Patent ID: 8649981

Claim:
A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions that, when executed, perform the following method: collect a set of digital training images of cells including a set of biological states for the set of digital training images; define an objective function to determine a relative quality of a plurality of different parameter sets for the collected set of digital training images, the objective function comprising determining a modified Z′ criterion by: determining a Z′ factor statistic according to the following equation: Z ′ = 1 - 3 ⁢ ( s + + s - )  x _ + - x _ -  , where s is a standard deviation, x is an average of measurements derived from groups of cells, and the subscripts + and − respectively denote positive and negative phenotypic groupings of cells; generating a histogram based on the Z′ factor statistic; and clipping the tails of the histogram to yield the modified Z′ criterion; and determine values for the plurality of different parameter sets that maximize or minimize the objective function.