MODELING AND ESTIMATION OF SIGNALS AND ARTIFACTS IN FUNCTIONAL MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING AND COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY by

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank everyone who supported and helped me through the progress and completion of this dissertation. I would like to express my appreciation and special thanks to my advisor, Dr. Aria Nosratinia, for his continuous advice, guidance and support throughout my graduate studies at UTD. serving on my supervisory committee, for giving their precious time to read my dissertation and for providing valuable feedback and comments on this work. I would like to thank my parents, my sister, my aunts, my brother in law and my cousins Peyman and Lesa for their love and support. My special thanks to Dr. Thomas Morton, my colleague at Philips Healthcare, for his support and encouragement during this work. I appreciate his time, guidance and help. I also acknowledge and thank my colleagues at the Multimedia Communications Lab for their support and encouragement. I would like to thank my friends Azadeh, Oldooz, Omid, Yasaman and Ali for their support. September 2014 v PREFACE This dissertation was produced in accordance with guidelines which permit the inclusion as part of the dissertation the text of an original paper or papers submitted for publication. The dissertation must still conform to all other requirements explained in the " Guide for the Preparation of Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations at The University of Texas at Dallas. " It must include a comprehensive abstract, a full introduction and literature review, and a final overall conclusion. Additional material (procedural and design data as well as descriptions of equipment) must be provided in sufficient detail to allow a clear and precise judgment to be made of the importance and originality of the research reported. It is acceptable for this dissertation to include as chapters authentic copies of papers already published, provided these meet type size, margin, and legibility requirements. In such cases, connecting texts which provide logical bridges between different manuscripts are mandatory. Where the student is not the sole author of a manuscript, the student is required to make an explicit statement in the introductory material to that manuscript describing the student's contribution to the work and acknowledging the contribution of the other author(s). The signatures of the Supervising Committee which precede all other material in the dissertation attest to the accuracy of this statement. The objective of this dissertation is to enhance and improve two medical imaging modalities: functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and x-ray Computed …