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Dr Andrew J. Parkes
Mugshot of Andrew Parkes

School of Computer Science (internal pages)
University of Nottingham
Jubilee Campus, Wollaton Road
Nottingham, NG8 1BB, UK

Room: C40
Tel: +44(0) 115 95 14210
WWW: http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~ajp/
Email: andrew.parkes AT nottingham.ac.uk
Lecturer in Operational Research and Computer Science

I am a member of the ASAP research group within Computing Science

I'm also a member, and on the executive committee, of the

LANCS Initiative
LANCS Initiative logo

In particular, I coordinate the research cluster on "Heuristic Understanding". If you are interested in this area, then please do not hesitate to contact me.

I am co-organiser for:

21/03/2011: Giving an invited talk "Searching for an understanding of heuristics" at Symposium OR problems and AI techniques (Kortrijk, Belgium).

FULLY FUNDED Ph.D STUDENTSHIP AVAILABLE details here.
I am interested in supervising PhD students - especially if you are self-funded. Please do not hesitate to send me an email to enquire. You might want to also see Scholarships page.

Prior to becoming a lecturer in July 2008, I was a research fellow in Space Allocation
Research Interests

Optimisation and search techniques: heuristics, meta-heuristics, hyper-heuristics, general search control methods, discrete nonlinear programming, and optimization under uncertainty. Examination timetabling
Quick Links
Teaching
Research
Publications

(Please note that the search facility on the University/School webpages is often incomplete. so suggest to also use google with keywords site:cs.nott.ac.uk or site:nottingham.ac.uk.)

Teaching

Teaching during the 2011-12 session:

I am also "International student exchange coordinator (Erasmus and U21)". More Information here or feel free to contact me. If you are an incoming exchange student then please see Incoming Exchange Students

I am happy to supervise 3rd year individual projects and also Masters projects: See my list of potential project ideas.

Previous teaching:

Quick Links: Teaching Related

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." Samuel Beckett

Research

I am part of the The LANCS Initiative, primarily: Workshops/Conferences Organisations:

Until July 2008, I was a Research Fellow on this project: Space Allocation "The overall objective of this project is to develop software tools to aid managers to make better use of existing space, and to plan new space so as to obtain higher utilisation." Besides colleagues in ASAP, the work is also performed in collaboration with Dr Barry McCollum and Dr Paul McMullan.

I was involved with "ITC2007, the second International Timetabling Competition" and, in particular, co-organised the examination timetabling track.

Examination Timetabling Resources including new instances from Yeditepe data.

Investigator on http://gow.epsrc.ac.uk/ViewGrant.aspx?GrantRef=EP/H000968/1

Other resources:

http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~jxm/timetabling/memos/

http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~jxm/timetabling/memos/doc/files.html

Publications

My publications as listed by Google Scholar (with many "not-me"s removed)

Publications whilst at Nottingham:

  • "A new model for automated examination timetabling"
    Barry McCollum, Paul McMullan, Andrew J. Parkes, Edmund K. Burke and Rong Qu
    Annals of Operations Research http://www.springerlink.com/content/c331uh5r63853822/

  • "The Interleaved Constructive Memetic Algorithm and its application to timetabling"
    Ender Özcan, Andrew J. Parkes, and Alpay Alkan
    Computers & Operations Research, in Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cor.2011.11.020

  • "Policy Matrix Evolution for Generation of Heuristics"
    Ender Özcan and Andrew J. Parkes
    Proc. of the 13th Annual Conference on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (GECCO '11)

  • "Mapping the Performance of Heuristics for Constraint Satisfaction"
    With Jose Carlos Ortiz-Bayliss, Ender Özcan, and Hugo Terashima-Marin
    Accepted for IEEE CEC 2010 at WCCI (Barcelona, July 2010)

  • "University Space Planning and Space-type Profiles"
    With C. Beyrouthy, E.K. Burke, B.McCollum, and P.McMullan.
    Accepted to Special Issue of Journal of Scheduling on "Applications and Methodologies for Planning and Scheduling", Guest Editors: Roman Barták and Hana Rudová. (pre-print pdf)

  • "Decomposition, Reformulation, and Diving in University Course Timetabling"
    With E. K. Burke and J. Marecek and H. Rudova.
    Computers & Operations Research, 37, 2010, pages 582--597. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cor.2009.02.023 (pdf)
    google-scolar

  • "Setting the Research Agenda in Automated Timetabling: The Second International Timetabling Competition"
    B. McCollum, A. Schaerf, B. Paechter, P. McMullan, R. Lewis, A.J. Parkes, L. Gaspero, R. Qu, and E.K. Burke
    INFORMS Journal on Computing Vol. 22, Winter 2010, pp. 120-130.
    DOI: 10.1287/ijoc.1090.0320 (online)
    google-cited-by

  • "An investigation of fuzzy multiple heuristic orderings in the construction of university examination timetables"
    Hishammudin Asmuni, Edmund K. Burke, Jonathan M. Garibaldi, Barry McCollum and Andrew J. Parkes
    Computers and Operations Research. Volume 36, Pages: 981-1001, 2009
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cor.2007.12.007

  • "Threshold Effects in the Teaching Space Allocation Problem with Splitting"
    With C. Beyrouthy, E.K. Burke, D. Landa-Silva, B. McCollum and P. McMullan
    Under revision for the European Journal of Operational Research (EJOR) (pre-print pdf)

  • "A New Model for Automated Examination Timetabling"
    Barry McCollum, Paul McMullan, Edmund K. Burke, Andrew J. Parkes and Rong Qu
    Pre-print pdf

  • "A Supernodal Formulation of Vertex Colouring with Applications in Course Timetabling"
    With E.K. Burke, J. Marecek and H. Rudova
    To appear in Annals of Operations Research.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10479-010-0716-z
    revised/retitled version of "On a Clique-Based Integer Programming Formulation of Vertex Colouring with Applications in Course Timetabling"
    google-scholar

  • A Branch and Cut Procedure for Udine Course Timetabling" Proceedings of PATAT 2008. (pdf)
    With E.K. Burke, J. Marecek and H. Rudova
    Submitted to Annals of Operations Research.

  • "Multi-objective aspects of the examination timetabling competition track". (Extended abstract).
    With E.K. Burke, B. McCollum and P. McMullan
    Proceedings of PATAT-2008. (pdf)

  • "Enrollment Generators, Clustering and Chromatic Numbers". (Extended abstract).
    With C. Beyrouthy, E.K. Burke, B. McCollum and P. McMullan
    Proceedings of PATAT-2008. (pdf)

  • "Conflict Inheritance in Sectioning and Space Planning". (Extended abstract).
    With C.Beyrouthy, E.K. Burke, D. Landa-Silva, B. McCollum and P. McMullan
    Proceedings of PATAT-2008. (pdf)

  • "Evaluating the Space Planning Benefits of Partitionable Rooms". (Extended abstract).
    With C.Beyrouthy, E.K. Burke, B. McCollum and P. McMullan
    Proceedings of PATAT-2008. (pdf)
  • "Penalising Patterns in Timetables: Integer Programming Formulations."
    With Edmund K. Burke, Jakub Marecek, and Hana Rudova.
    To appear in Proceedings of OR2007.
    Available at: http://springerlink.com/content/q722927p4227308x/
    BibTeX

  • "The Second International Timetabling Competition: Examination Timetabling Track"
    With Edmund K. Burke, Barry McCollum, Paul McMullan and Rong Qu
    Technical Report: QUB/IEEE/Tech/ITC2007/Exam/v4.0/17. September 20, 2007. (For the examination timetabling track of "ITC2007, the second International Timetabling Competition".)
    Download PDF

  • "A Survey of NP-Complete Puzzles"
    With G. Kendall and K. Spoerer
    International Computer Games Association Journal, volume 31, pages 13-34, 2008
    google-scholar

  • "Towards Improving the Utilization of University Teaching Space"
    With C. Beyrouthy, E.K. Burke, J.D. Landa-Silva, B. McCollum, and P. McMullan.
    Journal of the Operational Research Society (2009) 60, 130–143.
    http://www.palgrave-journals.com/doifinder/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602523
    (PDF of tech. report)
    google-scholar

  • "The Teaching Space Allocation Problem with Splitting"
    With C. Beyrouthy, E.K. Burke, D. Landa-Silva, B. McCollum, and P. McMullan.
    Proceedings of     PATAT-06. Complete proceedings of PATAT 2006
    Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) volume 3867/2007 http://www.springerlink.com/content/h41030n26jt4rk75/

  • "Understanding the Role of UFOs Within Space Exploitation" (Extended Abstract.)
    With C. Beyrouthy, E.K. Burke, J. Dario Landa-Silva, B. McCollum, P. McMullan.
    Proceedings of PATAT-06 August 2006. PDF

Publications including those previous to Nottingham:

Please check on google scholar, or via these other resources:

Miscellaneous

General

Social Choice Theory

Note these are added not for party political reasons!, but they are a topical reflection deep mathematical issues within social choice in general. These problems also affects many non-political issues - for example, running a competition such as ITC 2007, or maybe getting multiple agents to agree on some course of action, and maybe even hyper-heuristics.

UK situation post May 2010 election:

Some relevant pages about social choice and voting systems

Resources for Teaching/Learning/Writing

Resources for Plagiarism Issues

Last updated: 2012-02-09