ABOUT THE CONTEST According to its website, The Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling is "an international contest for high school students and college undergraduates. ICM is an extension of the Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM). It is designed to develop and advance interdisciplinary problem-solving skills as well as competence in written communication." After the problem is realized, participants have just four days to find a solution and write a report. COLLABORATORS Matthew Roy, Olin College '09 Mary Germino, Olin College '10 ABSTRACT As the wait list of candidates for organ transplants in the United States continues to grow, policy makers, health care ocials, individuals waiting for organs, and the general public alike become increasingly concerned about the efficiency and effectiveness of the organ transplant network in our country. Our team investigates the state of the organ transplantation system in the United States by utilizing an agent-based model to represent a wait list of candidates and a pool of organ donors. Our goal was to simulate the current system to enable the identication of weak spots. We developed a numerical simulation in MATLAB and then analyzed the wait list composition over time. We determined that the most daunting hurdle presented by the current system is simply the drastic shortage of donors. We consider how an individual might be influenced to donate and suggest some ways in which this dearth could be remedied. FULL TEXT PDF available for viewing and download below. |
 | |
|
|
