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This paper surveys the required mathematics for a typical challenging problem from computational medicine, the cancer therapy planning in deep regional hyperthermia. In the course of many years of close cooperation with clinics, the medical problem gave rise to quite a number of subtle mathematical problems, part of which had been unsolved when the common project started. Efficiency of numerical algorithms, i.e. computational speed and monitored reliability, play a decisive role for the medical treatment. Off-the-shelf software had turned out to be not sufficient to meet the requirements of medicine. Rather, new mathematical theory as well as new numerical algorithms had to be developed. In order to make our algorithms useful in the clinical environment, new visualization software, a virtual lab, including 3D geometry processing of individual virtual patients had to be designed and implemented. Moreover, before the problems could be attacked by numerical algorithms, careful mathematical modelling had to be done. Finally, parameter identification and constrained optimization for the PDEs had to be newly analyzed and realized over the individual patient's geometry. Our new techniques had an impact on the specificity of the individual patients' treatment and on the construction of an improved hyperthermia applicator.
This paper considers the optimal control of tuberculosis through education, diagnosis campaign and chemoprophylaxis of latently infected. A mathematical model which includes important components such as undiagnosed infectious, diagnosed infectious, latently infected and lost-sight infectious is formulated. The model combines a frequency dependent and a density dependent force of infection for TB transmission. Through optimal control theory and numerical simulations, a cost-effective balance of two different intervention methods is obtained. Seeking to minimize the amount of money the government spends when tuberculosis remain endemic in the Cameroonian population, Pontryagin's maximum principle is used to characterize the optimal control. The optimality system is derived and solved numerically using the forward-backward sweep method (FBSM). Results provide a framework for designing cost-effective strategies for diseases with multiple intervention methods. It comes out that combining chemoprophylaxis and education, the burden of TB can be reduced by 80 % in 10 years.