Method for determining the distribution of constituent subpopulations within a population of particles having overlapping subpopulations
AssigneeEdward Lawrence Carver, Jr.
InventorsEdward L. Carver, Jr., Richard D. DeVeaux, David C. DeCava
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method and apparatus for determining the parameters (i.e., proportion, mean, and standard deviation) of constituent subpopulations within a sample population of particles which contains overlapping populations. The invention includes the use of the EM algorithm, an iterative process which estimates the probability that a particle belongs to any given overlapping subpopulation.
Claims15
A method for measuring and determining the parameters of constituent subpopulations of particles within a sample containing a population of particles including overlapping subpopulations of particles, comprising the following steps:
- detecting the differences in at least one physical characteristic of the particles and generating first signals indicative of the differences;
- measuring at least one characteristic of the first signals indicative of the differences in the at least one physical characteristic of the particles being measured, and generating second signals indicative of the at least one measured characteristic of the first signals;
- and
- generating the parameters of each subpopulation of particles by estimating the probability that a particle belongs to a given subpopulation based on the second signals.
A method of measuring the distribution of various subpopulations of blood cells that are present in a sample population of blood cells, comprising the following steps:
- determining the number of subpopulations of blood cells in the sample population;
- separately characterizing each of the subpopulations of blood cells based on a physical property of the blood cells, and selecting an equation describing the distribution of particles within each subpopulation of blood cells;
- measuring each of the particles in the sample population of blood cells for the physical property;
- and
- generating the parameters of each subpopulation of blood cells based on a statistical estimation of the probability that a particle belongs to a given subpopulation of blood cells.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.