So I am new to python and not much of a programmer. Mostly program using statistical packages. I been working on a project to simulate the medical residency match for about 2 weeks. I don't know any python programmers so I would greatly appreciate any comment or suggestions you may have to improve my programing skills. My program does work but I have no comparison or experience to know if I have used "best practices". Suggestion may be broad or specific all input is appreciated. I have already benefited from the group and am appreciative of it.
Due to python-list@python.org limited post size I have only included the final step. If someone is willing to review my complete program ~250 lines it can be downloaded at http://vincentdavis.org/match In word this is what it does. - Creates a population of institutions and applicants, quality and score are generated for each by drawing from a random dist. - The is an observation error, that is the institutions do not see the true applicant score and the applicant do not see the true institution quality. - applicants apply to institution that are near there ability - institutions reject if applicant is not qualified - applicant rank the institutions 0 best large values worse - institutions rank applicants - The Match is best described here http://www.nrmp.org/res_match/about_res/algorithms.html I have a lot of print functions mostly to track what was going on during development. Thanks Vincent Davis 720-301-3003 # NumApp is the number of applicants # NumInst is the number of institutions # ari is a list of institutions rank by each applicant, [[5, 6, 2], [8, 3, 6, 2], [......... So applicant 1 ranked institution 2 first and institution 6 second, applicant 2 ranked institution 6 third # ira institutions ranking of applicants same format as ari but from the institutions perspective # iram is a "matrix" version of ira, rows are applicants, colums are institutions values represent the rank, that is the rank the institution gave the applicant # I think that is all that is used in this part that is not defined below. #### Starts here #### app_match = [None]*NumApp # the list of institution each applicant is matched to try_list = [] # makes a copy of ari try_list.extend(ari) # makes a copy of ari inst_match=[[] for x in range(NumInst)] # this is a list of applicants each Institution accepted #get list of applicants not matched notmatched = [x for x in range(NumApp) if (app_match[x] == None and len(try_list[x]) > 0)] print 'notmatched', notmatched print 'len(notmatched)', len(notmatched) while len(notmatched) > 0: for x in notmatched: try_inst = try_list[x][0] # try this institution try_rank = ari[x].index(try_inst) # try_inst is ranked -- app_ranked = iram[x][try_inst] # this is what try_inst ranked the applicant print 'Try to match Applicant', x, ' to rank', try_rank, 'at inst', try_inst print 'Who is in inst', try_inst, inst_match[try_inst] print 'Institution', try_inst, 'ranked applicant', x, app_ranked ranklist = [iram[i][try_inst] for i in inst_match[try_inst]] # this is the rank of each applicant matched to try_inst if len(ranklist) > 0: max_rank = max(ranklist) # the max rank value "lowest rank" max_app = inst_match[try_inst][ranklist.index(max_rank)] # the applicant corresponding to max_rank if len(inst_match[try_inst]) < NumAccept : #Does the institution have an empty spot. print 'Institution', try_inst, 'has an empty spot for', x inst_match[try_inst].append(x) # Add to institutions list print x, 'in now in', try_inst, 'with', inst_match[try_inst] app_match[x] = try_inst # assign inst to app try_list[x].remove(try_inst) # remove the institution so it is not tried later elif (len(inst_match[try_inst]) == NumAccept and app_ranked < max_rank) : print 'Applicant',x , 'is ranked', app_ranked, 'which is higher than', max_app, 'who was ranked', max_rank print 'so applicant', x, 'bumps', max_app app_match[max_app] = None inst_match[try_inst].remove(max_app) app_match[x] = try_inst inst_match[try_inst].append(x) try_list[x].remove(try_inst) # remove the institution so it is not tried later elif (len(inst_match[try_inst]) == NumAccept and iram[x][try_inst] > max_rank) : print 'Applicant',x , 'is ranked', app_ranked, 'which is Lower than', max_app, 'who was ranked', max_rank print 'therefor', x, 'does not match at', try_inst try_list[x].remove(try_inst) # remove the institution so it is not tried later elif (len(inst_match[try_inst]) > NumAccept) : print '#################### to many matched to institution, fix this, some thing is broke ###################' else: print '#################### fix this, some thing is broke ###################' print 'finished with applicant', x notmatched = [x for x in range(NumApp) if (app_match[x] == None and len(try_list[x]) > 0)]
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