It is well known that any search algorithm needs for certain parts to be problem specific. It is very important the way these parts are implemented. A fine tuning of parameters will never balance a bad definition of the solution set, of the neighbourhood or the cost function. In this paper we try to compare two well known neighbourhood operators applied to the timetabling problem. Tests were ma...

The nurse scheduling problem (NSP) is a combinatorial optimisation problem widely tackled in the literature. Recently, a new variant of this problem was proposed, called nurse scheduling problem with balanced preference satisfaction (NSPBPS). This paper further investigates this variant of the NSP as we propose a new algorithm to solve the problem and obtain a better balance of overall preferen...

Purpose -Nurse scheduling problem is a key issue in strategic management in healthcare institutes. To improve the current manual-made nurse schedule, this paper presents a hybrid heuristic approach to generate weekly nurse schedule for a local Emergency Department (ED) in Hong Kong. Design/methodology/approach -A two-stage method is developed for the above purpose. In the first stage, approve-i...

A good piano fingering is essential for pianists to play a piece fluently. Some examples of algorithms to generate a piano fingering automatically can be found in the literature. However, the existing methods can only generate fingerings for small, monophonic piano pieces for the right hand, minimising the difficulty. In this paper, we develop a variable neighbourhood search (VNS) algorithm tha...

In this paper, a machine learning approach is combined with an optimization algorithm to generate structured music for the bagana, an Ethiopian lyre. A low order Markov model that captures the style characteristics was built from a corpus of bagana music. Different ways are then explored in which a Markov model can be used to construct quality metrics that represent how well a fragment fits the...

this paper describes a methodology in designing high-performance concrete for simply supported beams, using a hybrid optimization strategy based on a variable neighborhood search threshold acceptance algorithm. three strategies have been applied to discrete optimization of reinforced concrete beams: variable neighborhood descent (vnd), reduced neighborhood search (rns) and basic variable neighb...

In this paper we study a complex real world workforce scheduling problem. We apply constructive search and variable neighbourhood search (VNS) metaheuristics and enhance these methods by using a variable fitness function. The variable fitness function (VFF) uses an evolutionary approach to evolve weights for each of the (multiple) objectives. The variable fitness function can potentially enhanc...