Mathematical Modelling of Parasite Dynamics: A Stochastic Simulation-Based Approach and Parameter Estimation via Modified Sequential-Type Approximate Bayesian Computation.

The development of mathematical models for studying newly emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases has gained momentum due to global events. The gyrodactylid-fish system, like many host-parasite systems, serves as a valuable resource for ecological, evolutionary, and epidemiological investigations owing to its ease of experimental manipulation and long-term monitoring. Although this system has an existing individual-based model, it falls short in capturing information about species-specific microhabitat preferences and other biological details for different Gyrodactylus strains across diverse fish populations.

A web-based tool for designing experimental studies to detect hormesis and estimate the threshold dose.

Hormesis has been widely observed and debated in a variety of context in biomedicine and toxicological sciences. Detecting its presence can be an important problem with wide ranging implications. However, there is little work on constructing an efficient experiment to detect its existence or estimate the threshold dose.

Optimal designs in regression with correlated errors.

This paper discusses the problem of determining optimal designs for regression models, when the observations are dependent and taken on an interval. A complete solution of this challenging optimal design problem is given for a broad class of regression models and covariance kernels. We propose a class of estimators which are only slightly more complicated than the ordinary least-squares estimators.

Optimal designs for composed models in pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic experiments.

We consider two frequently used PK/PD models and provide closed form descriptions of locally optimal designs for estimating individual parameters. In a novel way, we use these optimal designs and construct locally standardized maximin optimal designs for estimating any subset of the model parameters of interest. We do this by maximizing the minimal efficiency of the estimates across all relevant parameters so that these optimal designs are less dependent on the individual parameter or parameters of interest.

A geometric characterization of optimal designs for regression models with correlated observations.

We consider the problem of optimal design of experiments for random effects models, especially population models, where a small number of correlated observations can be taken on each individual, while the observations corresponding to different individuals are assumed to be uncorrelated. We focus on c-optimal design problems and show that the classical equivalence theorem and the famous geometric characterization of Elfving (1952) from the case of uncorrelated data can be adapted to the problem of selecting optimal sets of observations for the n individual patients. The theory is demonstrated by finding optimal designs for a linear model with correlated observations and a nonlinear random effects population model, which is commonly used in pharmacokinetics.

Optimal experimental design strategies for detecting hormesis.

Hormesis is a widely observed phenomenon in many branches of life sciences, ranging from toxicology studies to agronomy, with obvious public health and risk assessment implications. We address optimal experimental design strategies for determining the presence of hormesis in a controlled environment using the recently proposed Hunt-Bowman model. We propose alternative models that have an implicit hormetic threshold, discuss their advantages over current models, and construct and study properties of optimal designs for (i) estimating model parameters, (ii) estimating the threshold dose, and (iii) testing for the presence of hormesis.

Robust and efficient design of experiments for the Monod model.

In this paper the problem of designing experiments for the Monod model, which is frequently used in microbiology, is studied. The model is defined implicitly by a differential equation and has numerous applications in microbial growth kinetics, environmental research, pharmacokinetics, and plant physiology. The designs presented so far in the literature are local optimal designs, which depend sensitively on a preliminary guess of the unknown parameters, and are for this reason in many cases not robust with respect to their misspecification.