (inverse problem) tends to be non-linear and ill-posed, requiring usage of advanced computational methods to compensate this. Traditional image reconstruction methods in diffuse optical tomography employ l2 –norm based regularization, which is known to remove high frequency noises in the re-constructed images and make them appear smooth. The recovered contrast in the reconstructed image in these type of methods are typically dependent on the iterative nature of the method employed, in which the non-linear iterative technique is known to perform better in comparison to linear techniques. The usage of non-linear iterative techniques in the real-time, especially in dynamical imaging, becomes prohibitive due to the computational complexity associated with them. In the rapid dynamic diffuse optical imaging, assumption of a linear dependency in the solutions between successive frames results in a linear inverse problem. This new frame work along with the l1–norm based regularization can provide better robustness to noise and results in a better contrast recovery compared to conventional l2 –based techniques. Moreover, it is shown that the proposed l1-based technique is computationally efficient compared to its counterpart(l2 –based one). The proposed framework requires a reasonably close estimate of the actual solution for the initial frame and any suboptimal estimate leads to erroneous reconstruction results for the subsequent frames. Modern diffuse optical imaging systems are multi-modal in nature, where diffuse optical imaging is combined with traditional imaging modalities such as MRI, CT, and Ultrasound. A novel approach that can more effectively use the structural information provided by the traditional imaging modalities in these scenarios is introduced, which is based on prior image constrained- l1 minimization scheme. This method has been motivated by the recent progress in the sparse image reconstruction techniques. It is shown that the- l1 based frame work is more effective in terms of localizing the tumor region and recovering the optical property values both in numerical and gelatin phantom cases compared to the traditional methods that use structural information.

Diffuse optical tomography uses near infrared (NIR) light as the probing media to recover the distributions of tissue optical properties. It has a potential to become an adjunct imaging modality for breast and brain imaging, that is capable of providing functional information of the tissue under investigation. As NIR light propagation in the tissue is dominated by scattering, the image reconstruction problem (inverse problem) tends to be non-linear and ill-posed, requiring usage of advanced computational methods to compensate this. Traditional image reconstruction methods in diffuse optical tomography employ l2 –norm based regularization, which is known to remove high frequency noises in the re-constructed images and make them appear smooth. The recovered contrast in the reconstructed image in these type of methods are typically dependent on the iterative nature of the method employed, in which the non-linear iterative technique is known to perform better in comparison to linear techniques. The usage of non-linear iterative techniques in the real-time, especially in dynamical imaging, becomes prohibitive due to the computational complexity associated with them. In the rapid dynamic diffuse optical imaging, assumption of a linear dependency in the solutions between successive frames results in a linear inverse problem. This new frame work along with the l1–norm based regularization can provide better robustness to noise and results in a better contrast recovery compared to conventional l2 –based techniques. Moreover, it is shown that the proposed l1-based technique is computationally efficient compared to its counterpart(l2 –based one). The proposed framework requires a reasonably close estimate of the actual solution for the initial frame and any suboptimal estimate leads to erroneous reconstruction results for the subsequent frames. Modern diffuse optical imaging systems are multi-modal in nature, where diffuse optical imaging is combined with traditional imaging modalities such as MRI, CT, and Ultrasound. A novel approach that can more effectively use the structural information provided by the traditional imaging modalities in these scenarios is introduced, which is based on prior image constrained- l1 minimization scheme. This method has been motivated by the recent progress in the sparse image reconstruction techniques. It is shown that the- l1 based frame work is more effective in terms of localizing the tumor region and recovering the optical property values both in numerical and gelatin phantom cases compared to the traditional methods that use structural information.

The vascular contribution to tumor radiation response is controversial, but may have profound clinical implications. This is especially true of a new class of radiation therapies which employ spatial fractionation techniques--high radiation doses delivered in a spatially modulated pattern across the tumor. Window chamber tumor models may prove useful in investigating vascular parameters due to their facilitation of non-invasive, serial measurements of living tumors. However, presently there do not exist automated and accurate algorithms capable of quantitatively analyzing window chamber data.

Here we attempt to address these two problems through (1) the generation of novel optical data processing techniques for the quantification of vascular structural and functional parameters, and (2) the application of these methods to the study of vascular radiation effects in window chamber models.

Results presented here demonstrate the versatility and functionality of the data processing methods that we have developed. In the first part of Aim 1, we have developed a vessel segmentation algorithm specifically designed for processing tumor vessels, which present a challenge to existing algorithms due to their highly branching, tortuous structure. This provides us with useful information on vascular structural parameters. In the second part of Aim 1, we demonstrate a complementary vascular functional analysis algorithm, which generates quantitative maps of speed and direction. We prove the versatility of this method by applying it to a number of different studies, including hemodynamic analysis in the dorsal window chamber, the pulmonary window, and after neural electro-stimulation. Both the structural and functional techniques are shown capable of generating accurate and unbiased vascular structural and functional information. Furthermore, that automated nature of these algorithms allow for the rapid and efficient processing of large data sets. These techniques are validated against existing techniques.

The application of these methods to the study of vascular radiation effects produced invaluable quantitative data which suggest startling tumor adaptations to radiation injury. Window chamber grown tumors were treated with either widefield, microbeam, or mock irradiation. After microbeam treatment, we observed a profound angiogenic effect within the radiation field, and no signs of vascular disruption. Upregulation of HIF-1, primarily in the tumor rim, suggested that this response may have been due to bystander mechanisms initiated by oxidative stress. This HIF-1 response may have also initiated an epithelial-mesenchymal transition in the cells of the tumor rim, as post-treatment observation revealed evidence of tumor cell mobilization and migration away from the primary tumor to form secondary satellite clusters. These data indicate the possibility of significant detrimental effects after microbeam treatment facilitated through a HIF-1 response.

Dissertation

Since the inception of hyperpolarized 129Xe MRI, the field has yearned for more efficient production of more highly polarized 129Xe. For nearly all polarizers built to date, both peak 129Xe polarization and production rate fall far below theoretical predictions. This thesis sought to develop a fundamental understanding of why the observed performance of large-scale 129Xe hyperpolarization lagged so badly behind theoretical predictions.

This is done by thoroughly characterizing a high-volume, continuous-flow polarizer using optical cells having three different internal volumes, and employing two different laser sources. For each of these 6 combinations, 129Xe polarization was carefully measured as a function of production rate across a range of laser absorption levels. The resultant peak polarizations were consistently a factor of 2-3 lower than predicted across a range of absorption levels, and scaling of production rates deviated badly from predictions based on spin exchange efficiency.

To bridge this gap, we propose that paramagnetic, activated Rb clusters form during spin exchange optical pumping (SEOP), and depolarize Rb and 129Xe, while unproductively scattering optical pumping light. When a model was built that incorporated the effects of clusters, its predictions matched observations for both polarization and production rate for all 6 systems studied. This permits us to place a limit on cluster number density of <2 × 109 cm-3.

The work culminates with deploying this framework to identify methods to improve polarization to above 50%, leaving the SEOP cell. Combined with additional methods of preserving polarization, the polarization of a 300-mL batch of 129Xe increased from an average of 9%, before this work began, to a recent value of 34%.

We anticipate that these developments will lay the groundwork for continued advancement and scaling up of SEOP-based hyperpolarization methods that may one day permit real-time, on-demand 129Xe MRI to become a reality.

Dissertation

abstract: Measuring molecular interaction with membrane proteins is critical for understanding cellular functions, validating biomarkers and screening drugs. Despite the importance, developing such a capability has been a difficult challenge, especially for small molecules binding to membrane proteins in their native cellular environment. The current mainstream practice is to isolate membrane proteins from the cell membranes, which is difficult and often lead to the loss of their native structures and functions. In this thesis, novel detection methods for in situ quantification of molecular interactions with membrane proteins are described. First, a label-free surface plasmon resonance imaging (SPRi) platform is developed for the in situ detection of the molecular interactions between membrane protein drug target and its specific antibody drug molecule on cell surface. With this method, the binding kinetics of the drug-target interaction is quantified for drug evaluation and the receptor density on the cell surface is also determined. Second, a label-free mechanically amplification detection method coupled with a microfluidic device is developed for the detection of both large and small molecules on single cells. Using this method, four major types of transmembrane proteins, including glycoproteins, ion channels, G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) and tyrosine kinase receptors on single whole cells are studied with their specific drug molecules. The basic principle of this method is established by developing a thermodynamic model to express the binding-induced nanometer-scale cellular deformation in terms of membrane protein density and cellular mechanical properties. Experiments are carried out to validate the model. Last, by tracking the cell membrane edge deformation, molecular binding induced downstream event – granule exocytosis is measured with a dual-optical imaging system. Using this method, the single granule exocytosis events in single cells are monitored and the temporal-spatial distribution of the granule fusion-induced cell membrane deformation are mapped. Different patterns of granule release are resolved, including multiple release events occurring close in time and position. The label-free cell membrane deformation tracking method was validated with the simultaneous fluorescence recording. And the simultaneous cell membrane deformation detection and fluorescence recording allow the study of the propagation of the granule release-induced membrane deformation along cell surfaces.
Dissertation/Thesis
Doctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 2018

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Alberta, 2009.
Title from PDF file main screen (viewed on Apr. 1, 2010). A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta. Includes bibliographical references.

Optics are a powerful probe of chemical structure that can often be linked to theoretical predictions, providing robustness as a measurement tool. Not only do optical interactions like second harmonic generation (SHG), single and two-photon excited fluorescence (TPEF), and infrared absorption provide chemical specificity at the molecular and macromolecular scale, but the ability to image enables mapping heterogeneous behavior across complex systems such as biological tissue. This thesis will discuss nonlinear and linear optics, leveraging theoretical predictions to provide frameworks for interpreting analytical measurement. In turn, the causal mechanistic understanding provided by these frameworks will enable structurally specific quantitative tools with a special emphasis on application in biological imaging. The thesis will begin with an introduction to 2nd order nonlinear optics and the polarization analysis thereof, covering both the Jones framework for polarization analysis and the design of experiment. Novel experimental architectures aimed at reducing 1/f noise in polarization analysis will be discussed, leveraging both rapid modulation in time through electro-optic modulators (Chapter 2), as well as fixed-optic spatial modulation approaches (Chapter 3). In addition, challenges in polarization-dependent imaging within turbid systems will be addressed with the discussion of a theoretical framework to model SHG occurring from unpolarized light (Chapter 4). The application of this framework to thick tissue imaging for analysis of collagen local structure can provide a method for characterizing changes in tissue morphology associated with some common cancers (Chapter 5). In addition to discussion of nonlinear optical phenomena, a novel mechanism for electric dipole allowed fluorescence-detected circular dichroism will be introduced (Chapter 6). Tackling challenges associated with label-free chemically specific imaging, the construction of a novel infrared hyperspectral microscope for chemical classification in complex mixtures will be presented (Chapter 7). The thesis will conclude with a discussion of the inherent disadvantages in taking the traditional paradigm of modeling and measuring chemistry separately and provide the multi-agent consensus equilibrium (MACE) framework as an alternative to the classic meet-in-the-middle approach (Chapter 8). Spanning topics from pure theoretical descriptions of light-matter interaction to full experimental work, this thesis aims to unify these two fronts.