OVERLAPPING PATTERN DIFFERENTIATION AT LOW SIGNAL-TO-NOISE RATIO

摘要

Methods and systems for detecting and characterizing a pattern (or patterns) of interest in a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) data set are disclosed. One method is a form of a two-stage Likelihood pipeline analysis for differentiating multiple closely-spaced spots that takes advantage of the benefits of a full Likelihood analysis while providing computational tractability. The two-stage pipeline may include a first stage including the application of approximate Likelihood functions. The second stage may include a full Likelihood analysis. Once a pattern of interest instance is characterized, it may be subtracted from the underlying data, and the two-stage analysis may be performed on the reduced data to detect a further pattern of interest proximate the characterized pattern.