Multidisciplinary Scheduling: Theory and Applications: 1st International Conference, MISTA *03 Nottingham, UK, 13-15 August 2003. Selected Papers

The scheduling research field has been active and expanding for over forty years. In that time, the field has attracted a wealth of international interest from a variety of academic disciplines. This field has been a truly inter-disciplinary research area, with significant scientific advances have come from the disciplines of Information Technology and Computer Science, Mathematics and Operations Research, Manufacturing, Management, Business, Engineering, Psychology and Statistics. Nevertheless, after forty years of research, scheduling and IT systems have only scratched the surface of the benefits that can be realized from this field.

MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCHEDULING: Theory and Applications is a volume of nineteen reviewed papers that were selected from the sixty-seven papers presented during the First Multidisciplinary International Conference of Scheduling: Theory and Applications (MISTA). This is the initial volume of MISTA the primary forum on interdisciplinary research on scheduling. Each paper in the volume has been rigorously reviewed and carefully copyedited to ensure the volume's readability. The book contains leading edge papers on the fundamentals of scheduling, multi-criteria objective scheduling, personnel scheduling, scheduling in space, scheduling the Internet, machine scheduling, bin packing, educational timetabling, sports scheduling, transport scheduling, aircraft scheduling, and heuristic and meta-heuristic scheduling.

The MISTA volume aims to help set the agenda for interdisciplinary scheduling research and to help the community carryout a long term interdisciplinary research program aimed at developing visionary approaches to the scheduling problems and scheduling related problems of today and tomorrow that are vital to the smooth and efficient running of industry, commerce and the service sector. The book will be of interest to all who need to know the state-of-the-art in scheduling, whether they are experienced or new to the area.