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Smoother Landscapes

To keep the landscape smoother, we want the constraint functions to return more gradual results. For example, spring semester we added a constraint to deter the system from placing new students with returning students, as suggested by Area Coordinator Rob Burford, who often saw this happen with subsequent room changes. The first_timer constraint returns the difference in the consecutive semesters between first-timers and old-timers. The more senior the old-timers, the worse the grade for the first-timers - this is more desireable than just counting the old-timers for example, because it is less discrete. A relatively small coefficient sufficed for this constraint to have the desired effect.



elena s ackley 2002-01-20
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