On Behavior Strategy Solutions in Two-Person Zero-Sum Finite Extended Games with Imperfect Information. Part II. Determination of a Minimally Complex Behavior Strategy Solution in a Medical Decision Process

A medical decision process is considered in which a doctor must make a sequence of treatment and operate-don't operate decisions for a patient on the basis of treatment and diagnosis information which the doctor gathers as he proceeds. By examining a set of N-person non-cooperative games which can be associated with the given medical decision process, a search is carried out for a behavior strategy for the doctor which: (i) comes acceptably close to maximizing the minimum expected lifetime extension of the patient for all possible unknown statistics which may describe the patient's response to inappropriate treatment, and (ii) requires the doctor to gather and retain the minimum amount of information. The search yields a behavior strategy with more than 90% of the effectiveness yet less than 10% of the complexity of the most effective behavior strategy. (Author) Sponsored in part by Grant NGR-15-005-021. See also Part 1, AD-720 361.