'Dipartimento di Economia, Universita di Perugia (IT)'
Abstract
This current research is based on the implementation of an algorithm that assigns pets,
cats, or dogs to persons with depressive disorders such as low self-esteem. We found that
even though different institutions have made the assignments of pets to patients, we were
not able to found one that uses an IT tool for this task. Because of this situation, we
decided to adapt to the well-known Gale-Shapley algorithm that has been used
successfully in different situations in which it needs a perfect match between two parties.
The results obtained have been validated by experts in the field of animal and person
psychology. Because the Gale-Shapley algorithm needs a preference array between the
parts involved and due that an animal cannot establish this set of preferences, we aimed
to use a string similarity-based algorithm for obtaining preferences arrays based on the
behavioral traits of an animal or person
