ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes the dual purpose of introducing basic concepts and discussing the most important R functions for manipulating functional data. Ramsay et al. provide a much more comprehensive and detailed description of the R and MATLAB tools used for analysis of functional data. The book also describes more sophisticated methods of constructing functional data objects from raw data. It focuses on the total variability of a sample of curves about the sample mean function, can be decomposed into the sum of variabilities explained by each estimated functional principal components (EFPC). The book discusses diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is a magnetic resonance imaging methodology which is used to measure the diffusion of water in the brain. Water diffuses isotropically in the brain except in white mater where it diffuses anisotropically.
