Technical Report Details
| Authors: | Marco Beccuti |
| Giuliana Franceschinis |
| Silvia Villa |
| Scientific Area: | Performance Evaluation |
| Title: | A dynamic simulation model for comparing kidney exchange policies |
| Published on: | TR-INF-2017-03-01-UNIPMN |
| Publisher: | DiSIT, Computer Science Institute, UPO |
| Year: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://www.di.unipmn.it...R-INF-2017-03-01-UNIPMN.pdf |
| Abstract: | In this paper we tackle the dynamic kidney exchange problem. First, we propose a formal
definition through a mathematical model whose solution provides an optimal exchange policy,
then we analyze two almost myopic kidney exchange policies which are currently adopted in
practice by many transplant organizations. With respect to previous works in this area the
models proposed in this paper take into account the quality of the performed exchanges.
The dynamic kidney exchange problem is formulated through a Markov Decision Process
(MDP) model which allows to evaluate the performance of an optimal policy in a simplified
case (constraining the state space size of the MDP). The results obtained through numerical
solution of the MDP are then compared with the performance of two almost myopic policies
evaluated using simulation. The obtained results show that in this case the performance of
the considered policies is quite similar to that of the optimal policy.
The analysis is then extended to more realistic settings by means of a parametric simulator
(freely available for download) that allows to consider multiple characteristics of both donors
and recipients, different degrees of compatibility quantifying the quality of the exchange,
and different cost factors concurring to the definition of the reward function on which the
evaluation is based. The influence of the various parameters on the achievable reward is
thoroughly discussed. |
