This thesis looks at recent and historical examples of mis/disinformation and discovers that there are many psychological factors contributing to why people get fooled by deceptive media throughout history, and in modern times, deception is amplified by social media, a platform designed to prioritize profits and user engagement over content moderation. The thesis then proposes a process flow for an app to teach any kind of person how to evaluate news sources.

X-ray phase contrast imaging (XPCI) is a novel imaging method that utilizes phase information of X-rays in order to produce images. XPCI allows for highly resolved features that traditional X-ray imaging modalities cannot discern. The objective of this experiment was to model initial simulations predicting the output signal of the future compact x-ray free electron laser (CXFEL) XPCI source. The signal was reported in tonal values (“counts”), where MATLAB and MATLAB App Designer were the computing environments used to develop the simulations. The experimental setup’s components included a yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG) scintillating screen, mirror, and Mako G-507C camera with a Sony IMX264 sensor. The main function of the setup was to aim the X-rays at the YAG screen, then measure its scintillation through the photons emitted that hit the camera sensor. The resulting quantity used to assess the signal strength was tonal values (“counts”) per pixel on the sensor. Data for X-ray transmission through water, air, and polyimide was sourced from The Center for X-ray Optics’s simulations website, after which the data was interpolated and referenced in MATLAB. Matrices were an integral part of the saturation calculations; field-of-view (FOV), magnification and photon energies were also necessary. All the calculations were compiled into a graphical user interface (GUI) using App Designer. The code used to build this GUI can be used as a template for later, more complex GUIs and is a great starting point for future work in XPCI research at CXFEL.