Non-linear great deluge with reinforcement learning for university course timetabling

This paper describes a non-linear great deluge hyper-heuristic incorporating a reinforcement learning mechanism for the selection of low-level heuristics and a non-linear great deluge acceptance criterion. The proposed hyper-heuristic deals with complete solutions, i.e. it is a solution improvement...

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Main Authors: Obit, Joe Henry, Landa-Silva, Dario, Sevaux, Marc, Ouelhadj, Djamila
Other Authors: Caserta, Marco
Format: Book Section
Published: Springer 2011
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32607/
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author Obit, Joe Henry
Landa-Silva, Dario
Sevaux, Marc
Ouelhadj, Djamila
author2 Caserta, Marco
author_facet Caserta, Marco
Obit, Joe Henry
Landa-Silva, Dario
Sevaux, Marc
Ouelhadj, Djamila
author_sort Obit, Joe Henry
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description This paper describes a non-linear great deluge hyper-heuristic incorporating a reinforcement learning mechanism for the selection of low-level heuristics and a non-linear great deluge acceptance criterion. The proposed hyper-heuristic deals with complete solutions, i.e. it is a solution improvement approach not a constructive one. Two types of reinforcement learning are investigated: learning with static memory length and learning with dynamic memory length. The performance of the proposed algorithm is assessed using eleven test instances of the university course timetabling problem. The experimental results show that the non-linear great deluge hyper-heuristic performs better when using static memory than when using dynamic memory. Furthermore, the algorithm with static memory produced new best results for ?ve of the test instances while the algorithm with dynamic memory produced four best results compared to the best known results from the literature.
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format Book Section
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institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T19:16:21Z
publishDate 2011
publisher Springer
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling nottingham-326072020-05-04T20:24:25Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32607/ Non-linear great deluge with reinforcement learning for university course timetabling Obit, Joe Henry Landa-Silva, Dario Sevaux, Marc Ouelhadj, Djamila This paper describes a non-linear great deluge hyper-heuristic incorporating a reinforcement learning mechanism for the selection of low-level heuristics and a non-linear great deluge acceptance criterion. The proposed hyper-heuristic deals with complete solutions, i.e. it is a solution improvement approach not a constructive one. Two types of reinforcement learning are investigated: learning with static memory length and learning with dynamic memory length. The performance of the proposed algorithm is assessed using eleven test instances of the university course timetabling problem. The experimental results show that the non-linear great deluge hyper-heuristic performs better when using static memory than when using dynamic memory. Furthermore, the algorithm with static memory produced new best results for ?ve of the test instances while the algorithm with dynamic memory produced four best results compared to the best known results from the literature. Springer Caserta, Marco Voss, Stefan 2011 Book Section PeerReviewed Obit, Joe Henry, Landa-Silva, Dario, Sevaux, Marc and Ouelhadj, Djamila (2011) Non-linear great deluge with reinforcement learning for university course timetabling. In: Metaheuristics: intelligent decision making. Operations research/computer science interfaces series (50). Springer, New York. ISBN 9781441979728 Great deluge scheduling and timetabling course timetabling adaptive algorithms heuristics metaheuristics local search
spellingShingle Great deluge
scheduling and timetabling
course timetabling
adaptive algorithms
heuristics metaheuristics
local search
Obit, Joe Henry
Landa-Silva, Dario
Sevaux, Marc
Ouelhadj, Djamila
Non-linear great deluge with reinforcement learning for university course timetabling
title Non-linear great deluge with reinforcement learning for university course timetabling
title_full Non-linear great deluge with reinforcement learning for university course timetabling
title_fullStr Non-linear great deluge with reinforcement learning for university course timetabling
title_full_unstemmed Non-linear great deluge with reinforcement learning for university course timetabling
title_short Non-linear great deluge with reinforcement learning for university course timetabling
title_sort non-linear great deluge with reinforcement learning for university course timetabling
topic Great deluge
scheduling and timetabling
course timetabling
adaptive algorithms
heuristics metaheuristics
local search
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32607/