21 research outputs found
Markov chain Monte Carlo with Gaussian processes for fast parameter estimation and uncertainty quantification in a 1D fluidâdynamics model of the pulmonary circulation
The past few decades have witnessed an explosive synergy between physics and the life sciences. In particular, physical modelling in medicine and physiology is a topical research area. The present work focuses on parameter inference and uncertainty quantification in a 1D fluidâdynamics model for quantitative physiology: the pulmonary blood circulation. The practical challenge is the estimation of the patientâspecific biophysical model parameters, which cannot be measured directly. In principle this can be achieved based on a comparison between measured and predicted data. However, predicting data requires solving a system of partial differential equations (PDEs), which usually have no closedâform solution, and repeated numerical integrations as part of an adaptive estimation procedure are computationally expensive. In the present article, we demonstrate how fast parameter estimation combined with sound uncertainty quantification can be achieved by a combination of statistical emulation and Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling. We compare a range of stateâofâtheâart MCMC algorithms and emulation strategies, and assess their performance in terms of their accuracy and computational efficiency. The longâterm goal is to develop a method for reliable disease prognostication in real time, and our work is an important step towards an automatic clinical decision support system