Abstract
The main purpose of this paper is to introduce the five following papers on inverse problems, and to relate the field of inverse problems to measurements. Inverse techniques are an emerging suite of methods which, when fully embraced, promise to provide better experiments and improved understanding of physical processes. This paper provides an overview of the general procedure and concepts related to identification of parameters or functions by inverse techniques. A discussion of errors and their implication for an appropriate function for minimization in inverse procedures is presented, and two methods for achieving this minimization are discussed. Some sequential concepts for parameter estimation are presented, along with a discussion of residuals and confidence intervals. Experiment design and optimization are reviewed, and a discussion of residuals and their relation to model building is presented.
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