Mathematical Biology Seminar Miguel Dumett Department of Mathematics, University of Southern California Wednesday February 2, 2005 3:05pm in LCB 121 "Estimation of alcohol concentration from skin measurements" The human body is divided in several compartments to facilitate the description of the transport of alcohol in the human body from ingestion to elimination. Experimental measurements of transdermal vapor alcohol concentration are used to estimate alcohol concentration in the body using an inverse problem approach. The adjoint method is used for the computation of the least squares functional gradient. In particular, a model that links blood alcohol concentration and transdermal vapor alcohol is proposed and the parameters of the model are fitted using real breathalyzer and a transdermal alcohol skin device data applied to individuals in a hospital. The parameter values obtained are used to predict the evolution of alcohol concentration for patients in the field. Kalman filtering techniques can be used to correct predictions in real time.