Proceedings of the biosimilars workshop at the International Symposium on Oncology Pharmacy Practice 2019.

The International Society of Oncology Pharmacy Practitioners organized a workshop to create learning opportunities on biosimilars in pharmacy practice on 10 October 2019. The topics that were covered included (i) the development and testing of biosimilars, (ii) the challenges of bringing biosimilars to market, and (iii) real-world data on patient safety and perceptions during biosimilar implementation. The development of biosimilars can take up to eight years and the extensiveness of the process depends on several factors, such as the complexity of the production process and regulatory requirements. Compared to generic products of small-molecule drugs, there is a higher barrier to market entry for biosimilars, explaining the small number of biosimilars in the market. Appraisal of biosimilars for inclusion in hospital formularies is also different from the review process of originator biologics, where the former is usually institution-led and has fewer restrictions on use. When several biosimilar products are available, factors that should be considered besides cost are licensed indications, supply chain confidence, clinical data, and product attributes. Real-world data have shown that biosimilars are well-tolerated and have safety data that are comparable to that of the originator product. Oncology pharmacists from the United Kingdom, Kenya, and Canada also presented their respective experiences with biosimilar use. Different countries at varying stages of biosimilar implementation faced distinct challenges. Nevertheless, resources to assist biosimilar implementation can potentially be shared between different regions. International Society of Oncology Pharmacy Practitioners is well-positioned to foster professional cooperation at an international level to drive biosimilar implementation

Guarantees of Riemannian Optimization for Low Rank Matrix Completion

We study the Riemannian optimization methods on the embedded manifold of low rank matrices for the problem of matrix completion, which is about recovering a low rank matrix from its partial entries. Assume $m$ entries of an $n\times n$ rank $r$ matrix are sampled independently and uniformly with replacement. We first prove that with high probability the Riemannian gradient descent and conjugate gradient descent algorithms initialized by one step hard thresholding are guaranteed to converge linearly to the measured matrix provided \begin{align*} m\geq C_\kappa n^{1.5}r\log^{1.5}(n), \end{align*} where $C_\kappa$ is a numerical constant depending on the condition number of the underlying matrix. The sampling complexity has been further improved to \begin{align*} m\geq C_\kappa nr^2\log^{2}(n) \end{align*} via the resampled Riemannian gradient descent initialization. The analysis of the new initialization procedure relies on an asymmetric restricted isometry property of the sampling operator and the curvature of the low rank matrix manifold. Numerical simulation shows that the algorithms are able to recover a low rank matrix from nearly the minimum number of measurements

Numerical computations for singular semilinear elliptic boundary value problems

AbstractThe paper studies a class of Dirichlet problems with homogeneous boundary conditions for singular semilinear elliptic equations in a bounded smooth domain in . A numerical method is devised to construct an approximate Green's function by using radial basis functions and the method of fundamental solutions. An estimate of the error involved is also given. A weak solution of the above given problem is a solution of its corresponding nonlinear integral equation. A computational method is given to find the minimal weak solution U, and the critical index λ* (such that a weak solution U exists for λ < λ*, and U does not exist for λ > λ*)

Lorentz-type relationship of the temperature dependent dielectric permittivity in ferroelectrics with diffuse phase transition

2008-2009 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

Two-Stage Robust Optimization for the Orienteering Problem with Stochastic Weights

In this paper, the two-stage orienteering problem with stochastic weights is studied, where the first-stage problem is to plan a path under the uncertain environment and the second-stage problem is a recourse action to make sure that the length constraint is satisfied after the uncertainty is realized. First, we explain the recourse model proposed by Evers et al. (2014) and point out that this model is very complex. Then, we introduce a new recourse model which is much simpler with less variables and less constraints. Based on these two recourse models, we introduce two different two-stage robust models for the orienteering problem with stochastic weights. We theoretically prove that the two-stage robust models are equivalent to their corresponding static robust models under the box uncertainty set, which indicates that the two-stage robust models can be solved by using common mathematical programming solvers (e.g., IBM CPLEX optimizer). Furthermore, we prove that the two two-stage robust models are equivalent to each other even though they are based on different recourse models, which indicates that we can use a much simpler model instead of a complex model for practical use. A case study is presented by comparing the two-stage robust models with a one-stage robust model for the orienteering problem with stochastic weights. The numerical results of the comparative studies show the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed two-stage robust models for dealing with the two-stage orienteering problem with stochastic weights

Out-of-time-order correlator, many-body quantum chaos, light-like generators, and singular values

We study out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs) of local operators in spatial-temporal invariant or random quantum circuits using light-like generators (LLG) -- many-body operators that exist in and act along the light-like directions. We demonstrate that the OTOC can be approximated by the leading singular value of the LLG, which, for the case of generic many-body chaotic circuits, is increasingly accurate as the size of the LLG, $w$, increases. We analytically show that the OTOC has a decay with a universal form in the light-like direction near the causal light cone, as dictated by the sub-leading eigenvalues of LLG, $z_2$, and their degeneracies. Further, we analytically derive and numerically verify that the sub-leading eigenvalues of LLG of any size can be accessibly extracted from those of LLG of the smallest size, i.e., $z_2(w)= z_2(w=1)$. Using symmetries and recursive structures of LLG, we propose two conjectures on the universal aspects of generic many-body quantum chaotic circuits, one on the algebraic degeneracy of eigenvalues of LLG, and another on the geometric degeneracy of the sub-leading eigenvalues of LLG. As corollaries of the conjectures, we analytically derive the asymptotic form of the leading singular state, which in turn allows us to postulate and efficiently compute a product-state variational ansatz away from the asymptotic limit. We numerically test the claims with four generic circuit models of many-body quantum chaos, and contrast these statements against the cases of a dual unitary system and an integrable system.Comment: 6 + 15 pages, 3 + 11 figures. Comments are welcome. Updated on 2023-10-1