Inter-individual variability possesses a major challenge in the regulation of hypnosis in anesthesia. Understanding the variability towards anesthesia effect is expected to assist the design of controller for anesthesia regulation. However, such studies are still very scarce in the literature. This study aims to analyze the inter-individual variability in propofol pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics (PK/PD) model and proposed a suitable controller to tackle the variability. This study employed Sobol' sensitivity analysis to identify significance parameters in propofol PK/PD model that affects the model output Bispectral Index (BIS). Parameters' range is obtained from reported clinical data. Based on the finding, a multi-model generalized predictive controller was proposed to regulate propofol in tackling patient variability. [Formula: see text] (concentration that produces 50% of the maximum effect) was found to have a highly-determining role on the uncertainty of BIS. In addition, the Hill coefficient, [Formula: see text], was found to be significant when there is a drastic input, especially during the induction phase. Both of these parameters only affect the process gain upon model linearization. Therefore, a predictive controller based on switching of model with different process gain is proposed. Simulation result shows that it is able to give a satisfactory performance across a wide population. Both the parameters [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], which are unknown before anesthesia procedure, were found to be highly significant in contributing the uncertainty of BIS. Their range of variability must be considered during the design and evaluation of controller. A linear controller may be sufficient to tackle most of the variability since both [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] would be translated into process gain upon linearization.
Mating compatibility and restriction analyses of Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) regions were performed to determine the relations between Ganoderma boninense, the most common species associated with basal stem rot in oil palm and Ganoderma isolates from infected oil palm, two ornamental palms, sealing wax palm (Cyrtostachys renda) and MacArthur palm (Ptychosperma macarthurii), an isolate from coconut stump (Cocos nucifera), Ganoderma miniatocinctum, Ganoderma zonatum and Ganoderma tornatum. The results showed that G. boninense was compatible with Ganoderma isolates from oil palm, G. miniatocinctum and G. zonatum, Ganoderma isolates from sealing wax palm, MacArthur palm and coconut stump. G. boninense was not compatible with G. tornatum. Therefore, the results suggested that the G. boninense, G. miniatocinctum, G. zonatum, and Ganoderma isolates from oil palm, ornamental palms and coconut stump could represent the same biological species. In performing a restriction analysis of the ITS regions, variations were observed in which five haplotypes were generated from the restriction patterns. An unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic averages (UPGMA) cluster analysis showed that all the Ganoderma isolates were grouped into five primary groups, and the similarity values of the isolates ranged from 97% to 100%. Thus, a restriction analysis of the ITS regions showed that G. boninense and the Ganoderma isolates from other palm hosts were closely related. On the basis of the mating compatibility test and the restriction analysis of the ITS regions performed in this study, a diverse group of Ganoderma species from oil palm and other palm hosts are closely related, except for G. tornatum and Ganoderma isolates from tea and rubber.