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A Scheduling Problem: 1. Variables and Domains

This scheduling problem involves assigning six committees (variables) to three available time slots (domain) so that all lecturers can attend the meetings of committees they serve on. The constraint graph shows overlaps between committees based on shared lecturers. A valid schedule (coloring of the graph) is found that assigns committees to different time slots using three colors, allowing all meetings to be held without conflicts.

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Sihem Belabbes - IUT Montreuil
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215 views2 pages

A Scheduling Problem: 1. Variables and Domains

This scheduling problem involves assigning six committees (variables) to three available time slots (domain) so that all lecturers can attend the meetings of committees they serve on. The constraint graph shows overlaps between committees based on shared lecturers. A valid schedule (coloring of the graph) is found that assigns committees to different time slots using three colors, allowing all meetings to be held without conflicts.

Uploaded by

Sihem Belabbes - IUT Montreuil
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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A scheduling problem

Twelve lecturers in a mathematics department serve on the following committees:

- Undergraduate Education (UE): Sineman, Limitson, Axiomus, Functionini

- Graduate Education (GE): Graphian, Vectorades, Functionini, Infinitescu

- Colloquium (C): Lemmeau, Randomov, Proofizaki

- Library (L): Van Sum, Sineman, Lemmeau

- Staffing (S): Graphian, Randomov, Vectorades, Limitson

- Promotion (P): Vectorades, Van Sum, Parabolton

The committees must all meet during the first week of classes, but there are only three time
slots available. The aim is to find a schedule that will allow all lecturers to attend the meetings
of all committees on which they serve. Answer the following questions.

1. Define the variables and their domains for this scheduling problem.

2. Provide the constraint graph for this problem.

3. Find a schedule that will allow all lecturers to attend the meetings of all committees on
which they serve.

Solution
1. Variables and domains
Choosing variables and domains in CSP problems can be somewhat tricky. You have to consider
the goal you are working towards. However, the best place to start is normally to regard the
limited resource as the starting point for the domains (and thus the thing needing the resource
as the variables). Another way of thinking about this is to say the items we are contending
for would be the domains, the items that would like to make use of them (contend for them)
would be the variables.
In the given problem, time slots are limited: the committees are contending for their use – so
we regard the time slots as the domain. Therefore the variables are the six committees.

- Let X be the set of variables. X = {UE, GE, C, L, S, P}.

- Let DX be the domain for the variables. DX = {T1 , T2 , T3 }, where Ti (for i = 1, 2, 3)


represents a time slot. All variables have the same domain.

2. Constraint graph
The nodes of the graph represent the variables, thus the committees. The constraints of the
graph represent the overlaps between committee members. So we draw an edge between two
committees if at least one lecturer is a member of both committees, as shown in the graph in
Figure 1.

1
UE GE
• •

P • • L

S • • C

Figure 1: The constraint graph for the scheduling problem

3. Solution to the problem


We would like to find a schedule that will allow all lecturers to attend the meetings of all
committees on which they serve. This amounts to finding an assignment of colours to the
nodes of the graph so that if there is an edge between nodes u and v, then the colours assigned
to nodes u and v are different. So if we can colour the constraint graph with the fewest number
of colours possible, we can schedule all committee meetings that have the same colour at the
same time.

UE GE

P L

S C

Figure 2: A colouring of the constraint graph for the scheduling problem

In Figure 2, we have a colouring of the constraint graph that satisfies the requirement we set.
That is, no two nodes that are linked by an edge have the same colour. In this colouring, we
have used three colours, which means we can hold the committee meetings in three time slots
so that there are no conflicts. Specifically we have:

• S = T1 , (yellow)

• UE = C = P = T2 , (red)

• GE = L = T3 , (blue).

Note that the order of assigning time slots to the committees does not really matter as long as
meetings with different colours are held at different times.

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