A constraint programming approach to the hospitals/residents problem

An instance I of the Hospitals/Residents problem (HR) involves a set of residents (graduating medical students) and a set of hospitals, where each hospital has a given capacity. The residents have preferences for the hospitals, as do hospitals for residents. A solution of I is a <i>stable matching</i>, which is an assignment of residents to hospitals that respects the capacity conditions and preference lists in a precise way. In this paper we present constraint encodings for HR that give rise to important structural properties. We also present a computational study using both randomly-generated and real-world instances. We provide additional motivation for our models by indicating how side constraints can be added easily in order to solve hard variants of HR

A specialised constraint approach for stable matching problems

Constraint programming is a generalised framework designed to solve combinatorial problems. This framework is made up of a set of predefined independent components and generalised algorithms. This is a very versatile structure which allows for a variety of rich combinatorial problems to be represented and solved relatively easily. Stable matching problems consist of a set of participants wishing to be matched into pairs or groups in a stable manner. A matching is said to be stable if there is no pair or group of participants that would rather make a private arrangement to improve their situation and thus undermine the matching. There are many important "real life" applications of stable matching problems across the world. Some of which includes the Hospitals/Residents problem in which a set of graduating medical students, also known as residents, need to be assigned to hospital posts. Some authorities assign children to schools as a stable matching problem. Many other such problems are also tackled as stable matching problems. A number of classical stable matching problems have efficient specialised algorithmic solutions. Constraint programming solutions to stable matching problems have been investigated in the past. These solutions have been able to match the theoretically optimal time complexities of the algorithmic solutions. However, empirical evidence has shown that in reality these constraint solutions run significantly slower than the specialised algorithmic solutions. Furthermore, their memory requirements prohibit them from solving problems which the specialised algorithmic solutions can solve in a fraction of a second. My contribution investigates the possibility of modelling stable matching problems as specialised constraints. The motivation behind this approach was to find solutions to these problems which maintain the versatility of the constraint solutions, whilst significantly reducing the performance gap between constraint and specialised algorithmic solutions. To this end specialised constraint solutions have been developed for the stable marriage problem and the Hospitals/Residents problem. Empirical evidence has been presented which shows that these solutions can solve significantly larger problems than previously published constraint solutions. For these larger problem instances it was seen that the specialised constraint solutions came within a factor of four of the time required by algorithmic solutions. It has also been shown that, through further specialisation, these constraint solutions can be made to run significantly faster. However, these improvements came at the cost of versatility. As a demonstration of the versatility of these solutions it is shown that, by adding simple side constraints, richer problems can be easily modelled. These richer problems add additional criteria and/or an optimisation requirement to the original stable matching problems. Many of these problems have been proven to be NP-Hard and some have no known algorithmic solutions. Included with these models are results from empirical studies which show that these are indeed feasible solutions to the richer problems. Results from the studies also provide some insight into the structure of these problems, some of which have had little or no previous study

Proceedings of The Multi-Agent Logics, Languages, and Organisations Federated Workshops (MALLOW 2010)

http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-627/allproceedings.pdfInternational audienceMALLOW-2010 is a third edition of a series initiated in 2007 in Durham, and pursued in 2009 in Turin. The objective, as initially stated, is to "provide a venue where: the cost of participation was minimum; participants were able to attend various workshops, so fostering collaboration and cross-fertilization; there was a friendly atmosphere and plenty of time for networking, by maximizing the time participants spent together"

Combining SOA and BPM Technologies for Cross-System Process Automation

This paper summarizes the results of an industry case study that introduced a cross-system business process automation solution based on a combination of SOA and BPM standard technologies (i.e., BPMN, BPEL, WSDL). Besides discussing major weaknesses of the existing, custom-built, solution and comparing them against experiences with the developed prototype, the paper presents a course of action for transforming the current solution into the proposed solution. This includes a general approach, consisting of four distinct steps, as well as specific action items that are to be performed for every step. The discussion also covers language and tool support and challenges arising from the transformation

Urban Informatics

This open access book is the first to systematically introduce the principles of urban informatics and its application to every aspect of the city that involves its functioning, control, management, and future planning. It introduces new models and tools being developed to understand and implement these technologies that enable cities to function more efficiently – to become ‘smart’ and ‘sustainable’. The smart city has quickly emerged as computers have become ever smaller to the point where they can be embedded into the very fabric of the city, as well as being central to new ways in which the population can communicate and act. When cities are wired in this way, they have the potential to become sentient and responsive, generating massive streams of ‘big’ data in real time as well as providing immense opportunities for extracting new forms of urban data through crowdsourcing. This book offers a comprehensive review of the methods that form the core of urban informatics from various kinds of urban remote sensing to new approaches to machine learning and statistical modelling. It provides a detailed technical introduction to the wide array of tools information scientists need to develop the key urban analytics that are fundamental to learning about the smart city, and it outlines ways in which these tools can be used to inform design and policy so that cities can become more efficient with a greater concern for environment and equity

Urban Informatics

This open access book is the first to systematically introduce the principles of urban informatics and its application to every aspect of the city that involves its functioning, control, management, and future planning. It introduces new models and tools being developed to understand and implement these technologies that enable cities to function more efficiently – to become ‘smart’ and ‘sustainable’. The smart city has quickly emerged as computers have become ever smaller to the point where they can be embedded into the very fabric of the city, as well as being central to new ways in which the population can communicate and act. When cities are wired in this way, they have the potential to become sentient and responsive, generating massive streams of ‘big’ data in real time as well as providing immense opportunities for extracting new forms of urban data through crowdsourcing. This book offers a comprehensive review of the methods that form the core of urban informatics from various kinds of urban remote sensing to new approaches to machine learning and statistical modelling. It provides a detailed technical introduction to the wide array of tools information scientists need to develop the key urban analytics that are fundamental to learning about the smart city, and it outlines ways in which these tools can be used to inform design and policy so that cities can become more efficient with a greater concern for environment and equity

Social capital and voluntary sports clubs : investigating political contexts and policy frameworks

This research project is an examination of the role of voluntary sports clubs (VSCs), within a modernised political and policy process, in creating and sustaining forms of social capital. From 1997 onwards, consecutive New Labour administrations concerned with social inclusion and civic renewal have established a pivotal position for social capital in many areas of social policy. In this context increasing political expectations and policy demands are being made of VS Cs to contribute to this broader social regeneration agenda. Social capital is a contested term between the democratic, rational and critical strains of the concept, not least because each of which has its own conceptual framework. In order to tease out the distinct differences between the competing strains of social capital, and inform on its potential formation or destruction in VSCs, the concept of the political opportunity structure (POS) has been employed as an analytical tool. A qualitative case-study research method, within a critical realist methodology, was chosen for primary data collection. This was based on a two-phase approach to capture the perceptions of both VSC members and external stakeholders in relation to the meaning, value and output of VSCs. Based on semi-structured qualitative interviews: thirty-one for phase one and twenty-six for phase two, three case studies were generated. This study shows that social capital is a powerful comparative and reflexive concept that can facilitate a critical picture of how social relations operate at the micro level of the VSC, and how these inform on a range of other social processes and conditions. New Labour's modernisation programme was clearly indicated as a key structural process that highlights the importance of structure and top-down processes in developing social capital in VSCs at grass roots level. This research project shows how implicit tensions between modemisation and mutual aid, when embedded in a voluntary based organisation and serviced by a simplistic interpretation of social capital, tend to lead to policy misdirection at best and at worst the entrenching of contradictory processes that may destroy the very edifice that is targeted by much social policy

Building on Progress - Expanding the Research Infrastructure for the Social, Economic, and Behavioral Sciences. Vol. 1

The publication provides a comprehensive compendium of the current state of Germany's research infrastructure in the social, economic, and behavioural sciences. In addition, the book presents detailed discussions of the current needs of empirical researchers in these fields and opportunities for future development. The book contains 68 advisory reports by more than 100 internationally recognized authors from a wide range of fields and recommendations by the German Data Forum (RatSWD) on how to improve the research infrastructure so as to create conditions ideal for making Germany's social, economic, and behavioral sciences more innovative and internationally competitive. The German Data Forum (RatSWD) has discussed the broad spectrum of issues covered by these advisory reports extensively, and has developed general recommendations on how to expand the research infrastructure to meet the needs of scholars in the social and economic sciences