Preliminaries

This chapter covers three major topics: the fundamentals of the mathematics, the basics of x-ray physics, and essentials of artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning (DL). The objective is to provide a general review of the important mathematics tools and the background knowledge on x-ray physics used throughout the book, as well as to provide introductory information on AI and DL. The chapter serves mainly as a refresher. Readers who have not been previously exposed to these topics will find a list of recommended reference materials at the end of the chapter so that detailed studies can be performed.