Structural identification of large systems by reduction to subsystems: VLDL triglycerides

The problem of determining whether or not a particular parameter, or the entire compartmental system, is structural identifiable can be extremely difficult if the number of unknown parameters and the number of compartments is large. However, the problem can be considerably simplified if the system can be decomposed into smaller subsystems in such a way that a parameter is structural identifiable with respect to the large system if and only if it is structural identifiable with respect to the subsystem in which it is contained. The paper offers sufficient conditions under which the desired decomposition can be achieved. The conditions are expressed in terms of the digraph of the system so that they are not difficult to verify. Illustrative examples are provided in terms of application to lipoprotein kinetics.