Degradation of a poly(3-hydroxybutyrate--3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) compound in different environments.

Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate--3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) is a promising biodegradable bio-based material, which is designed for a vast range of applications, depending on its composite. This study aims to assess the degradability of PHBV-based compound under different conditions. The research group followed different methodological approaches and assessed visual and mass changes, mechanical and morphological properties, spectroscopic and structural characterisation, along with thermal behaviour.

The effect of using a robust optimality criterion in model based adaptive optimization.

Optimizing designs using robust (global) optimality criteria has been shown to be a more flexible approach compared to using local optimality criteria. Additionally, model based adaptive optimal design (MBAOD) may be less sensitive to misspecification in the prior information available at the design stage. In this work, we investigate the influence of using a local (lnD) or a robust (ELD) optimality criterion for a MBAOD of a simulated dose optimization study, for rich and sparse sampling schedules.

The effect of Fisher information matrix approximation methods in population optimal design calculations.

With the increasing popularity of optimal design in drug development it is important to understand how the approximations and implementations of the Fisher information matrix (FIM) affect the resulting optimal designs. The aim of this work was to investigate the impact on design performance when using two common approximations to the population model and the full or block-diagonal FIM implementations for optimization of sampling points. Sampling schedules for two example experiments based on population models were optimized using the FO and FOCE approximations and the full and block-diagonal FIM implementations.