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Model-based problem solving for university timetable validation and improvement

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Formal Aspects of Computing

Abstract

Constraint satisfaction problems can be expressed very elegantly in state-based formal methods such as B. But can such specifications be directly used for solving real-life problems? In other words, can a formal model be more than a design artefact but also be used at runtime for inference and problem solving? We will try and answer this important question in the present paper with regard to the university timetabling problem. We report on an ongoing project to build a curriculum timetable validation tool where we use a formal model as the basis to validate timetables from a student’s perspective and to support incremental modification of timetables. In this article we describe the problem domain, the formalization in B and our approach to execute the formal model in a production system using ProB.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the planning teams at the faculties of Humanities and Economics at Heinrich-Heine University (in particular Frank Meier) as well as Philip Höfges for bringing this project to our attention and all the work that has gone into it. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Software Engineering and Programming Languages Group, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Universitätstraße 1, 40225, Düsseldorf, Germany

    David Schneider, Michael Leuschel & Tobias Witt

Authors
  1. David Schneider
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  2. Michael Leuschel
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  3. Tobias Witt
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Correspondence to Michael Leuschel.

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Frank de Boer, Nikolaj Bjorner, and Andrew Butterfield

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Schneider, D., Leuschel, M. & Witt, T. Model-based problem solving for university timetable validation and improvement. Form Asp Comp 30, 545–569 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00165-018-0461-7

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