Salón de Grados, E.T.S.I.Industriales, 12:30h.

Mariusz Bodzioch, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland.

Emergence of pesticide-resistant strains of pests, antibiotic-resistant bacteria or chemotherapy-resistant tumor cells is a major obstacle standing in the way of effective external control of undesirable growth of these populations. Once the resistant subpopulation becomes dominant the means to control the population are effectively lost. Prevention of resistance may be therefore considered one of the optimal control goals to ensure long-term controllability. We formulate nonlinear optimal control problem motivated by the question of controlling the growth of two coexisting subpopulations representing two phenotypes of the same species.  We show how the resistance penalty gives rise to locally-optimal singular controls which are key to achieving the balance between resistant and sensitive populations.

References: M. Bodzioch, P. Bajger, U. Forys, Competition between populations: preventing domination of resistant population using optimal control, Applied Mathematical Modelling (under review).