ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces basic concepts in mathematics and statistics that will be useful in the coming chapters and experiments. The content is very limited and serves only to remind readers what should be known prior to continuing. For more detailed explanations and derivations, please refer to subject matter textbooks that focus on those topics. This chapter will also provide an overview of the basic principles of biology underlying tissue organization and function. Essentially, what we are concerned with here is the science of functional anatomy. There are multiple levels of organization of living systems. At the largest length scales, the organization of a living system is described by its gross anatomy. Although it is certainly important for a biomedical optics student to learn the gross anatomy of a human body, tissue optics typically interacts with smaller length scales, and thus, we will not focus on gross anatomy in this chapter.
