A dynamic treatment regime is a list of decision rules, one per time interval, for how the level of treatment will be tailored through time to an individual’s changing status.The goal of this paper is to use experimental or observational data to estimate decision regimes that result in a maximal mean response. To explicate our objective and to state the assumptions, we use the potential outcome...

A dynamic treatment regime consists of a sequence of decision rules, one per stage of intervention, that dictate how to individualize treatments to patients based on evolving treatment and covariate history. These regimes are particularly useful for managing chronic disorders, and fit well into the larger paradigm of personalized medicine. They provide one way to operationalize a clinical decis...

The title of my remarks today -"the relevance of regimes" -is in fact a conclusion, for regimes do shape the behaviour of states. By buttressing the rule of international law, they bring order to an otherwise anarchic Hobbesian world. To elaborate, however, we must answer some basic questions, including -what are their goals, who sets these goals, who is a member, why do states join, why do the...