Mathematical Foundations of Deep Learning for Imaging

A special issue of Mathematics (ISSN 2227-7390). This special issue belongs to the section "E: Applied Mathematics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 September 2026 | Viewed by 480

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Department of Computer Science and Mathematics, Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Regensburg (OTH Regensburg), Regensburg, Germany
Interests: inverse problems in imaging; image reconstruction in tomography; data and image processing; applied harmonic analysis
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Deep learning has had a profound impact on computational imaging, offering powerful new methodologies for solving inverse problems in image reconstruction. Modern approaches leverage data-driven representations to address long-standing challenges such as sparse sampling, limited-angle acquisition, low-dose imaging, and the mitigation of complex artifacts. Yet, despite their impressive empirical success, many of these methods still lack a rigorous theoretical foundation. Questions of stability, reliability, interpretability, and the integration of learned components with classical reconstruction and regularization techniques are becoming increasingly central—both for scientific understanding and for trustworthy deployment in real-world imaging systems.

This Special Issue aims to highlight advances at the intersection of deep learning, inverse problems, and mathematical imaging. We invite contributions that develop and deepen the mathematical theory underpinning modern learning-based imaging methods. Submissions addressing the following topics are particularly welcome:

  • Inverse problems and regularization theory for learned reconstruction methods;
  • Representation and approximation theory relevant to neural networks and data-driven priors;
  • Hybrid reconstruction algorithms that combine physical forward models with learnable components;
  • Stability, robustness, and error analysis of deep learning–based reconstruction schemes;
  • Optimization and training methodologies, including fine-tuning strategies and architecture design informed by mathematical principles;
  • Reliability and trustworthiness of AI methods, including frameworks to mitigate hallucinations and ensure predictable behavior;
  • Applications demonstrating mathematically grounded approaches to CT, MRI, PET, ultrasound, and related imaging modalities.

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Frikel
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • deep learning
  • inverse problems
  • image reconstruction
  • regularization theory
  • stability and robustness
  • medical imaging

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

25 pages, 432 KB  
Article
Dimension-Independent Approximations on Low-Dimensional Manifolds Using Transformers
by Ji Shi and Demetrio Labate
Mathematics 2026, 14(9), 1559; https://doi.org/10.3390/math14091559 - 5 May 2026
Viewed by 221
Abstract
Deep neural networks have been remarkably successful in high-dimensional learning and scientific computing, often succeeding where classical discretization methods fail due to the curse of dimensionality. This efficacy is often explained by their approximation properties combined with the manifold hypothesis: the idea that [...] Read more.
Deep neural networks have been remarkably successful in high-dimensional learning and scientific computing, often succeeding where classical discretization methods fail due to the curse of dimensionality. This efficacy is often explained by their approximation properties combined with the manifold hypothesis: the idea that although data are embedded in dimension D, the effective degrees of freedom are governed by a much smaller intrinsic dimension dD. Under this hypothesis, data are concentrated near a low-dimensional manifold that neural networks can approximate efficiently. While the approximation theory for fully-connected ReLU networks on manifolds is well established, a comparable theory for transformer architectures, the dominant model class in modern foundation models, is still emerging. In this paper, we prove a new non-asymptotic, uniform approximation theorem for a class of single-head ReLU-transformers acting on vector inputs, where the approximation error depends only on the intrinsic dimension d rather than on the ambient dimension D. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first transformer approximation result that combines an intrinsic-dimensional rate with an ambient-dimension-independent multiplicative constant. We include a numerical experiment using a circle embedded in ambient dimensions of various sizes, showing that the observed error remains nearly unchanged as D varies, in agreement with the predicted ambient-dimension independence. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mathematical Foundations of Deep Learning for Imaging)
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