The analysis module provides the opportunity to examine various aspects of the radiative transport solutions provided by the solver output. This layer provides three general classes of analysis related to:

• (a) perturbation;
• (b) sensitivity; and
• (c) interrogation characteristics of the internal and/or remitted light field.

Specifically the perturbation capabilities provide the ability to examine changes in the internal radiant field or remitted light due to perturbations in optical properties or size of internal structures. The sensitivity capabilities provide derivative information (elements of a Jacobian matrix) of the radiative transport solution that is used in gradient-based optimization algorithms. Finally, interrogation capabilities provide solutions to a 3-location transport problem that provides metrics for how specific source-detector configurations optically sample or 'interrogate' a desired target tissue volume of interest. Reference materials related to these capabilities are shown following a graphical representation of this module below.

References