ASAP Project: Next Generation Decision Support

Title: Next Generation Decision Support: Automating the Heuristic Design Process

Objectives:
Over the last twenty years or so, there has been significant scientific progress in building search methodologies and in tailoring those methodologies (usually through hybridisation with problem specific methods and information) for a very wide range of application areas. Such methodologies can be extremely effective in the hands of an expert but they require specialist human knowledge to be applied effectively in complex real world problem solving environments. The goal of developing automated systems to replace the human expert in this role is only just beginning to be seriously addressed by the scientific community, and the Automated Scheduling, Optimisation and Planning (ASAP) research group at Nottingham has played a pioneering role in placing this grand challenge upon the international scientific agenda. The aim of developing automated systems to intelligently select, evolve and develop search methods is an extremely ambitious and demanding research goal. The level of adventure should not be underestimated. The goal of exploring the boundaries between what is possible and what is not (with respect to the automation of the heuristic design process) represents one of the most important current research challenges to face the search and decision support community. Indeed, our aim is to build systems that can automatically create novel decision support software, thus substantially changing the research agenda and raising the level of generality and applicability of decision support systems.

Funding Body: EPSRC (EP/D061571/1)
Starts: 1 October 2006,  Ends: 30 September 2011

Project:
Publications Workshops

Sub-Projects
Objectives and Themes Intl. Steering Committee Visiting Researchers

References:


Related Projects:

Principal Investigator:
Prof  Edmund K Burke

Co-Investigators:
Prof Graham Kendall
Prof Sanja Petrovic
Dr Jon M Garibaldi
Dr Natalio Krasnogor
Dr J.Dario Landa-Silva
Dr Rong Qu

Research Associates:
Current
Dr Gabriela Ochoa
Dr Yuri Bykov
Dr Tim Curtois
Dr Matt Hyde
Dr Jingpeng Li
Dr Djamila Ouelhadj
Dr German Terrazas
Dr Antonio Vazquez
Former
Dr Matthieu Basseur
Dr Daniel Barthel

PhD Students:
Sven Groenemeyer
Qiang Guo
Nam Pham
Amr Soghier

ASAP Research Themes:
Methodology
Adaptive Learning
Case-Based Reasoning
Evolutionary Algorithms
Fuzzy Systems
Heuristics and Meta-heuristics
Human Computer Interaction
Hyper-heuristics
Multiobjective/Multicriteria Methods
System Self Assembly

Applications

Bioinformatics
Educational Timetabling
Medical Optimisation
Personnel Scheduling
Production Scheduling/Re-scheduling
Space Allocation
Stock Cutting
Last Update: September 2007
gxo@cs.nott.ac.uk