A Survey of Search Methodologies and Automated System Development for Examination Timetabling

Exam timetabling is one of the most important administrative activities that takes place in academic institutions. In this paper we present a critical discussion of the research on exam timetabling in the last decade or so. This last ten years has seen an increased level of attention on this important topic. There has been a range of significant contributions to the scientific literature both in terms of theoretical andpractical aspects. The main aim of this survey is to highlight the new trends and key research achievements that have been carried out in the last decade.We also aim to outline a range of relevant important research issues and challenges that have been generated by this body of work.

We first define the problem and review previous survey papers. Algorithmic approaches are then classified and discussed. These include early techniques (e.g. graph heuristics) and state-of-the-art approaches including meta-heuristics, constraint based methods, multi-criteria techniques, hybridisations, and recent new trends concerning neighbourhood structures, which are motivated by raising the generality of the approaches. Summarising tables are presented to provide an overall view of these techniques. We discuss some issues on decomposition techniques, system tools and languages, models and complexity. We also present and discuss some important issues which have come to light concerning the public benchmark exam timetabling data. Different versions of problem datasetswith the same name have been circulating in the scientific community in the last ten years which has generated a significant amount of confusion. We clarify the situation and present a re-naming of the widely studied datasets to avoid future confusion. We also highlight which research papershave dealt with which dataset. Finally, we draw upon our discussion of the literature to present a (non-exhaustive) range of potential future research directions and open issues in exam timetabling research.

The text and the tale: differences between scientific reports and scientists’ reportings on the eruption of Mount Chance, Montserrat

This article looks at the difference between scientists’ written reports and their oral accounts, explanations and stories. The subject of these discourses is the eruption of Mount Chance on Montserrat, a British Overseas Territory in the Eastern Caribbean, and its continued monitoring and reporting. Scientific notions of risk and uncertainty which feature in these texts and tales will subsequently be examined and critiqued. Further to this, this article will end by pointing out that, ironically, the latter - the tale – can in some cases be a more effective and approximate mode of communication with the public than the former – the text.

What the Papers Say: Trends in Sustainability

This paper presents an overview of the results of a longitudinal analysis of the coverage of sustainability-related concepts in 115 leading national newspapers worldwide between January 1990 and July 2008, covering approximately 20,500,000 articles in 340,000 newspaper issues in 39 countries. On a global level, sustainable development and corporate social responsibility seem to have reached the mainstream public arena, whereas the coverage of corporate citizenship and corporate sustainability remains marginal. The increase in sustainability related media coverage since 1990 largely seems to be of an incremental nature, rather than clearly associated with specific events. Only very few truly global events can be identified that triggered a substantial amount of media coverage globally. Furthermore, marked regional and national differences in the coverage of sustainability related concepts can be identified.

Paul Karl Feyerabend Las proyecciones de la proliferación teórica en la relación ciencia-metafísica

La doctrina de la Proliferación teórica de Paul Karl Feyerabend ha sido interpretada por sus especialistas como un intento de salvaguardar el ideal del progreso científico. Aunque tales estudios hacen justicia, en parte, a la intencionalidad de nuestro filósofo no explicitan la crítica fundamental que implica para Feyerabend el pluralismo teórico. La proliferación teórica constituye en sí misma una reductio ad absurdum de los distintos intentos del positivismo lógico y del racionalismo crítico por definir la ciencia a expensas de lo metafísico. Este artículo presenta la proliferación teórica como una reivindicación del papel positivo que ocupa la metafísica en el quehacer científico. Se consigna la defensa que hace Feyerabend de la metafísica en cuanto que ésta constituye la posibilidad de superar el conservadurismo conceptual, aumentar de contenido empírico de la ciencia y recuperar el valor descriptivo de las teorías científicas.

El "Fedro" de Platón: un ejercicio de buena retórica engañosa

En este artículo me propongo mostrar que lo que Sócrates hace con Fedro a lo largo de toda la obra no es otra cosa que utilizar la auténtica retórica (con su doble carga, dialéctica y psicológica) que es descrita en la segunda parte del diálogo. Las tensiones, rivalidades y celos de la situación inicial entre ellos expone un perfil representativo de relaciones entre interlocutores con perspectivas intelectuales opuestas. Es preciso disolver la resistencia emocional por medio de una serie de pasos graduales, estratégicos, y ‘engañosos’ (no se puede develar el propio juego desde el principio). Hay que partir de acuerdos, siquiera parciales, para continuar dialogando. Sin embargo, Sócrates también introduce nociones nuevas acerca del amor, pero éstas pasan desapercibidas a un Fedro obsesionado con la imitación de su enamorado Lisias. Hasta que Sócrates decide cortar el juego y cruzar el río. Este corte provoca un giro en ambos personajes: Fedro se dispone a escuchar lo que Sócrates quiere contarle (el mito del carro alado) y Sócrates se revela ante sí mismo como un personaje capaz de ‘encantar’ a Fedro con la belleza rapsódica del relato y superar su propio temor de convertirse en una bestia devoradora. Al final Sócrates muestra su juego a Fedro y le enseña cómo ha sido posible llegar a un auténtico diálogo filosófico, donde pueda tener lugar la enseñanza y el aprendizaje recíprocos.

Collaborative artistic laboratories. Transfrontier spaces of cultural production

The appearance of the open code paradigm and the demands of social movements have permeated the ways in which today’s cultural institutions are organized. This article analyzes the birth of a new critical and cooperative spatiality and how it is transforming current modes of cultural research and production. It centers on the potential for establishing the new means of cooperation that are being tested in what are defined as collaborative artistic laboratories. These are hybrid spaces of research and creation based on networked and cooperative structures producing a new societal-technical body that forces us to reconsider the traditional organic conditions of the productive scenarios of knowledge and artistic practice.

Forma y transgresión: el discurso del arte

El arte, en sus diferentes campos, desarrolla un tipo de discurso que nada tiene que ver con el de otros ámbitos. Se vale de combinaciones de elementos diversos, normalmente pertenecientes a lenguajes convencionales, para elaborar un enunciado único y nuevo, donde una idea encuentra finalmente su forma. El contenido y la estructura se fusionan en un punto indisoluble. En este artículo se plantean las búsquedas de paradigmas clásicos de la forma artística y una reflexión al respecto desde el ámbito de las Artes Visuales. Se parte de la consideración que durante muchos siglos se tenía de la representación o imitación de la realidad no solo como vehículo de la expresión sino como la finalidad del arte. Se continua por el foco que la Transgresión de Dadá estableció en aquellas formas artísticas que buscan una conmoción emocional para que la creación alcance los territorios íntimos del receptor. Por último, se explica el fundamental hallazgo de Duchamp de señalar que es el propio discurso de la obra el que proporciona un nuevo pensamiento al mundo.

A survey of formalisms for representing and reasoning with scientific knowledge

With the rapid growth in the quantity and complexity of scientific knowledge available for scientists, and allied professionals, the problems associated with harnessing this knowledge are well recognized. Some of these problems are a result of the uncertainties and inconsistencies that arise in this knowledge. Other problems arise from heterogeneous and informal formats for this knowledge. To address these problems, developments in the application of knowledge representation and reasoning technologies can allow scientific knowledge to be captured in logic-based formalisms. Using such formalisms, we can undertake reasoning with the uncertainty and inconsistency to allow automated techniques to be used for querying and combining of scientific knowledge. Furthermore, by harnessing background knowledge, the querying and combining tasks can be carried out more intelligently. In this paper, we review some of the significant proposals for formalisms for representing and reasoning with scientific knowledge.