Examination timetabling problem with scarce resources: A case study

Examination timetabling problem (ETP) is one of the hardest administrative tasks that has to be undertaken at each semester in all faculties. Although the major structure of the problem remains intact, requirements may change from faculty to faculty causing major changes in the solution procedures. The number of academic staff and the level of infrastructures of newly established universities cannot keep up with the increasing number of departments and students. This scarcity brings several additional constraints to the ETP. In this study, we propose a two stage solution procedure for the ETP of such universities. We apply our solution method to a real problem. We show that better feasible solutions can be found in shorter computation times compared to commercial softwares. Moreover we show that the total examination period length can be reduced from seven days to six days with the proposed method. [Received 17 June 2017; Revised 23 April 2018; Accepted 7 July 2018]. Copyright © 2018 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd

From Preparedness to Recovery: A Tri-Level Programming Model for Disaster Relief Planning

This paper proposes a tri-level programming model for disaster preparedness planning. The top level addresses facility location and inventory pre-positioning decisions; the second level represents damage caused by the disaster, while the third level determines response and recovery decisions. We use an interdiction framework instead of a stochastic or chance-constrained model. This allows the extent of damage to be treated as a parameter to facilitate scenario exploration for decision-support. We develop an iterative dual-ascent solution approach. Computational results show that our approach is efficient, and we can also draw some insights on disaster relief planning. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.Link_to_subscribed_fulltex