scholarly journals Multi-parent order crossover mechanism of genetic algorithm for minimizing violation of soft constraint on course timetabling problem

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad Miftah Fajrin ◽  
Chastine Fatichah
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Algorithm ◽  
Search Space ◽  
Local Optimum ◽  
Soft Constraints ◽  
Course Timetabling ◽  
Timetabling Problem ◽  
Fitness Value ◽  
Hard And Soft Constraints ◽  
The Right ◽  
Course Timetabling Problem

A crossover operator is one of the critical procedures in genetic algorithms. It creates a new chromosome from the mating result to an extensive search space. In the course timetabling problem, the quality of the solution is evaluated based on the hard and soft constraints. The hard constraints need to be satisfied without violation while the soft constraints allow violation. In this research, a multi-parent crossover mechanism is used to modify the classical crossover and minimize the violation of soft constraints, in order to produce the right solution. Multi-parent order crossover mechanism tends to produce better chromosome and also prevent the genetic algorithm from being trapped in a local optimum. The experiment with 21 datasets shows that the multi-parent order crossover mechanism provides a better performance and fitness value than the classical with a zero fitness value or no violation occurred. It is noteworthy that the proposed method is effective to produce available course timetabling.

scholarly journals University Course Timetabling using Multi-population Genetic Algorithm Guided with Local Search and Fuzzy Logic

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 3043-3050
Author(s):  
Sedigheh Asiyaban ◽  
Zohreh Mousavinasab
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Algorithm ◽  
Fuzzy Logic ◽  
Local Search ◽  
Optimization Problems ◽  
Optimal Solution ◽  
Local Optimum ◽  
Soft Constraints ◽  
Course Timetabling ◽  
Timetabling Problem ◽  
University Course Timetabling

Problem of courses timetabling is a time consuming and demanding issues in any education environment that they are involved in every semester. The main aim of timetabling problem is the allocation of a number of courses to a limited set of resources such as classrooms, time slots, professors and students so that some predefined hard and soft constraints are satisfied. Furthermore, the available resources are used to the best.    In fact course timetabling is one of optimization problems. It has been proved computational complexity of this problem is NP, so there is no optimal solution for that. Therefore, approximation and heuristic techniques are used to find near optimal solutions. Genetic algorithm for its multidirectional feature has been one of the most widely used approaches in recent years. Hence, in this paper an improved genetics algorithm for timetabling problem has been proposed. In proposed algorithm, the fitness of solutions to satisfy soft constraints due to ambiguous nature of those has been specified using fuzzy logic. Also, local search methods have been applied to avoid the genetic algorithm to be trapped in a local optimum. As well as, the multi-population property is intended to reduce the time to reach the optimum solution.  Evaluation results show that the proposed solutions are able to produce promising results for the university courses timetabling.

scholarly journals Answer set programming as a modeling language for course timetabling

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 783-798 ◽  
Author(s):  
MUTSUNORI BANBARA ◽  
TAKEHIDE SOH ◽  
NAOYUKI TAMURA ◽  
KATSUMI INOUE ◽  
TORSTEN SCHAUB
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Modeling Language ◽  
Soft Constraints ◽  
Penalty Cost ◽  
Course Timetabling ◽  
Timetabling Problem ◽  
Problem Instances ◽  
Hard And Soft Constraints ◽  
Course Timetabling Problem ◽  
Effective Use

AbstractThe course timetabling problem can be generally defined as the task of assigning a number of lectures to a limited set of timeslots and rooms, subject to a given set of hard and soft constraints. The modeling language for course timetabling is required to be expressive enough to specify a wide variety of soft constraints and objective functions. Furthermore, the resulting encoding is required to be extensible for capturing new constraints and for switching them between hard and soft, and to be flexible enough to deal with different formulations. In this paper, we propose to make effective use of ASP as a modeling language for course timetabling. We show that our ASP-based approach can naturally satisfy the above requirements, through an ASP encoding of the curriculum-based course timetabling problem proposed in the third track of the second international timetabling competition (ITC-2007). Our encoding is compact and human-readable, since each constraint is individually expressed by either one or two rules. Each hard constraint is expressed by using integrity constraints and aggregates of ASP. Each soft constraint S is expressed by rules in which the head is the form of penalty(S,V,C), and a violation V and its penalty cost C are detected and calculated respectively in the body. We carried out experiments on four different benchmark sets with five different formulations. We succeeded either in improving the bounds or producing the same bounds for many combinations of problem instances and formulations, compared with the previous best known bounds.

scholarly journals Solving University Course Timetabling Problem Using Multi-Depth Genetic Algorithm

2020 ◽  
Vol 77 ◽  
pp. 01001
Author(s):  
Alfian Akbar Gozali ◽  
Shigeru Fujimura
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Algorithm ◽  
Individual Student ◽  
Course Timetabling ◽  
Timetabling Problem ◽  
Search Spaces ◽  
University Course Timetabling ◽  
Course Timetabling Problem ◽  
University Course ◽  
The University ◽  
Additional Constraints

The University Course Timetabling Problem (UCTP) is a scheduling problem of assigning teaching event in certain time and room by considering the constraints of university stakeholders such as students, lecturers, and departments. The constraints could be hard (encouraged to be satisfied) or soft (better to be fulfilled). This problem becomes complicated for universities which have an immense number of students and lecturers. Moreover, several universities are implementing student sectioning which is a problem of assigning students to classes of a subject while respecting individual student requests along with additional constraints. Such implementation enables students to choose a set of preference classes first then the system will create a timetable depend on their preferences. Subsequently, student sectioning significantly increases the problem complexity. As a result, the number of search spaces grows hugely multiplied by the expansion of students, other variables, and involvement of their constraints. However, current and generic solvers failed to meet scalability requirement for student sectioning UCTP. In this paper, we introduce the Multi-Depth Genetic Algorithm (MDGA) to solve student sectioning UCTP. MDGA uses the multiple stages of GA computation including multi-level mutation and multi-depth constraint consideration. Our research shows that MDGA could produce a feasible timetable for student sectioning problem and get better results than previous works and current UCTP solver. Furthermore, our experiment also shows that MDGA could compete with other UCTP solvers albeit not the best one for the ITC-2007 benchmark dataset.

scholarly journals The application of Coarse-Grained Parallel Genetic Algorithm with Hadoop in University Intelligent Course-Timetabling System

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
Liping Wu
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Algorithm ◽  
Educational Administration ◽  
Coarse Grained ◽  
Map Reduce ◽  
Parallel Genetic Algorithm ◽  
Course Timetabling ◽  
Timetabling Problem ◽  
University Course Timetabling ◽  
Course Timetabling Problem ◽  
University Course

The university course-timetabling problem is a NP-C problem. The traditional method of arranging course is inefficient, causes a high conflict rate of teacher resource or classroom resource, and is poor satisfaction in students. So it does not meet the requirements of modern university educational administration management. However, parallel genetic algorithm (PGA) not only have the advantages of the traditional genetic algorithm(GA), but also take full advantage of the computing power of parallel computing. It can improve the quality and speed of solving effectively, and have a broad application prospect in solving the problem of university course-timetabling problem. In this paper, based on the cloud computing platform of Hadoop, an improved method of fusing coarse-grained parallel genetic algorithm (CGPGA) and Map/Reduce programming model is deeply researched, and which is used to solve the problem of university intelligent courses arrangement. The simulation experiment results show that, compared with the traditional genetic algorithm, the coarse-grained parallel genetic algorithm not only improves the efficiency of the course arrangement and the success rate of the course, but also reduces the conflict rate of the course. At the same time, this research makes full use of the high parallelism of Map/Reduce to improve the efficiency of the algorithm, and also solves the problem of university scheduling problem more effectively.

scholarly journals Automated university lecture timetable using Heuristic Approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.M. Hambali ◽  
Y.A. Olasupo ◽  
M. Dalhatu
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Algorithm ◽  
Simulated Annealing ◽  
Heuristic Approach ◽  
Space Complexity ◽  
Tertiary Institution ◽  
Course Timetabling ◽  
Timetabling Problem ◽  
Hard Constraints ◽  
Course Timetabling Problem

There are different approaches used in automating course timetabling problem in tertiary institution. This paper present a combination of genetic algorithm (GA) and simulated annealing (SA) to have a heuristic approach (HA) for solving course timetabling problem in Federal University Wukari (FUW). The heuristic approach was implemented considering the soft and hard constraints and the survival for the fittest. The period and space complexity was observed. This helps in matching the number of rooms with the number of courses. Keywords: Heuristic approach (HA), Genetic algorithm (GA), Course Timetabling, Space Complexity.

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