A Variable Neighbourhood Search for nurse scheduling with balanced preference satisfaction

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 a...

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Main Authors: Constantino, Ademir Aparecido, Tozzo, Everton, Pinheiro, Rodrigo Lankaites, Landa-Silva, Dario, Romão, Wesley
Format: Conference or Workshop Item
Published: Scipress 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/31295/
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author Constantino, Ademir Aparecido
Tozzo, Everton
Pinheiro, Rodrigo Lankaites
Landa-Silva, Dario
Romão, Wesley
author_facet Constantino, Ademir Aparecido
Tozzo, Everton
Pinheiro, Rodrigo Lankaites
Landa-Silva, Dario
Romão, Wesley
author_sort Constantino, Ademir Aparecido
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description 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 preference satisfaction. Initiall, the algorithm converts the problem to a bottleneck assignment problem and solves it to generate an initial feasible solution for the NSPBPS. Posteriorly, the algorithm applies the Variable Neighbourhood Search (VNS) metaheuristic using two sets of search neighbourhoods in order to improve the initial solution. We empirically assess the performance of the algorithm using the NSPLib benchmark instances and we compare our results to other results found in the literature. The proposed VNS algorithm exhibits good performance by achieving solutions that are fairer (in terms of preference satisfaction) for the majority of the scenarios.
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format Conference or Workshop Item
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institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T19:11:56Z
publishDate 2015
publisher Scipress
recordtype eprints
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spelling nottingham-312952020-05-04T20:05:55Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/31295/ A Variable Neighbourhood Search for nurse scheduling with balanced preference satisfaction Constantino, Ademir Aparecido Tozzo, Everton Pinheiro, Rodrigo Lankaites Landa-Silva, Dario Romão, Wesley 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 preference satisfaction. Initiall, the algorithm converts the problem to a bottleneck assignment problem and solves it to generate an initial feasible solution for the NSPBPS. Posteriorly, the algorithm applies the Variable Neighbourhood Search (VNS) metaheuristic using two sets of search neighbourhoods in order to improve the initial solution. We empirically assess the performance of the algorithm using the NSPLib benchmark instances and we compare our results to other results found in the literature. The proposed VNS algorithm exhibits good performance by achieving solutions that are fairer (in terms of preference satisfaction) for the majority of the scenarios. Scipress 2015-12 Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed Constantino, Ademir Aparecido, Tozzo, Everton, Pinheiro, Rodrigo Lankaites, Landa-Silva, Dario and Romão, Wesley (2015) A Variable Neighbourhood Search for nurse scheduling with balanced preference satisfaction. In: 17th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2015), 27-30 April 2015, Barcelona, Spain. Nurse Scheduling Variable Neighbourhood Search http://www.scitepress.org/DigitalLibrary/Link.aspx?doi=10.5220/0005364404620470
spellingShingle Nurse Scheduling
Variable Neighbourhood Search
Constantino, Ademir Aparecido
Tozzo, Everton
Pinheiro, Rodrigo Lankaites
Landa-Silva, Dario
Romão, Wesley
A Variable Neighbourhood Search for nurse scheduling with balanced preference satisfaction
title A Variable Neighbourhood Search for nurse scheduling with balanced preference satisfaction
title_full A Variable Neighbourhood Search for nurse scheduling with balanced preference satisfaction
title_fullStr A Variable Neighbourhood Search for nurse scheduling with balanced preference satisfaction
title_full_unstemmed A Variable Neighbourhood Search for nurse scheduling with balanced preference satisfaction
title_short A Variable Neighbourhood Search for nurse scheduling with balanced preference satisfaction
title_sort variable neighbourhood search for nurse scheduling with balanced preference satisfaction
topic Nurse Scheduling
Variable Neighbourhood Search
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/31295/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/31295/