These notes are based on (i) a series of lectures that I gave at the
14th Biennial Seminar of the Canadian Mathematical Congress held at the
University of Western Ontario August 12-24, 1973 and (li) some of my
lectures in a modeling course that I have cotaught in the Division of
Bio-Medical Sciences at Brown during the past several years. An earlier
version of these notes appeared in the Center for Dynamical Systems
Lectures Notes series (CDS LN 73-1, November 1973). I have in this
revised and extended version of those earlier notes incorporated a
number of changes based both on classroom experience and on my research
efforts with several colleagues during the intervening period. The
narrow viewpoint of the present notes (use of optimization and control
theory in biomedical problems) reflects more the scope of the CMC
lectures given in August, 1973 than the scope of my own interests.
Indeed, my real interests have included the modeling process itself as
well as the contributions made by investiga- tors who employ the
techniques and ideas of control theory, systems analysis, dif- ferential
equations, and stochastic processes. Some of these contributions have
quite naturally involved application of optimal control theory. But in
my opinion many of the interesting efforts being made in modeling in the
biomedical sciences encompass much more than the use of control theory.