A TIME-DEPENDENT STOPPING PROBLEM WITH APPLICATION TO LIVE ORGAN TRANSPLANTS.

Consideration is given to a time-dependent stopping problem and its application to the decision-making process associated with transplanting a live organ. 'Offers' (e. g. , kidneys for transplant) become available from time to time. The values of the offers constitute a sequence of independent identically distributed positive random variables. When an offer arrives, a decision is made whether to accept it. If it is accepted, the process terminates. Otherwise, the offer is lost and the process continues until the next arrival, or until a moment when the process terminates by itself. Self-termination depends on an underlying lifetime distribution (which in the application corresponds to that of the candidate for a transplant).