A multistage evolutionary algorithm for the timetable problem

Burke, Edmund K.; Newall, James P.

doi:10.1109/4235.752921

Cited by 153 publications

(95 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Burke and Newall (1999) [52] investigated another one as illustrated in Figure 4(b) within a memetic algorithm framework. A third strategy within a memetic algorithm framework is used in this work as an extension to the previous studies: No assignment of events is fixed.…”

Section: Our Multistage Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Still, some scheduled events are fixed in this strategy and they are not processed further by the approach. Burke and Newall (1999) [52] tested this strategy by considering pairs of events and then fixing one at each stage using a memetic algorithm. Di Gaspero and Schaerf (2001) [53] compared performances of a constructive heuristic, tabu search approaches and MAs.…”

Section: Previous Multistage Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Interleaved Constructive Memetic Algorithm and its application to timetabling

Özcan

Parkes

Alkan

2012

Computers & Operations Research

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Timetabling problems are well known NP-hard constraint satisfaction, and real-world cases often have complicated and challenging structures. For such problems, we present a new hybrid method, "Interleaved Constructive Memetic Algorithm" (ICMA) that interleaves memetic algorithms with constructive methods. ICMA works using an active subset of all the events. Starting with a few events, in multiple construction stages ICMA increases the active set to eventually include all of them. At each stage, a memetic algorithm (MA) is applied to improve the current partial solution before the next construction step. We also describe a real-world course timetabling problem, the "Preparation School Timetabling Problem" (PSTP), which is of particular interest because it has a highly hierarchical structure arising from various organisational requirements. An important advantage of ICMA is that both the constructive heuristics and MA can be tailored to exploit such hierarchical structures. We give empirical results showing that ICMA performs better than the corresponding conventional MA on the PSTP.

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Section: Our Multistage Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Previous Multistage Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Interleaved Constructive Memetic Algorithm and its application to timetabling

Özcan

Parkes

Alkan

2012

Computers & Operations Research

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“…Meta-heuristics 18 have been shown to be very successful on a variety of timetabling problems. Examples include Tabu Search 19,20 , Simulated Annealing 21,22 and Evolutionary Algorithms 23,24 . Other new methods studied for timetabling problems include Case Based Reasoning 25 (for educational timetabling 26,27,28 and nurse scheduling 29 ).…”

Section: Timetabling Problemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hybrid Graph Heuristics within a Hyper-Heuristic Approach to Exam Timetabling Problems

Burke

Dror

Petrović

et al. 2005

Operations Research/Computer Science Interfaces Series

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Abstract:This paper is concerned with the hybridization of two graph coloring heuristics (Saturation Degree and Largest Degree), and their application within a hyperheuristic for exam timetabling problems. Hyper-heuristics can be seen as algorithms which intelligently select appropriate algorithms/heuristics for solving a problem. We developed a Tabu Search based hyper-heuristic to search for heuristic lists (of graph heuristics) for solving problems and investigated the heuristic lists found by employing knowledge discovery techniques. Two hybrid approaches (involving Saturation Degree and Largest Degree) including one which employs Case Based Reasoning are presented and discussed. Both the Tabu Search based hyper-heuristic and the hybrid approaches are tested on random and real-world exam timetabling problems. Experimental results are comparable with the best state-of-the-art approaches (as measured against established benchmark problems). The results also demonstrate an increased level of generality in our approach.

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“…see [25,26,27]) and hybrid methods (such as Memetic Algorithms e.g. see [28,29,30,31,32]). A wide variety of research work on time-tabling can be found in [33,34].…”

Section: Time-tabling Problemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structured cases in case-based reasoning—re-using and adapting cases for time-tabling problems

Burke

MacCarthy

Petrović

et al. 2000

Knowledge-Based Systems

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(2000) Structured cases in casebased reasoning: re-using and adapting cases for timetabling problems. A note on versions:The version presented here may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher's version. Please see the repository url above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription.For more information, please contact eprints@nottingham.ac.uk AbstractIn this paper, we present a case-based reasoning (CBR) approach solving educational time-tabling problems. Following the basic idea behind CBR, the solutions of previously solved problems are employed to aid finding the solutions for new problems. A list of feature-value pairs is insufficient to represent all the necessary information. We show that attribute graphs can represent more information and thus can help to retrieve re-usable cases that have similar structures to the new problems. The case base is organised as a decision tree to store the attribute graphs of solved problems hierarchically. An example is given to illustrate the retrieval, re-use and adaptation of structured cases. The results from our experiments show the effectiveness of the retrieval and adaptation in the proposed method.

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A multistage evolutionary algorithm for the timetable problem

Cited by 153 publications

References 11 publications

The Interleaved Constructive Memetic Algorithm and its application to timetabling

The Interleaved Constructive Memetic Algorithm and its application to timetabling

Hybrid Graph Heuristics within a Hyper-Heuristic Approach to Exam Timetabling Problems

Structured cases in case-based reasoning—re-using and adapting cases for time-tabling problems

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