Book Structure

After these preliminaries, we present PoPy in roughly three parts.

The first part, Operating Instructions, is a tutorial-style introduction to using PoPy that focusses on how PoPy is run at the command line for a given script whose structure is explained but whose specific content is not especially important. This is what you need to know to start using PoPy.

The final part, PoPy Reference Guide, we provide reference details that you don’t need to know at first but might want to know as you become more familiar with PoPy and how it works.

In between, we provide a series of “how to”-style guides that introduce PK/PD concepts and their implementations in PoPy. These “recipes” focus on the contents of the scripts that define models, simulations, and parameter estimation settings in order to help you create the models you need to better understand the data you have.

These recipes start simple, simulating data for only a single individual using different PK/PD models. Later recipes introduce parameter estimation (fitting) and analysis of data from a population of individuals. The last “how-to” part helps users who are familiar with Nonmem, the current market leader in NLME for PK/PD, to get started with PoPy by demonstrating equivalent scripts for common models and fitters.