Discovering the conditions under which an optimization algorithm or search heuristic will
succeed or fail is critical for understanding the strengths and weaknesses of different …

Examination timetabling is one of the most important administrative activities that takes place
in all academic institutions. In this paper, we present a critical discussion of the research on …

In this paper we present, to our knowledge, the first application of a metaheuristic technique
to the very popular and NP-complete puzzle known as 'sudoku'. We see that this stochastic …

In the majority of genetic algorithm implementations, the operator settings are fixed
throughout a given run. However, it has been argued that these settings should vary over the …

This paper reviews the current state of the literature surrounding methods for the general
graph colouring problem and presents a broad comparison of six high-performance …

Automated examination timetabling has been addressed by a wide variety of methodologies
and techniques over the last ten years or so. Many of the methods in this broad range of …

Although many people have tried using genetic algorithms (GAs) for exam timetabling, far
fewer have done systematic investigations to try to determine whether a GA is a good choice …

In this chapter we consider the NP-complete problem of university course timetabling. We
note that it is often difficult to gain a deep understanding of these sorts of problems due to …

It has frequently been reported that pure genetic algorithms for graph colouring are in
general outperformed by more conventional methods. There is every reason to believe that …

This paper describes the applicability of the so-called" grou** genetic algorithm" to a well-
known version of the university course timetabling problem. We note that there are, in fact …