

I am currently the Head of the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence and Optimization for Planning and Scheduling and Priv. Dozent (roughly equivalent to the American Associate Professor title) in the Database and Artificial Intelligence Group, Vienna University of Technology. I obtained in 1996 the degree 'inxhinier i diplomuar' (equivalent with Dipl.-Ing, master's degree) in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering (field of computer sciences and telecommunications), University of Prishtina, Kosova. I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science from Vienna University of Technology in October 2001 (download thesis ). In October 2007 I finished my Habilitation (professorial qualification) in area of Applied Computer Sciences at the Vienna University of Technology.
Research Research Interests Artificial Intelligence Techniques Machine Learning and Optimization (selected publications: [J22], [C41], [C46], [C50], [C52]) Metaheuristic Algorithms ([J4], [J5], [J6], [J10]. [BC1], [BC2]) Exact Techniques: Constraint Satisfaction Techniques, SAT Solving ([J3], [J11], [C33], [C48], [C49]) Tree/Hypertree Decompositions ([C13], [BC2], [BC5], [C24], [C30], [C37], [C41], [C52] ) Applications Scheduling (staff scheduling, shift design, break scheduling) ([J3], [J4], [C23], [BC1], [C33], [J12]) Timetabling (social golfer problem, high school timetabling) ([J9], [J11], [J8], [C49]), and other Combinatorial Optimization Problems (set covering, graph coloring, etc.) ([C15], [C46]) Development of Scheduling Systems ([J1], [J10], [C10], [C38]) Research Grants Christian Doppler Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence and Optimization for Planning and Scheduling. The Laboratory is supported by the Christian Doppler Research Association (CDG) , Bundesministerium für Digitalisierung und Wirtschaftsstandort and companies Bosch, MCP and Ximes. 01.12.2017 - 30.11.2024. ARTE: Artificial Intelligence in Employee Scheduling (2012-2017). Research project supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). Project leader Softnet Austria 2 (2010-2013) - Competence Network in Next Generation Soft-ware Engineering: Project 6: Test Support for End-User Programming. Local project leader at the Vienna University of Technology Planning Knowledge (2007-2010): Project of Softnet Austria - industrial competence network within K-net program of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Economics and Labor. Local project leader at the Vienna University of Technology Hypertree Decompositions (2004 - 2006): Research project of DBAI group supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) A Heuristic based system for generation of shifts with breaks (2003): Research project between DBAI and Ximes Corp., supported by WIFI Wien ROTA (1999-2002): Joint project between DBAI and Ximes Corp., supported by FFF Operating Hours Assistant First Class Scheduler Professional Activities Organisation of Conferences Co-Chair of the 12th International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling Vienna, Austria, 28 Aug 2018 - 31 Aug 2018. Co-organiser of the Workshop on Graph and Hypergraph Decompositions-Methods and Applications in Computer Science, 2004, Vienna, Austria Co-organiser of the 4th EU/ME Workshop: Design and Evaluation of Advanced Hybrid Meta-heuristics, 2004, Nottingham, UK Programme Committee member (selection): IJCAI - The International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence: IJCAI 2019, 2018, 2017, 2015, 2013, 2011 AAAI - The AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence 2019, 2018. PATAT - International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling: PATAT 2018, 2016 GECCO - The Genetic & Evolutionary Computation Conference (sponsored by ACM SIGEVO): GECCO 2019, 2018,2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009 MIC - The Metaheuristic International Conference: MIC 2019, 2017, 2015, 2013, 2011 CISched – The IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Scheduling: 2015, 2013, 2011, 2009, 2007 EvoCOP - The European Conference on Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimisation: EvoCOP 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 HM – The International Workshop on Hybrid Metaheuristics: HM 2010, 2009 Co-organiser (with Dario Landa-Silva and Tim Curtois) of the the stream on "Timetabling and Rostering" at EURO XXVI, the 26th European Conference on Operational Research, Rome, Italy, July 1-4 2013. Co-organiser (with Dario Landa-Silva) of invited cluster “Timetabling and Roster-ing” at the VII ALIO/EURO Workshops on Applied Combinatorial Optimization, Portugal, May 4-6 2011. Scientific Committee member of the 8th EU/MEeting on Metaheuristics in the Service Industry 04.10.2007-05.10.2007, Stuttgart, Germany Guest co-editor (with Jens Gottlieb, Dario Landa-Silva and Eric Soubeiga) of cluster in Volume 7, Number 1 of Journal of Mathematical Modelling and Algorithms (JMMA), 2008 External reviewer for following journals: IEEE Intelligent Systems, Journal of Heuristics, IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, Journal of Systems and Software, Journal of Logic and Computation , Journal of Artificial Evolution and Applications, European Journal of Operations Research, Annals of Operational Research, Journal of Scheduling, Artificial Intelligence Communications, Theory of Computing Systems, Computers and Operations Research, INFORMS Journal on Computing, Computers & Industrial Engineering, Memetic Computing, Computational Optimization and Applications, Journal of Industrial and Production Engineering, Journal of Computer and System Sciences, Journal of Applied Mathematics, IIE Transactions, Central European Journal of Operations Research
Teaching Problem Solving and Search in Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Projects/Seminars: Bachelor Thesis, Project in Computer Science 1/2, Project in Software Engineering & Internet Computing, Doctoral & Master Students Seminar Past Lectures Datenmodellierung Grundlagen methodischen Arbeitens AK der AI 2: Problem Solving Techniques in Artificial Intelligence Einführung in die Artificial Intelligence LU Datenbanksysteme Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (Prishtina Summer University), and other guest lectures at the University of Prishtina, Kosova
Students Topics for Master and PhD theses If you are interested to do your master or Ph.D. thesis under my supervision please contact me by email. Possible topics are closely related to my research interests (see also my publications). Ph.D. Students Supervised Ph.D. students Werner Schafhauser. TEMPLE - A Domain Specific Language for Modeling and Solving Real-Life Staff Scheduling Problems. Ph.D. Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, November 2010 Markus Triska, Correctness Considerations in CLP(FD) Systems. Ph.D. Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, January 2014 Emir Demirovic, Hybrid Search Techniques for the High School Timetabling Problem. Ph.D. Thesis, TU Wien, Vienna PhD School of Informatics, March 2017 Co-advisor for Ph.D. students Michael Abseher, Tailored Tree Decompositions for Efficient Problem Solving. Ph.D. Thesis, TU Wien, (co-advisor), April 2017 Current Ph.D. students Lucas Kletzander. TU Wien Florian Mischek. Project Scheduling in a Real-World Test Laboratory TU Wien Felix Winter. Planning and Scheduling Problems in the Automotive Industry. TU Wien Florian Wisser, AI for the Card Game Schnapsen, TU Wien Josef Pihera, Machine Learning Techniques Applied to Combinatorial Search Problems, TU Wien, Vienna PhD School of Informatics Arben Ahmeti, Solving Multi-Mode Resource-Constrained Multiple Projects Scheduling Problem, TU Wien Gelareh Taghizadeh, Toward efficient search techniques for the feature selection problem, TU Wien, Jussi Rasku, Department of Mathematical Information Technology, University of Jyväskylä, Finland, (co-advisor) Supervised Master theses Lucas Kletzander. A Heuristic Solver Framework for the General Employee Scheduling Problem. Master Thesis, TU Wien, 2018. Martin Blöschl. A Graphical Environment for Creating Constraint Programming Models. Master Thesis, TU Wien, 2018. Bernd-Peter Ivanschitz. Algorithm Selection and Runtime Prediction for the two Dimensional Bin Packing Problem. Master Thesis, TU Wien, 2017. Omid Karami. A Comparison of Machine Learning Techniques on the Medical Data Sets. Master Thesis, TU Wien, 2017. Felix Winter. MaxSAT Modeling and Metaheuristic Methods for the Employee Scheduling Problem. Master Thesis, TU Wien, 2016. (Winner of the “Distinguished Young Alumnus/Alumna”-Award for the best master thesis finished in Summer Semester 2016 at the Faculty of Informatics, TU Wien) Florian Mischek. Exact and Heuristic Approaches for a Multi-Stage Nurse Rostering. Master Thesis, TU Wien, 2016. Maria-Elisabeth Zueger. Large Neighborhood Search for Break Scheduling. Master Thesis, TU Wien, 2016. Deniz Kocabas. Exact Methods for Shift Design and Break Scheduling. Vienna University of Technology, 2015. Kevin Bader. Memetic Algorithms for Tree Decomposition. Vienna University of Technology, 2014. Damir Bucar. Electric Vehicles Recharge Scheduling with Time Windows. Vienna University of Technology, 2014. (co-supervised with Sandford Bessler) Christoph Erkinger. Rotating Workforce Scheduling As Satisfiability Modulo Theories. Vienna University of Technology 2013. Michael Abseher. Solving Shift Design Problems with Answer Set Programming. Vienna University of Technology, 2013. (co-supervised with Stefan Woltran) Martin Schwengerer. Algorithm Selection for the Graph Coloring Problem. Vienna University of Technology, 2012. (Winner of “Best Poster-Award” at the Faculty of Informatics, Vienna University of Technology, Nov. 2012) Bong Min Kim. Iterated Local Search for the Traveling Tournament Problem. Vienna University of Technology, 2012. Andreas Lehrbaum. A New Hyperheuristic Algorithm for Cross-Domain Search Problems. Vienna University of Technology 2011. (Selected among best 4 master theses finished in Summer Semester 2012 at the Faculty of Informatics, Vienna University of Technology) Lam Tung Nguyen. An Efficient Algorithm for Phylogeny Reconstruction by Maximum Likelihood, Vienna University of Technology, 2011. (co-supervised with Arndt von Haeseler) Magdalena Widl. Memetic Algorithms for Break Scheduling. Master Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, 2010. (Winner of the “Distinguished Young Alumnus/Alumna”-Award for the best master thesis finished in Summer Semester 2010 at the Faculty of Informatics, Vienna University of Technology) Thomas Hammerl. Ant Colony Optimization for Tree and Hypertree Decompositions. Master Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, 2009. Markus Triska. Solution Methods for the Social Golfer Problem, Master Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, 2008. (Winner of the “Distinguished Young Alumnus/Alumna”-Award and the Microsoft Price for the best master thesis finished in Summer Semester 2008 at the Faculty of Informatics, Vienna University of Technology) Ekaterina Lebedeva. Hypertree Decompositions for Optimal Winner Determination in Combinatorial Auctions, Master Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, 2008. (co-supervised with Georg Gottlob and Werner Schafhauser) Artan Dermaku. Generalized Hypertree Decomposition based on Hypergraph Partitioning, Diploma Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, 2007. (co-supervised with Georg Gottlob) Michael Mörz. A new Tabu Search Framework and it's Application, Diploma Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, 2007. (co-supervised with Georg Gottlob) Werner Schafhauser. New Heuristic Methods for Tree Decompositions and Generalized Hypertree Decompositions, Master Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, 2006. (co-supervised with Georg Gottlob) (Selected among best 5 master theses finished in Winter Semester 2006/2007 at the Faculty of Informatics, Vienna University of Technology) Master theses below were supervised by Fang Wei, and I served as a co-supervisor after she moved to the University of Freiburg: Lee Mei Sin. Data Mining on Empty Result Queries. Master Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, 2008. E. Paisios. Generic Programing for Graph Problems Using Tree Decompositions. Master Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, 2008.
Publications Refereed Journal Articles [J23] Florian Mischek, Nysret Musliu. Integer programming model extensions for a multi-stage nurse rostering problem. Annals of Operations Research, April 2019, Volume 275, Issue 1, pp 123–143. [J22] Jussi Rasku, Nysret Musliu, Tommi Kärkkäinen. On automatic algorithm configuration of vehicle routing problem solvers. Journal of Vehicle Routing Algorithms (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41604-019-00010-9. [J21] Emir Demirovic, Nysret Musliu, Felix Winter. Modeling and solving staff scheduling with partial weighted maxSAT. Annals of Operations Research, April 2019, Volume 275, Issue 1, pp 79–99. [J20] Michael Abseher, Nysret Musliu and Stefan Woltran. Improving the Efficiency of Dynamic Programming on Tree Decompositions via Machine Learning. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Volume 58, pages 1-30, 2017 [J19] Alex Bonutti, Sara Ceschia, Fabio De Cesco, Nysret Musliu and Andrea Schaerf. Modeling and Solving a Real-Life Multi-Skill Shift Design Problem. Annals of Operations Research, Volume 252, Issue 2, pp 365–382, 2017, doi:10.1007/s10479-016-2175-7 [J18] Nysret Musliu, Felix Winter. A Hybrid Approach for the Sudoku problem: Using Constraint Programming in Iterated Local Search. IEEE Intelligent Systems, Volume 32, Issue 2, pp 52-62, 2017 [J17] Emir Demirovic and Nysret Musliu. MaxSAT Based Large Neighborhood Search for High School Timetabling. Computers and Operations Research, Volume 78, February 2017, Pages 172–180. [J16] Kadri Sylejmani, Jürgen Dorn, Nysret Musliu. Planning the trip itinerary for tourist groups. Information Technology & Tourism, 2017, doi:10.1007/s40558-017-0080-9 [J15] Emir Demirovic, Nysret Musliu. Modeling High School Timetabling with Bitvectors. Annals of Operations Research, Volume 252, Issue 2, pp 215–238, 2017. [J14] Kathrin Conrad, Nysret Musliu, Reinhard Pichler, Hannes Werthner: Universities and computer science in the European crisis of refugees. Communications of the ACM 59(10): 31-33 (2016) [J13] Michael Abseher, Martin Gebser, Nysret Musliu, Torsten Schaub, Stefan Woltran: Shift Design with Answer Set Programming. Fundamenta Informaticae, 147(1): 1-25, 2016, 2016. [J12] Magdalena Widl, Nysret Musliu. The Break Scheduling Problem: Complexity Results and Practical Algorithms. Memetic Computing, 6(2): 97-112, 2014. (The final publication is available at http://link.springer.com) [J11] Markus Triska, Nysret Musliu. An improved SAT formulation for the social golfer problem. Annals of Operations Research, 194(1): 427-438 (2012) [J10] Andreas Beer, Johannes Gärtner, Nysret Musliu, Werner Schafhauser, Wolfgang Slany. An AI-based break-scheduling system for supervisory personnel. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 25(2):60-73, 2010. [J9] Markus Triska, Nysret Musliu. An Effective Greedy Heuristic for the Social Golfer Problem. Annals of Operations Research, 194(1): 413-425 (2012) [J8] Gerhard Post, Jeffrey H. Kingston, Samad Ahmadi, Sophia Daskalaki, Christos Gogos, Jari Kyngas, Cimmo Nurmi, Nysret Musliu, Nelishia Pillay, Haroldo Santos, Andrea Schaerf. XHSTT: an XML archive for high school timetabling problems in different countries. Annals of Operations Research, accepted for publication, 2012. [J7] Luca Di Gaspero, Johannes Gärtner, Guy Kortsarz Nysret Musliu, Andrea Schaerf and Wolfgang Slany. The Minimum Shift Design Problem. Annals of Operations Research, Volume 155, pp. 79-105, 2007. [J6] Nysret Musliu and Werner Schafhauser. Genetic Algorithms for Generalized Hypertree Decompositions. European Journal of Industrial Engineering, Volume1 No.3, pp. 317-340, 2007. [J5] Nysret Musliu. Heuristic Methods for Automatic Rotating Workforce Scheduling. International Journal of Computational Intelligence Research, Volume 2, Issue 4, pp. 309-326, 2006. [J4] Nysret Musliu, Andrea Schaerf, and Wolfgang Slany. Local Search for Shift Design. European Journal of Operational Research, 153(1), 51-64, 2004. [J3] Nysret Musliu, Johannes Gärtner, Wolfgang Slany. Efficient generation of rotating workforce schedules. Discrete Applied Mathematics, Vol. 118 (1-2), pp. 85-98, 2002. [J2] Ruth Fingerlos, Johannes Gärtner, Nysret Musliu, and Wolfgang Slany. Zyklische Schichtplanung. KI Journal, 2/01: 31-34, 2001. [J1] Johannes Gärtner, Nysret Musliu, and Wolfgang Slany. Rota: A research project on algorithms for workforce scheduling and shift design optimisation. Artificial Intelligence Communications, 14(2): 83-92, 2001. Refereed Book Chapters [BC5] Thomas Hammerl, Nysret Musliu, and Werner Schafhauser. Metaheuristic Algorithms and Tree Decomposition. Handbook of Computational Intelligence, Kacprzyk, Janusz, Pedrycz, Witold (Eds.,), Springer, 2015. (The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com) [BC4] Jussi Rasku, Nysret Musliu, and Tommi Kärkkäinen. Automating the Parameter Selection in VRP: An Off-line Parameter Tuning Tool Comparison. Modeling, Simulation and Optimization for Science and Technology. Computational Methods in Applied Sciences Volume 34, 2014, pp 191-209. [BC3] Luca Di Gaspero, Johannes Gärtner, Nysret Musliu, Andrea Schaerf, Werner Schafhauser, and Wolfgang Slany. Automated Shift Design and Break Scheduling. Automated Scheduling and Planning, Studies in Computational Intelligence,Volume 505, 2013, pp 109-127. E. Ozcan, N. Urquhart, S. Uyar (Eds.) (The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com) [BC2] Nysret Musliu. An Iterative Heuristic Algorithm for Tree Decomposition. Studies in Computational Intelligence Springer,Volume 153,pages 133-150, 2008. Carlos Cotta, Jano van Hemert (Eds.). [BC1] Luca Di Gaspero, Johannes Gärtner, Guy Kortsarz, Nysret Musliu, Andrea Schaerf and Wolfgang Slany. Theory and Practice of the Minimum Shift Design Problem. In Metaheuristics: Progress as Real Problem Solvers, Springer, 2005. Ibaraki, Toshihide; Nonobe, Koji; Yagiura, Mutsunori (Eds.). Conference and Workshop Publications [C69] Lucas Kletzander, Nysret Musliu, Johannes Gärtner, Werner Schafhauser and Thomas Krennwallner. Exact Methods for Extended Rotating Workforce Scheduling Problems. ICAPS 2019, accepted for publication. [C68] Felix Winter, Emir Demirović, Nysret Musliu and Christoph Mrkvicka. Solution Approaches for an Automotive Paint Shop Scheduling Problem. ICAPS 2019, accepted for publication. [C67] Tobias Geibinger, Florian Mischek and Nysret Musliu. Investigating Constraint Programming for Real-World Industrial Test Laboratory Scheduling. CPAIOR 2019, accepted for publication. [C66] Lucas Kletzander and Nysret Musliu. Modelling and Solving the Minimum Shift Design Problem. CPAIOR 2019, accepted for publication. [C65] Arben Ahmeti, Nysret Musliu. Min-conflicts heuristic for multi-mode resource-constrained projects scheduling. GECCO 2018: 237-244 [C64] Lucas Kletzander, Nysret Musliu. Solving the General Employee Scheduling Problem. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference of the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling – PATAT 2018, 469 - 472. [C63] Felix Winter, Emir Demirović, Nysret Musliu and Christoph Mrkvicka. Modeling and Solving an Automotive Paint Shop Scheduling Problem. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference of the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling – PATAT 2018, 477 - 480. [C62] Florian Mischek, Nysret Musliu. A Local Search Framework for Industrial Test Laboratory Scheduling. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference of the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling – PATAT 2018, 465-467. [C61] Emir Demirović, Nysret Musliu, Peter J. Stuckey and Felix Winter. Solution-Based Phase Saving and MaxSAT for Employee Scheduling: A Computational Study. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference of the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling – PATAT 2018, 453-457. [C60] Nysret Musliu, Andreas Schutt, Peter J. Stuckey. Solver Independent Rotating Workforce Scheduling. CPAIOR 2018: The 15th International Conference on the Integration of Constraint Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Operations Research, June 26-29, 2018, Delft, The Netherlands. [C59] Christoph Erkinger, Nysret Musliu. Personnel Scheduling as Satisfiability Modulo Theories. The 26th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2017), Melbourne, Australia, 2017. C58] Lucas Kletzander, Nysret Musliu. A Multi-stage Simulated Annealing Algorithm for the Torpedo Scheduling Problem. CPAIOR 2017: The Fourteenth International Conference on Integration of Artificial Intelligence and Operations Research Techniques in Constraint Programming, Padova, Italy, June 5 - June 8, 2017. (The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com) [C57] Michael Abseher, Nysret Musliu, Stefan Woltran. htd - A Free, Open-Source Framework for (Customized) Tree Decompositions and Beyond. CPAIOR 2017: The Fourteenth International Conference on Integration of Artificial Intelligence and Operations Research Techniques in Constraint Programming, Padova, Italy, June 5 - June 8, 2017. (The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com) [C56] Gelareh Taghizadeh, Nysret Musliu. A Hybrid Feature Selection Algorithm based on Large Neighborhood Search, Proceeding so the 17th European Conference on Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimisation (EvoCOP), Amsterdam, Netherland, 2017. [C55] Florian Mischek, Nysret Musliu. Integer Programming and Heuristic Approaches for a Multi-Stage Nurse Rostering Problem. Proceedings of PATAT 2016 - The 11th International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling, Udine, August 23 - 26, 2016. [C54] Emir Demirovic, Nysret Musliu, Felix Winter. Modeling and solving staff scheduling with partial weighted maxSAT. Proceedings of PATAT 2016 - The 11th International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling, Udine, August 23 - 26, 2016. [C53] Emir Demirović, Théo Le Calvar, Nysret Musliu, and Katsumi Inoue. An Exact Algorithm for Unicost Set Covering. Doctoral Program of the 22nd International Conference on the Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP 2016). [C52] Michael Abseher, Frederico Dusberger, Nysret Musliu, Stefan Woltran. Improving the Efficiency of Dynamic Programming on Tree Decompositions via Machine Learning. Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IJCAI 2015, Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 25-31, 2015. [C51] Michael Abseher, Martin Gebser, Nysret Musliu, Torsten Schaub and Stefan Woltran. Shift-design with Answer Set Programming. Proceeding of the 13th International Conference on Logic Programming and Non-monotonic Reasoning (LPNMR 2015), Lexington, KY, USA September 27-30, 2015 Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI), Volume 9345, Springer, 2015. (The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com) Extended version of paper: Michael Abseher, Martin Gebser, Nysret Musliu, Torsten Schaub and Stefan Woltran. Shift Design with Answer Set Programming. The Eighth Workshop on Answer Set Programming and Other Computing Paradigms (ASPOCP 2015), Cork, Ireland , August 31, 2015. [C50] Josef Pihera, Nysret Musliu. Application of Machine Learning to Algorithm Selection for TSP. Proceeding of the IEEE 26th International Conference on Tools with Artificial Intelligence (ICTAI), Limassol, Cyprus, November 10-12, 2014. [C49] Emir Demirovic, Nysret Musliu. Modeling High School Timetabling as PartialWeighted maxSAT. LaSh 2014: The 4th Workshop on Logic and Search (a SAT / ICLP workshop at FLoC 2014), July 18, 2014, Vienna, Austria. [C48] Emir Demirovic and Nysret Musliu. Solving High School Timetabling with Satisfiability Modulo Theories. Proceedings of the 10th International Conference of the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling, pages 142-166, York, UK, August 26-29, 2014. [C47] Alex Bonutti, Fabio De Cesco, Nysret Musliu and Andrea Schaerf. Modeling and Solving a Real-Life Multi-Skill Shift Design Problem. Proceedings of the 10th International Conference of the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling, pages 459-461, York, UK, August 26-29, 2014. [C46] Nysret Musliu, Martin Schwengerer. Algorithm Selection for the Graph Coloring Problem. Learning and Intelligent OptimizatioN Conference (LION 7), Catania - Italy, Jan 7-11, 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 7997, pages 389-403, Springer. [C45] Nysret Musliu, Wolfgang Slany, Johannes Gaertner. Automated Test Case Generation in End-User Programming. Fourth International Symposium on End-User Development, Copenhagen, Denmark, June 10-13, 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 7897, pages 272-277, Springer.. [C44] Nysret Musliu. Analyzing the Features of Employee Scheduling Problems (abstract). XXVI EURO - INFORMS Joint International Conference, Rome, July 1 - 4, 2013. [C43] Nysret Musliu. Applying Machine Learning for Solver Selection in Scheduling. 10th Metaheuristics International Conference (MIC 2013), Singapore, 5-8 August, 2013. [C42] D. Bucar, S. Bessler, N. Musliu, J. Groenbaek. Scheduling of electric vehicle charging operations. MISTA - Multidisciplinary International Scheduling Conference: Theory and Applications, Ghent, Belgium, 27-30 Aug 2013. [C41] Michael Morak, Nysret Musliu, Reinhard Pichler, Stefan Rümmele, Stefan Woltran. Evaluating Tree-Decomposition Based Algorithms for Answer Set Programming. Learning and Intelligent Optimization Conference (LION 6), Paris, Jan 16-20, 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 7219, pages 130-144, Springer. [C40] Kadri Sylejmani, Juergen Dorn, Nysret Musliu. A Tabu Search approach for Multi Constrained Team Orienteering Problem and its application in touristic trip planning. HIS 2012: 300-305 [C39] Andreas Lehrbaum, Nysret Musliu. A new Hyperheuristic Algorithm for Cross Domain Search Problems. Learning and Intelligent Optimization Conference (LION 6), Paris, Jan 16-20, 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 7219, pages 437-442, Springer. [C38] Johannes Gärtner, Nysret Musliu, Werner Schafhauser, Wolfgang Slany. TEMPLE - A Domain Specific Language for Modeling and Solving Staff Scheduling Problems. Proceedings of IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Scheduling (CI-Sched 2011), April 11-15, 2011 - Paris, France. [C37] Michael Morak, Nysret Musliu, Reinhard Pichler, Stefan Rümmele, Stefan Woltran. A New Tree-Decomposition Based Algorithm for Answer Set Programming. The IEEE International Conference on Tools with Artificial Intelligence (ICTAI), Florida, USA, 2011. [C36] Markus Triska, Nysret Musliu. A Constraint Programming Application for Rotating Workforce Scheduling. The Twenty-fourth International Conference on Industrial, Engineering and Other Applications of Applied Intelligent Systems (IEA/AIE 2011), Studies in Computational Intelligence, Volume 363, Springer 2011. [C35] Nysret Musliu. Constructing Cyclic Staff Schedules by Iterated Local Search (extended abstract). The 9th Metaheuristics International Conference (MIC 2011), Udine, Italy, July 25-28, 2011. [C34] M. Widl, N. Musliu. An improved memetic algorithm for break scheduling. HM 2010 - 7th International Workshop on Hybrid Metaheuristics. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 6373, pages 133-147, Springer, 2010. [C33] L. Di Gaspero, J. Gärtner, N. Musliu, A. Schaerf, W. Schafhauser, and W. Slany. A hybrid LS-CP solver for the shifts and breaks design problem. HM 2010 - 7th International Workshop on Hybrid Metaheuristics. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 6373, pages 46-61, Springer, 2010. (extended abstract of this paper also appeared in Proceedings of PATAT 2010 - The 8th International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling, Belfast, August 10 - 13, 2010). [C32] Sandford Bessler, Lukas Lang, Nysret Musliu, Scheduling content multicast trees with minimal repetitions. In Proceedings of Networks 2010 - 14th International telecommunications Network Strategy and Planning Symposium, September 27-30, Warsaw, Poland, 2010. [C31] Werner Schafhauser, Andreas Beer, Johannes Gärtner, Nysret Musliu, Wolfgang Slany. Temple: an end-user language for staff scheduling problems (abstract). Matheuristics 2010 - Third international workshop on model-based metaheuristics, Vienna, 2010. [C30] Thomas Hammerl, Nysret Musliu. Ant Colony Optimization for Tree Decompositions. EvoCOP 2010 – 10th European Conference on Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimisation, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 6022, Springer, 2010. [C29] Nysret Musliu, Werner Schafhauser, Magdalen Widl. A Memetic Algorithm for a Break Scheduling Problem. The 8th Metaheuristic International Conference (MIC 2009), Hamburg, Germany, July 13-16, 2009. [C28] Schafhauser, W., A. Beer, N. Musliu, W. Slany, J. Gärtner, and K. Boonstra-Hörwein. Break optimization in shifts (abstract). 19th International Symposium on Shiftwork and Working Time Health and Well-being in the 24-h Society. 2009. San Servolo Island - Venezia, Italy: Working Time Society. [C27] Werner Schafhauser, Andreas Beer, Johannes Gärtner, Nysret Musliu, Wolf-gang Slany. TEMPLE – a language for staff scheduling problems (abstract). EURO 2009 - 23rd European Conference on Operational Research, Bonn, July 5 - 8, 2009. [C26] Nysret Musliu, Andreas Beer, Johannes Gärtner, Werner Schafhauser, Wolf-gang Slany. Local search for shift and break scheduling (abstract). EURO 2009 - 23rd European Conference on Operational Research, Bonn, July 5 - 8, 2009. [C25] Andreas Beer, Johannes Gärtner, Nysret Musliu, Werner Schafhauser and Wolfgang Slany. Testing while modelling staff scheduling problems (abstract). EURO 2009 - 23rd European Conference on Operational Research, Bonn, July 5 - 8, 2009. [C24] Artan Dermaku, Tobias Ganzow, Georg Gottlob, Ben McMahan, Nysret Musliu, Marko Samer. Heuristic Methods for Hypertree Decompositions. MICAI 2008: Advances in Artificial Intelligence, 7th Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, Volume 5317, pages 1-11, 2008, Springer. [C23] Andreas Beer, Johannes Gärtner, Nysret Musliu, Werner Schafhauser, Wolfgang Slany. Scheduling Breaks in Shift Plans for Call Centers. In Proceedings of PATAT 2008 - The 7th International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling, Montréal, August 18 - 22, 2008. [C22] Andreas Beer, Johannes Gärtner, Nysret Musliu, Werner Schafhauser, Wolfgang Slany. An Iterated Local Search Algorithm for a Real-Life Break Scheduling Problem (abstract). Matheuristics2008- Second International Workshop on Model Based Metaheuristics, June 16 - 18, 2008, Bertinoro, Italy. [C21] Markus Triska, Nysret Musliu. Solving the Social Golfer Problem with a GRASP. In Proceedings of PATAT 2008 - The 7th International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling, Montréal, August 18 - 22, 2008. [C20] Markus Triska, Nysret Musliu. An Improved SAT Formulation for the Social Golfer Problem. In Proceedings of PATAT 2008 - The 7th International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling, Montréal, August 18 - 22, 2008. [C19] Nysret Musliu. Generation of Tree Decompositions by Iterated Local Search. EvoCOP 2007 - Seventh European Conference on Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimisation, LNCS, Volume 4446, pages 130-141, 2007, Springer. [C18] Nysret Musliu. Tabu Search for Generalized Hypertree Decompositions. The Seventh Metaheuristics International Conference (MIC), Montreal, June 25-29, 2007. [C17] Nysret Musliu. Iterated Local Search for Cyclic Staff Scheduling (abstract of invited presentation). 22nd European Conference on Operational Research EURO XXII, Prague, 2007. [C16] Nysret Musliu. An Iterative Heuristic Algorithm for Tree Decompositions. 7th EU/MEeting on Adaptive, Self-Adaptive, and Multi-Level Metaheuristics, University of Málaga, Spain, 16-17 November, 2006. [C15] Nysret Musliu. Local search algorithm for unicost set covering problem, The 19th International Conference on Industrial, Engineering & Other Applications of Applied Intelligent Systems (IEA/AIE'06), Annecy, FRANCE, 2006 (Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI),Volume 4031 , pages 302-311, 2006, Springer). [C14] Nysret Musliu. Combination of Local Search Strategies for Rotating Workforce Scheduling Problem (poster), Nineteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI- 05), Edinburgh, Scotland, 30 July - 5 August 2005 (also in Workshop on Design and Evaluation of Advanced Hybrid Meta-Heuristics, November 4-5, 2004, Nottingham, UK). [C13] Georg Gottlob, Martin Grohe, Nysret Musliu, Marko Samer, and Francesco Scarcello. Hypertree Decompositions: Structure, Algorithms, and Applications, International Workshop on Graph-Theoretic Concepts in Computer Science (WG'05)", Metz, France, 2005, (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 3787, pages 1 – 15, 2005, Springer-Verlag Heidelberg). [C12] Nysret Musliu. Min Conflicts Based Heuristics for Rotating Workforce Scheduling Problem. The 6th Metaheuristics International Conference (MIC'05), Vienna, Austria, August 22-26, 2005. [C11] Nysret Musliu. Local Search Strategies for Rotating Workforce Scheduling Problem. Proceedings of the Fourth EU/ME Workshop on Design and Evaluation of Advanced Hybrid Meta-Heuristics, November 4-5, 2004, Nottingham, UK. [C10] Johannes Gärtner, Nysret Musliu, Wolfgang Slany. A Heuristic Based System for Generation of Shifts with Breaks. Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems XII: Proceedings of AI-2004, the Twenty-fourth SGAI International Conference on Innovative Techniques and Applications of Artificial Intelligence, pages 95-106, 2005, Springer. [C9] Michael Mörz, Nysret Musliu. Genetic Algorithm for Rotating Workforce Scheduling. Proceedings of second IEEE International Conference on Computational Cybernetics ( pages 121-126) , Vienna, Austria, August 30 – September 1, 2004. [C8] Luca Di Gaspero, Johannes Gärtner, Guy Kortsarz Nysret Musliu, Andrea Schaerf and Wolfgang Slany. The Minimum Shift Design Problem: Theory and Practice. 11th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms, Budapest, 15-20 September, 2003. (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 2832, pages 593 – 604, 2003, Springer-Verlag Heidelberg) [C7] Nysret Musliu. Applying Tabu Search to the Rotating Workforce Scheduling Problem. The 5th Metaheuristics International Conference (MIC'03), Kyoto, Japan, August 25-28, 2003. [C6] Luca Di Gaspero, Johannes Gärtner, Guy Kortsarz Nysret Musliu, Andrea Schaerf and Wolfgang Slany. A hybrid network flow tabu search heuristic for the minimum shift design problem. The 5th Metaheuristics International Conference (MIC'03), Kyoto, Japan, August 25-28, 2003. (Extended Version: In K. Nonobe T. Ibaraki and M. Yagiura, editors, Metaheuristics: Progress as Real Problem Solvers. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2005) [C5] Nysret Musliu, Andrea Schaerf, and Wolfgang Slany. Local Search for Shift Design. Proceedings of the 4th Metaheuristics International Conference (MIC'01), Porto, Portugal, July 16-20, 2001. [C4] Nysret Musliu, Johannes Gärtner, Wolfgang Slany. Efficient generation of rotating workforce schedules. In Edmund Burke and Wilhem Erben, editors, Proceedings of the 3^rd international conference on the practice and theory of automated timetabling (PATAT 2000), Konstanz, Germany , pages 314-332, August 2000. [C3] Wolfgang Slany, Nysret Musliu, Guy Kortsarz, and Johannes Gärtner. Theory and practice of shift scheduling (invited paper). RIMS Kokyuroku of the Research Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Kyoto University, 1185: 172-181, 2000. [C2] Nysret Musliu, Johannes Gärtner, Wolfgang Slany. Shift scheduling from a combinatorial optimization point of view (abstract). Third Alio-Euro Workshop on Applied Combinatorial Optimization, Erice-Italy, November 1999. [C1] Wahl S., Musliu N., Angelova R., Slany W., Herber G., Janke M. Shiftplanassistant 4.0 - State of development. XIV International Symposium on Night and Shiftwork, 1999 Wiesensteig, Germany. (Also appeared in: Hornberger S, Knauth P, Costa G, Folkard S, editors. Shiftwork in the 21st century: challenges for research and practice.Frankfurt: Peter Lang; 2000. p. 327-32). Academic Writings [A3] Nysret Musliu. Metaheuristics for Scheduling and other Hard Problems. Habilitation Thesis, Technische Universität Wien/Informatik, February 2007. [A2] Nysret Musliu. Intelligent Search Methods for Workforce Scheduling: New Ideas and Practical Applications. PhD thesis, Technische Universität Wien, October 2001. [A1] Nysret Musliu. „Ndërlidhja e Gjuhës Clipper me C“. Diploma thesis, University of Prishtina, July 1996. Technical Reports [TR9] Lucas Kletzander, Florian Mischek, Nysret Musliu, Gerhard Post and Felix Winter. A General Modeling Format for Employee Scheduling. Technical Report, DBAI-TR-2017-109, Technische Universität Wien, 2017. [TR8] Michael Morak, Nysret Musliu, Reinhard Pichler, Stefan Rümmele, Stefan Woltran. Evaluating Tree-Decomposition Based Algorithms for Answer Set Programming. DBAI-TR-2011-73, Technische Universität Wien, 2011. [TR6] Nysret Musliu, Johannes Gärtner, Wolfgang Slany. Efficient generation of rotating workforce schedules. Technical Report DBAI-TR-2000-35, Technische Universität Wien, 2000. [TR5] Nysret Musliu, Andrea Schaerf, and Wolfgang Slany. Local Search for Shift Design. Technical Report DBAI-TR-2001-45, Technische Universität Wien, 2001. [TR4] Nysret Musliu. Applying Tabu Search to the Rotating Workforce Scheduling Problem. Technical Report DBAI-TR-2003-49, Technische Universität Wien, 2003/05. [TR3] Tobias Ganzow, Georg Gottlob, Nysret Musliu, Marko Samer. A CSP Hypergraph Library, DBAI-TR-2005-50, Technische Universität Wien, 2005. [TR2] Artan Dermaku, Tobias Ganzow, Georg Gottlob, Ben McMahan, Nysret Musliu, Marko Samer. Heuristic Methods for Hypertree Decompositions, DBAI-TR-2005-53, Technische Universität Wien, 2005. [TR1] Nysret Musliu. An Iterative Heuristic Algorithm for Tree Decomposition. DBAI-TR-2007-56. Technische Universität Wien, 2007.
Software Contribution to Commercial Scheduling Software Packages I have been one of main developers of algorithms in software packages: First Class Scheduler – FCS (part of Shift Plan Assistant (SPA) of Ximes Corp.): This package is internationally recognised software for rotating workforce scheduling, and is licensed and used since 1999 in many companies in Europe. Operating Hours Assistant (OPA 1.0) of Ximes Corp.: This package is used successfully and licensed since year 2000 in different companies in Europe like airports, call centres, hospitals, etc. For generation of shifts with breaks: This software was included in OPA 2.0, and was used from different companies in airports, call centres etc. I have been working on developing of algorithms and object oriented design for RAS (The Representation and Analysis Software): Software of Ximes Corp. for the US Department of Transportation. Hypertree Library Includes several algorithms for generation of hypertree decompositions. I have been working on developing of some algorithms in this library. The algorithms have been evaluated for benchmark examples from the literature and the industry Benchmark Problems Shift Design Problem Includes three different sets of randomly generated examples for the shift design problem Shift Design and Break Scheduling Includes real life and random instances for the shift design and break scheduling problem Rotating Workforce Scheduling Includes 20 benchmark problems for rotating workforce scheduling problem. Example 1-3 appeared earlier in the literature, and other 17 examples are real life problems Hypertree decomposition - CSP Hypergraph Library This collection of problems contains hypergraph representation of several classes of CSP instances. These instances include industrial examples and randomly generated examples. These problems are used for evaluation of hypertree decompositions algorithms

Kopie von Kopie von P1000471

Mirësevini (Welcome/Willkommen)

Priv.-Doz. Dr. Nysret Musliu

Tel.: (+43)-1-58801 58428

Database and Artificial Intelligence Group

Vienna University of Technology

Research Publications Teaching Students Software/Benchmark Problems

I am currently the Head of the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence and Optimization for Planning and Scheduling and Priv. Dozent (roughly equivalent to the American Associate Professor title) in the Database and Artificial Intelligence Group, Vienna University of Technology. I obtained in 1996 the degree 'inxhinier i diplomuar' (equivalent with Dipl.-Ing, master's degree) in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering (field of computer sciences and telecommunications), University of Prishtina, Kosova. I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science from Vienna University of Technology in October 2001 (download thesis ). In October 2007 I finished my Habilitation (professorial qualification) in area of Applied Computer Sciences at the Vienna University of Technology.

Research

Research Interests

Artificial Intelligence Techniques
Machine Learning and Optimization (selected publications: [J22], [C41], [C46], [C50], [C52])
Metaheuristic Algorithms ([J4], [J5], [J6], [J10]. [BC1], [BC2])
Exact Techniques: Constraint Satisfaction Techniques, SAT Solving ([J3], [J11], [C33], [C48], [C49])
Tree/Hypertree Decompositions ([C13], [BC2], [BC5], [C24], [C30], [C37], [C41], [C52] )
Applications

Scheduling (staff scheduling, shift design, break scheduling) ([J3], [J4], [C23], [BC1], [C33], [J12])

Timetabling (social golfer problem, high school timetabling) ([J9], [J11], [J8], [C49]), and other

Combinatorial Optimization Problems (set covering, graph coloring, etc.) ([C15], [C46])

Development of Scheduling Systems ([J1], [J10], [C10], [C38])

Research Grants

Christian Doppler Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence and Optimization for Planning and Scheduling. The Laboratory is supported by the Christian Doppler Research Association (CDG) , Bundesministerium für Digitalisierung und Wirtschaftsstandort and companies Bosch, MCP and Ximes. 01.12.2017 - 30.11.2024.
ARTE: Artificial Intelligence in Employee Scheduling (2012-2017). Research project supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). Project leader
Softnet Austria 2 (2010-2013) - Competence Network in Next Generation Soft-ware Engineering: Project 6: Test Support for End-User Programming. Local project leader at the Vienna University of Technology
Planning Knowledge (2007-2010): Project of Softnet Austria - industrial competence network within K-net program of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Economics and Labor. Local project leader at the Vienna University of Technology
Hypertree Decompositions (2004 - 2006): Research project of DBAI group supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
A Heuristic based system for generation of shifts with breaks (2003): Research project between DBAI and Ximes Corp., supported by WIFI Wien
ROTA (1999-2002): Joint project between DBAI and Ximes Corp., supported by FFF

Operating Hours Assistant

First Class Scheduler

Professional Activities

Organisation of Conferences

Co-Chair of the 12th International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling Vienna, Austria, 28 Aug 2018 - 31 Aug 2018.

Co-organiser of the Workshop on Graph and Hypergraph Decompositions-Methods and Applications in Computer Science, 2004, Vienna, Austria
Co-organiser of the 4th EU/ME Workshop: Design and Evaluation of Advanced Hybrid Meta-heuristics, 2004, Nottingham, UK

Programme Committee member (selection):

IJCAI - The International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence: IJCAI 2019, 2018, 2017, 2015, 2013, 2011
AAAI - The AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence 2019, 2018.
PATAT - International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling: PATAT 2018, 2016
GECCO - The Genetic & Evolutionary Computation Conference (sponsored by ACM SIGEVO): GECCO 2019, 2018,2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009
MIC - The Metaheuristic International Conference: MIC 2019, 2017, 2015, 2013, 2011
CISched – The IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Scheduling: 2015, 2013, 2011, 2009, 2007
EvoCOP - The European Conference on Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimisation: EvoCOP 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008
HM – The International Workshop on Hybrid Metaheuristics: HM 2010, 2009

Co-organiser (with Dario Landa-Silva and Tim Curtois) of the the stream on "Timetabling and Rostering" at EURO XXVI, the 26th European Conference on Operational Research, Rome, Italy, July 1-4 2013.
Co-organiser (with Dario Landa-Silva) of invited cluster “Timetabling and Roster-ing” at the VII ALIO/EURO Workshops on Applied Combinatorial Optimization, Portugal, May 4-6 2011.
Scientific Committee member of the 8th EU/MEeting on Metaheuristics in the Service Industry 04.10.2007-05.10.2007, Stuttgart, Germany
Guest co-editor (with Jens Gottlieb, Dario Landa-Silva and Eric Soubeiga) of cluster in Volume 7, Number 1 of Journal of Mathematical Modelling and Algorithms (JMMA), 2008
External reviewer for following journals: IEEE Intelligent Systems, Journal of Heuristics, IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, Journal of Systems and Software, Journal of Logic and Computation , Journal of Artificial Evolution and Applications, European Journal of Operations Research, Annals of Operational Research, Journal of Scheduling, Artificial Intelligence Communications, Theory of Computing Systems, Computers and Operations Research, INFORMS Journal on Computing, Computers & Industrial Engineering, Memetic Computing, Computational Optimization and Applications, Journal of Industrial and Production Engineering, Journal of Computer and System Sciences, Journal of Applied Mathematics, IIE Transactions, Central European Journal of Operations Research

Teaching

Problem Solving and Search in Artificial Intelligence

Machine Learning

Projects/Seminars:

Bachelor Thesis, Project in Computer Science 1/2, Project in Software Engineering & Internet Computing, Doctoral & Master Students Seminar

Past Lectures

Datenmodellierung

Grundlagen methodischen Arbeitens

AK der AI 2: Problem Solving Techniques in Artificial Intelligence

Einführung in die Artificial Intelligence

LU Datenbanksysteme

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (Prishtina Summer University), and other guest lectures at the University of Prishtina, Kosova

Students

Topics for Master and PhD theses

If you are interested to do your master or Ph.D. thesis under my supervision please contact me by email. Possible topics are closely related to my research interests (see also my publications).

Ph.D. Students

Supervised Ph.D. students

Werner Schafhauser. TEMPLE - A Domain Specific Language for Modeling and Solving Real-Life Staff Scheduling Problems. Ph.D. Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, November 2010

Markus Triska, Correctness Considerations in CLP(FD) Systems. Ph.D. Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, January 2014

Emir Demirovic, Hybrid Search Techniques for the High School Timetabling Problem. Ph.D. Thesis, TU Wien, Vienna PhD School of Informatics, March 2017

Co-advisor for Ph.D. students

Michael Abseher, Tailored Tree Decompositions for Efficient Problem Solving. Ph.D. Thesis, TU Wien, (co-advisor), April 2017

Current Ph.D. students

Lucas Kletzander. TU Wien

Florian Mischek. Project Scheduling in a Real-World Test Laboratory TU Wien

Felix Winter. Planning and Scheduling Problems in the Automotive Industry. TU Wien

Florian Wisser, AI for the Card Game Schnapsen, TU Wien

Josef Pihera, Machine Learning Techniques Applied to Combinatorial Search Problems, TU Wien, Vienna PhD School of Informatics

Arben Ahmeti, Solving Multi-Mode Resource-Constrained Multiple Projects Scheduling Problem, TU Wien

Gelareh Taghizadeh, Toward efficient search techniques for the feature selection problem, TU Wien,

Jussi Rasku, Department of Mathematical Information Technology, University of Jyväskylä, Finland, (co-advisor)

Supervised Master theses

Lucas Kletzander. A Heuristic Solver Framework for the General Employee Scheduling Problem. Master Thesis, TU Wien, 2018.

Martin Blöschl. A Graphical Environment for Creating Constraint Programming Models. Master Thesis, TU Wien, 2018.

Bernd-Peter Ivanschitz. Algorithm Selection and Runtime Prediction for the two Dimensional Bin Packing Problem. Master Thesis, TU Wien, 2017.

Omid Karami. A Comparison of Machine Learning Techniques on the Medical Data Sets. Master Thesis, TU Wien, 2017.

Felix Winter. MaxSAT Modeling and Metaheuristic Methods for the Employee Scheduling Problem. Master Thesis, TU Wien, 2016. (Winner of the “Distinguished Young Alumnus/Alumna”-Award for the best master thesis finished in Summer Semester 2016 at the Faculty of Informatics, TU Wien)

Florian Mischek. Exact and Heuristic Approaches for a Multi-Stage Nurse Rostering. Master Thesis, TU Wien, 2016.

Maria-Elisabeth Zueger. Large Neighborhood Search for Break Scheduling. Master Thesis, TU Wien, 2016.

Deniz Kocabas. Exact Methods for Shift Design and Break Scheduling. Vienna University of Technology, 2015.

Kevin Bader. Memetic Algorithms for Tree Decomposition. Vienna University of Technology, 2014.

Damir Bucar. Electric Vehicles Recharge Scheduling with Time Windows. Vienna University of Technology, 2014. (co-supervised with Sandford Bessler)

Christoph Erkinger. Rotating Workforce Scheduling As Satisfiability Modulo Theories. Vienna University of Technology 2013.

Michael Abseher. Solving Shift Design Problems with Answer Set Programming. Vienna University of Technology, 2013. (co-supervised with Stefan Woltran)

Martin Schwengerer. Algorithm Selection for the Graph Coloring Problem. Vienna University of Technology, 2012. (Winner of “Best Poster-Award” at the Faculty of Informatics, Vienna University of Technology, Nov. 2012)

Bong Min Kim. Iterated Local Search for the Traveling Tournament Problem. Vienna University of Technology, 2012.

Andreas Lehrbaum. A New Hyperheuristic Algorithm for Cross-Domain Search Problems. Vienna University of Technology 2011. (Selected among best 4 master theses finished in Summer Semester 2012 at the Faculty of Informatics, Vienna University of Technology)

Lam Tung Nguyen. An Efficient Algorithm for Phylogeny Reconstruction by Maximum Likelihood, Vienna University of Technology, 2011. (co-supervised with Arndt von Haeseler)

Magdalena Widl. Memetic Algorithms for Break Scheduling. Master Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, 2010. (Winner of the “Distinguished Young Alumnus/Alumna”-Award for the best master thesis finished in Summer Semester 2010 at the Faculty of Informatics, Vienna University of Technology)

Thomas Hammerl. Ant Colony Optimization for Tree and Hypertree Decompositions. Master Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, 2009.

Markus Triska. Solution Methods for the Social Golfer Problem, Master Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, 2008. (Winner of the “Distinguished Young Alumnus/Alumna”-Award and the Microsoft Price for the best master thesis finished in Summer Semester 2008 at the Faculty of Informatics, Vienna University of Technology)

Ekaterina Lebedeva. Hypertree Decompositions for Optimal Winner Determination in Combinatorial Auctions, Master Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, 2008. (co-supervised with Georg Gottlob and Werner Schafhauser)

Artan Dermaku. Generalized Hypertree Decomposition based on Hypergraph Partitioning, Diploma Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, 2007. (co-supervised with Georg Gottlob)

Michael Mörz. A new Tabu Search Framework and it's Application, Diploma Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, 2007. (co-supervised with Georg Gottlob)

Werner Schafhauser. New Heuristic Methods for Tree Decompositions and Generalized Hypertree Decompositions, Master Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, 2006. (co-supervised with Georg Gottlob) (Selected among best 5 master theses finished in Winter Semester 2006/2007 at the Faculty of Informatics, Vienna University of Technology)

Master theses below were supervised by Fang Wei, and I served as a co-supervisor after she moved to the University of Freiburg:

Lee Mei Sin. Data Mining on Empty Result Queries. Master Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, 2008.

E. Paisios. Generic Programing for Graph Problems Using Tree Decompositions. Master Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, 2008.

Publications

Refereed Journal Articles

[J23] Florian Mischek, Nysret Musliu. Integer programming model extensions for a multi-stage nurse rostering problem. Annals of Operations Research, April 2019, Volume 275, Issue 1, pp 123–143.

[J22] Jussi Rasku, Nysret Musliu, Tommi Kärkkäinen. On automatic algorithm configuration of vehicle routing problem solvers. Journal of Vehicle Routing Algorithms (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41604-019-00010-9.

[J21] Emir Demirovic, Nysret Musliu, Felix Winter. Modeling and solving staff scheduling with partial weighted maxSAT. Annals of Operations Research, April 2019, Volume 275, Issue 1, pp 79–99.

[J20] Michael Abseher, Nysret Musliu and Stefan Woltran. Improving the Efficiency of Dynamic Programming on Tree Decompositions via Machine Learning. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Volume 58, pages 1-30, 2017

[J19] Alex Bonutti, Sara Ceschia, Fabio De Cesco, Nysret Musliu and Andrea Schaerf. Modeling and Solving a Real-Life Multi-Skill Shift Design Problem. Annals of Operations Research, Volume 252, Issue 2, pp 365–382, 2017, doi:10.1007/s10479-016-2175-7

[J18] Nysret Musliu, Felix Winter. A Hybrid Approach for the Sudoku problem: Using Constraint Programming in Iterated Local Search. IEEE Intelligent Systems, Volume 32, Issue 2, pp 52-62, 2017

[J17] Emir Demirovic and Nysret Musliu. MaxSAT Based Large Neighborhood Search for High School Timetabling. Computers and Operations Research, Volume 78, February 2017, Pages 172–180.

[J16] Kadri Sylejmani, Jürgen Dorn, Nysret Musliu. Planning the trip itinerary for tourist groups. Information Technology & Tourism, 2017, doi:10.1007/s40558-017-0080-9

[J15] Emir Demirovic, Nysret Musliu. Modeling High School Timetabling with Bitvectors. Annals of Operations Research, Volume 252, Issue 2, pp 215–238, 2017.

[J14] Kathrin Conrad, Nysret Musliu, Reinhard Pichler, Hannes Werthner: Universities and computer science in the European crisis of refugees. Communications of the ACM 59(10): 31-33 (2016)

[J13] Michael Abseher, Martin Gebser, Nysret Musliu, Torsten Schaub, Stefan Woltran: Shift Design with Answer Set Programming. Fundamenta Informaticae, 147(1): 1-25, 2016, 2016.

[J12] Magdalena Widl, Nysret Musliu. The Break Scheduling Problem: Complexity Results and Practical Algorithms. Memetic Computing, 6(2): 97-112, 2014. (The final publication is available at http://link.springer.com)

[J11] Markus Triska, Nysret Musliu. An improved SAT formulation for the social golfer problem. Annals of Operations Research, 194(1): 427-438 (2012)

[J10] Andreas Beer, Johannes Gärtner, Nysret Musliu, Werner Schafhauser, Wolfgang Slany. An AI-based break-scheduling system for supervisory personnel. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 25(2):60-73, 2010.

[J9] Markus Triska, Nysret Musliu. An Effective Greedy Heuristic for the Social Golfer Problem. Annals of Operations Research, 194(1): 413-425 (2012)

[J8] Gerhard Post, Jeffrey H. Kingston, Samad Ahmadi, Sophia Daskalaki, Christos Gogos, Jari Kyngas, Cimmo Nurmi, Nysret Musliu, Nelishia Pillay, Haroldo Santos, Andrea Schaerf. XHSTT: an XML archive for high school timetabling problems in different countries. Annals of Operations Research, accepted for publication, 2012.

[J7] Luca Di Gaspero, Johannes Gärtner, Guy Kortsarz Nysret Musliu, Andrea Schaerf and Wolfgang Slany. The Minimum Shift Design Problem. Annals of Operations Research, Volume 155, pp. 79-105, 2007.

[J6] Nysret Musliu and Werner Schafhauser. Genetic Algorithms for Generalized Hypertree Decompositions. European Journal of Industrial Engineering, Volume1 No.3, pp. 317-340, 2007.

[J5] Nysret Musliu. Heuristic Methods for Automatic Rotating Workforce Scheduling. International Journal of Computational Intelligence Research, Volume 2, Issue 4, pp. 309-326, 2006.

[J4] Nysret Musliu, Andrea Schaerf, and Wolfgang Slany. Local Search for Shift Design. European Journal of Operational Research, 153(1), 51-64, 2004.

[J3] Nysret Musliu, Johannes Gärtner, Wolfgang Slany. Efficient generation of rotating workforce schedules. Discrete Applied Mathematics, Vol. 118 (1-2), pp. 85-98, 2002.

[J2] Ruth Fingerlos, Johannes Gärtner, Nysret Musliu, and Wolfgang Slany. Zyklische Schichtplanung. KI Journal, 2/01: 31-34, 2001.

[J1] Johannes Gärtner, Nysret Musliu, and Wolfgang Slany. Rota: A research project on algorithms for workforce scheduling and shift design optimisation. Artificial Intelligence Communications, 14(2): 83-92, 2001.

Refereed Book Chapters

[BC5] Thomas Hammerl, Nysret Musliu, and Werner Schafhauser. Metaheuristic Algorithms and Tree Decomposition. Handbook of Computational Intelligence, Kacprzyk, Janusz, Pedrycz, Witold (Eds.,), Springer, 2015. (The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com)

[BC4] Jussi Rasku, Nysret Musliu, and Tommi Kärkkäinen. Automating the Parameter Selection in VRP: An Off-line Parameter Tuning Tool Comparison. Modeling, Simulation and Optimization for Science and Technology. Computational Methods in Applied Sciences Volume 34, 2014, pp 191-209.

[BC3] Luca Di Gaspero, Johannes Gärtner, Nysret Musliu, Andrea Schaerf, Werner Schafhauser, and Wolfgang Slany. Automated Shift Design and Break Scheduling. Automated Scheduling and Planning, Studies in Computational Intelligence,Volume 505, 2013, pp 109-127. E. Ozcan, N. Urquhart, S. Uyar (Eds.) (The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com)

[BC2] Nysret Musliu. An Iterative Heuristic Algorithm for Tree Decomposition. Studies in Computational Intelligence Springer,Volume 153,pages 133-150, 2008. Carlos Cotta, Jano van Hemert (Eds.).

[BC1] Luca Di Gaspero, Johannes Gärtner, Guy Kortsarz, Nysret Musliu, Andrea Schaerf and Wolfgang Slany. Theory and Practice of the Minimum Shift Design Problem. In Metaheuristics: Progress as Real Problem Solvers, Springer, 2005. Ibaraki, Toshihide; Nonobe, Koji; Yagiura, Mutsunori (Eds.).

Conference and Workshop Publications

[C69] Lucas Kletzander, Nysret Musliu, Johannes Gärtner, Werner Schafhauser and Thomas Krennwallner. Exact Methods for Extended Rotating Workforce Scheduling Problems. ICAPS 2019, accepted for publication.

[C68] Felix Winter, Emir Demirović, Nysret Musliu and Christoph Mrkvicka. Solution Approaches for an Automotive Paint Shop Scheduling Problem. ICAPS 2019, accepted for publication.

[C67] Tobias Geibinger, Florian Mischek and Nysret Musliu. Investigating Constraint Programming for Real-World Industrial Test Laboratory Scheduling. CPAIOR 2019, accepted for publication.

[C66] Lucas Kletzander and Nysret Musliu. Modelling and Solving the Minimum Shift Design Problem. CPAIOR 2019, accepted for publication.

[C65] Arben Ahmeti, Nysret Musliu. Min-conflicts heuristic for multi-mode resource-constrained projects scheduling. GECCO 2018: 237-244

[C64] Lucas Kletzander, Nysret Musliu. Solving the General Employee Scheduling Problem. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference of the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling – PATAT 2018, 469 - 472.

[C63] Felix Winter, Emir Demirović, Nysret Musliu and Christoph Mrkvicka. Modeling and Solving an Automotive Paint Shop Scheduling Problem. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference of the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling – PATAT 2018, 477 - 480.

[C62] Florian Mischek, Nysret Musliu. A Local Search Framework for Industrial Test Laboratory Scheduling. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference of the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling – PATAT 2018, 465-467.

[C61] Emir Demirović, Nysret Musliu, Peter J. Stuckey and Felix Winter. Solution-Based Phase Saving and MaxSAT for Employee Scheduling: A Computational Study. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference of the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling – PATAT 2018, 453-457.

[C60] Nysret Musliu, Andreas Schutt, Peter J. Stuckey. Solver Independent Rotating Workforce Scheduling. CPAIOR 2018: The 15th International Conference on the Integration of Constraint Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Operations Research, June 26-29, 2018, Delft, The Netherlands.

[C59] Christoph Erkinger, Nysret Musliu. Personnel Scheduling as Satisfiability Modulo Theories. The 26th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2017), Melbourne, Australia, 2017.

C58] Lucas Kletzander, Nysret Musliu. A Multi-stage Simulated Annealing Algorithm for the Torpedo Scheduling Problem. CPAIOR 2017: The Fourteenth International Conference on Integration of Artificial Intelligence and Operations Research Techniques in Constraint Programming, Padova, Italy, June 5 - June 8, 2017. (The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com)

[C57] Michael Abseher, Nysret Musliu, Stefan Woltran. htd - A Free, Open-Source Framework for (Customized) Tree Decompositions and Beyond. CPAIOR 2017: The Fourteenth International Conference on Integration of Artificial Intelligence and Operations Research Techniques in Constraint Programming, Padova, Italy, June 5 - June 8, 2017. (The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com)

[C56] Gelareh Taghizadeh, Nysret Musliu. A Hybrid Feature Selection Algorithm based on Large Neighborhood Search, Proceeding so the 17th European Conference on Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimisation (EvoCOP), Amsterdam, Netherland, 2017.

[C55] Florian Mischek, Nysret Musliu. Integer Programming and Heuristic Approaches for a Multi-Stage Nurse Rostering Problem. Proceedings of PATAT 2016 - The 11th International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling, Udine, August 23 - 26, 2016.

[C54] Emir Demirovic, Nysret Musliu, Felix Winter. Modeling and solving staff scheduling with partial weighted maxSAT. Proceedings of PATAT 2016 - The 11th International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling, Udine, August 23 - 26, 2016.

[C53] Emir Demirović, Théo Le Calvar, Nysret Musliu, and Katsumi Inoue. An Exact Algorithm for Unicost Set Covering. Doctoral Program of the 22nd International Conference on the Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP 2016).

[C52] Michael Abseher, Frederico Dusberger, Nysret Musliu, Stefan Woltran. Improving the Efficiency of Dynamic Programming on Tree Decompositions via Machine Learning. Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IJCAI 2015, Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 25-31, 2015.

[C51] Michael Abseher, Martin Gebser, Nysret Musliu, Torsten Schaub and Stefan Woltran. Shift-design with Answer Set Programming. Proceeding of the 13th International Conference on Logic Programming and Non-monotonic Reasoning (LPNMR 2015), Lexington, KY, USA September 27-30, 2015 Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI), Volume 9345, Springer, 2015. (The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com)

Extended version of paper: Michael Abseher, Martin Gebser, Nysret Musliu, Torsten Schaub and Stefan Woltran. Shift Design with Answer Set Programming. The Eighth Workshop on Answer Set Programming and Other Computing Paradigms (ASPOCP 2015), Cork, Ireland , August 31, 2015.

[C50] Josef Pihera, Nysret Musliu. Application of Machine Learning to Algorithm Selection for TSP. Proceeding of the IEEE 26th International Conference on Tools with Artificial Intelligence (ICTAI), Limassol, Cyprus, November 10-12, 2014.

[C49] Emir Demirovic, Nysret Musliu. Modeling High School Timetabling as PartialWeighted maxSAT. LaSh 2014: The 4th Workshop on Logic and Search (a SAT / ICLP workshop at FLoC 2014), July 18, 2014, Vienna, Austria.

[C48] Emir Demirovic and Nysret Musliu. Solving High School Timetabling with Satisfiability Modulo Theories. Proceedings of the 10th International Conference of the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling, pages 142-166, York, UK, August 26-29, 2014.

[C47] Alex Bonutti, Fabio De Cesco, Nysret Musliu and Andrea Schaerf. Modeling and Solving a Real-Life Multi-Skill Shift Design Problem. Proceedings of the 10th International Conference of the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling, pages 459-461, York, UK, August 26-29, 2014.

[C46] Nysret Musliu, Martin Schwengerer. Algorithm Selection for the Graph Coloring Problem. Learning and Intelligent OptimizatioN Conference (LION 7), Catania - Italy, Jan 7-11, 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 7997, pages 389-403, Springer.

[C45] Nysret Musliu, Wolfgang Slany, Johannes Gaertner. Automated Test Case Generation in End-User Programming. Fourth International Symposium on End-User Development, Copenhagen, Denmark, June 10-13, 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 7897, pages 272-277, Springer..

[C44] Nysret Musliu. Analyzing the Features of Employee Scheduling Problems (abstract). XXVI EURO - INFORMS Joint International Conference, Rome, July 1 - 4, 2013.

[C43] Nysret Musliu. Applying Machine Learning for Solver Selection in Scheduling. 10th Metaheuristics International Conference (MIC 2013), Singapore, 5-8 August, 2013.

[C42] D. Bucar, S. Bessler, N. Musliu, J. Groenbaek. Scheduling of electric vehicle charging operations. MISTA - Multidisciplinary International Scheduling Conference: Theory and Applications, Ghent, Belgium, 27-30 Aug 2013.

[C41] Michael Morak, Nysret Musliu, Reinhard Pichler, Stefan Rümmele, Stefan Woltran. Evaluating Tree-Decomposition Based Algorithms for Answer Set Programming. Learning and Intelligent Optimization Conference (LION 6), Paris, Jan 16-20, 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 7219, pages 130-144, Springer.

[C40] Kadri Sylejmani, Juergen Dorn, Nysret Musliu. A Tabu Search approach for Multi Constrained Team Orienteering Problem and its application in touristic trip planning. HIS 2012: 300-305

[C39] Andreas Lehrbaum, Nysret Musliu. A new Hyperheuristic Algorithm for Cross Domain Search Problems. Learning and Intelligent Optimization Conference (LION 6), Paris, Jan 16-20, 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 7219, pages 437-442, Springer.

[C38] Johannes Gärtner, Nysret Musliu, Werner Schafhauser, Wolfgang Slany. TEMPLE - A Domain Specific Language for Modeling and Solving Staff Scheduling Problems. Proceedings of IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Scheduling (CI-Sched 2011), April 11-15, 2011 - Paris, France.

[C37] Michael Morak, Nysret Musliu, Reinhard Pichler, Stefan Rümmele, Stefan Woltran. A New Tree-Decomposition Based Algorithm for Answer Set Programming. The IEEE International Conference on Tools with Artificial Intelligence (ICTAI), Florida, USA, 2011.

[C36] Markus Triska, Nysret Musliu. A Constraint Programming Application for Rotating Workforce Scheduling. The Twenty-fourth International Conference on Industrial, Engineering and Other Applications of Applied Intelligent Systems (IEA/AIE 2011), Studies in Computational Intelligence, Volume 363, Springer 2011.

[C35] Nysret Musliu. Constructing Cyclic Staff Schedules by Iterated Local Search (extended abstract). The 9th Metaheuristics International Conference (MIC 2011), Udine, Italy, July 25-28, 2011.

[C34] M. Widl, N. Musliu. An improved memetic algorithm for break scheduling. HM 2010 - 7th International Workshop on Hybrid Metaheuristics. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 6373, pages 133-147, Springer, 2010.

[C33] L. Di Gaspero, J. Gärtner, N. Musliu, A. Schaerf, W. Schafhauser, and W. Slany. A hybrid LS-CP solver for the shifts and breaks design problem. HM 2010 - 7th International Workshop on Hybrid Metaheuristics. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 6373, pages 46-61, Springer, 2010. (extended abstract of this paper also appeared in Proceedings of PATAT 2010 - The 8th International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling, Belfast, August 10 - 13, 2010).

[C32] Sandford Bessler, Lukas Lang, Nysret Musliu, Scheduling content multicast trees with minimal repetitions. In Proceedings of Networks 2010 - 14th International telecommunications Network Strategy and Planning Symposium, September 27-30, Warsaw, Poland, 2010.

[C31] Werner Schafhauser, Andreas Beer, Johannes Gärtner, Nysret Musliu, Wolfgang Slany. Temple: an end-user language for staff scheduling problems (abstract). Matheuristics 2010 - Third international workshop on model-based metaheuristics, Vienna, 2010.

[C30] Thomas Hammerl, Nysret Musliu. Ant Colony Optimization for Tree Decompositions. EvoCOP 2010 – 10th European Conference on Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimisation, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 6022, Springer, 2010.

[C29] Nysret Musliu, Werner Schafhauser, Magdalen Widl. A Memetic Algorithm for a Break Scheduling Problem. The 8th Metaheuristic International Conference (MIC 2009), Hamburg, Germany, July 13-16, 2009.

[C28] Schafhauser, W., A. Beer, N. Musliu, W. Slany, J. Gärtner, and K. Boonstra-Hörwein. Break optimization in shifts (abstract). 19th International Symposium on Shiftwork and Working Time Health and Well-being in the 24-h Society. 2009. San Servolo Island - Venezia, Italy: Working Time Society.

[C27] Werner Schafhauser, Andreas Beer, Johannes Gärtner, Nysret Musliu, Wolf-gang Slany. TEMPLE – a language for staff scheduling problems (abstract). EURO 2009 - 23rd European Conference on Operational Research, Bonn, July 5 - 8, 2009.

[C26] Nysret Musliu, Andreas Beer, Johannes Gärtner, Werner Schafhauser, Wolf-gang Slany. Local search for shift and break scheduling (abstract). EURO 2009 - 23rd European Conference on Operational Research, Bonn, July 5 - 8, 2009.

[C25] Andreas Beer, Johannes Gärtner, Nysret Musliu, Werner Schafhauser and Wolfgang Slany. Testing while modelling staff scheduling problems (abstract). EURO 2009 - 23rd European Conference on Operational Research, Bonn, July 5 - 8, 2009.

[C24] Artan Dermaku, Tobias Ganzow, Georg Gottlob, Ben McMahan, Nysret Musliu, Marko Samer. Heuristic Methods for Hypertree Decompositions. MICAI 2008: Advances in Artificial Intelligence, 7th Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, Volume 5317, pages 1-11, 2008, Springer.

[C23] Andreas Beer, Johannes Gärtner, Nysret Musliu, Werner Schafhauser, Wolfgang Slany. Scheduling Breaks in Shift Plans for Call Centers. In Proceedings of PATAT 2008 - The 7th International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling, Montréal, August 18 - 22, 2008.

[C22] Andreas Beer, Johannes Gärtner, Nysret Musliu, Werner Schafhauser, Wolfgang Slany. An Iterated Local Search Algorithm for a Real-Life Break Scheduling Problem (abstract). Matheuristics2008- Second International Workshop on Model Based Metaheuristics, June 16 - 18, 2008, Bertinoro, Italy.

[C21] Markus Triska, Nysret Musliu. Solving the Social Golfer Problem with a GRASP. In Proceedings of PATAT 2008 - The 7th International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling, Montréal, August 18 - 22, 2008.

[C20] Markus Triska, Nysret Musliu. An Improved SAT Formulation for the Social Golfer Problem. In Proceedings of PATAT 2008 - The 7th International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling, Montréal, August 18 - 22, 2008.

[C19] Nysret Musliu. Generation of Tree Decompositions by Iterated Local Search. EvoCOP 2007 - Seventh European Conference on Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimisation, LNCS, Volume 4446, pages 130-141, 2007, Springer.

[C18] Nysret Musliu. Tabu Search for Generalized Hypertree Decompositions. The Seventh Metaheuristics International Conference (MIC), Montreal, June 25-29, 2007.

[C17] Nysret Musliu. Iterated Local Search for Cyclic Staff Scheduling (abstract of invited presentation). 22nd European Conference on Operational Research EURO XXII, Prague, 2007.

[C16] Nysret Musliu. An Iterative Heuristic Algorithm for Tree Decompositions. 7th EU/MEeting on Adaptive, Self-Adaptive, and Multi-Level Metaheuristics, University of Málaga, Spain, 16-17 November, 2006.

[C15] Nysret Musliu. Local search algorithm for unicost set covering problem, The 19th International Conference on Industrial, Engineering & Other Applications of Applied Intelligent Systems (IEA/AIE'06), Annecy, FRANCE, 2006 (Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI),Volume 4031 , pages 302-311, 2006, Springer).

[C14] Nysret Musliu. Combination of Local Search Strategies for Rotating Workforce Scheduling Problem (poster), Nineteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI- 05), Edinburgh, Scotland, 30 July - 5 August 2005 (also in Workshop on Design and Evaluation of Advanced Hybrid Meta-Heuristics, November 4-5, 2004, Nottingham, UK).

[C13] Georg Gottlob, Martin Grohe, Nysret Musliu, Marko Samer, and Francesco Scarcello. Hypertree Decompositions: Structure, Algorithms, and Applications, International Workshop on Graph-Theoretic Concepts in Computer Science (WG'05)", Metz, France, 2005, (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 3787, pages 1 – 15, 2005, Springer-Verlag Heidelberg).

[C12] Nysret Musliu. Min Conflicts Based Heuristics for Rotating Workforce Scheduling Problem. The 6th Metaheuristics International Conference (MIC'05), Vienna, Austria, August 22-26, 2005.

[C11] Nysret Musliu. Local Search Strategies for Rotating Workforce Scheduling Problem. Proceedings of the Fourth EU/ME Workshop on Design and Evaluation of Advanced Hybrid Meta-Heuristics, November 4-5, 2004, Nottingham, UK.

[C10] Johannes Gärtner, Nysret Musliu, Wolfgang Slany. A Heuristic Based System for Generation of Shifts with Breaks. Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems XII: Proceedings of AI-2004, the Twenty-fourth SGAI International Conference on Innovative Techniques and Applications of Artificial Intelligence, pages 95-106, 2005, Springer.

[C9] Michael Mörz, Nysret Musliu. Genetic Algorithm for Rotating Workforce Scheduling. Proceedings of second IEEE International Conference on Computational Cybernetics ( pages 121-126) , Vienna, Austria, August 30 – September 1, 2004.

[C8] Luca Di Gaspero, Johannes Gärtner, Guy Kortsarz Nysret Musliu, Andrea Schaerf and Wolfgang Slany. The Minimum Shift Design Problem: Theory and Practice. 11th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms, Budapest, 15-20 September, 2003. (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 2832, pages 593 – 604, 2003, Springer-Verlag Heidelberg)

[C7] Nysret Musliu. Applying Tabu Search to the Rotating Workforce Scheduling Problem. The 5th Metaheuristics International Conference (MIC'03), Kyoto, Japan, August 25-28, 2003.

[C6] Luca Di Gaspero, Johannes Gärtner, Guy Kortsarz Nysret Musliu, Andrea Schaerf and Wolfgang Slany. A hybrid network flow tabu search heuristic for the minimum shift design problem. The 5th Metaheuristics International Conference (MIC'03), Kyoto, Japan, August 25-28, 2003. (Extended Version: In K. Nonobe T. Ibaraki and M. Yagiura, editors, Metaheuristics: Progress as Real Problem Solvers. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2005)

[C5] Nysret Musliu, Andrea Schaerf, and Wolfgang Slany. Local Search for Shift Design. Proceedings of the 4th Metaheuristics International Conference (MIC'01), Porto, Portugal, July 16-20, 2001.

[C4] Nysret Musliu, Johannes Gärtner, Wolfgang Slany. Efficient generation of rotating workforce schedules. In Edmund Burke and Wilhem Erben, editors, Proceedings of the 3^rd international conference on the practice and theory of automated timetabling (PATAT 2000), Konstanz, Germany , pages 314-332, August 2000.

[C3] Wolfgang Slany, Nysret Musliu, Guy Kortsarz, and Johannes Gärtner. Theory and practice of shift scheduling (invited paper). RIMS Kokyuroku of the Research Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Kyoto University, 1185: 172-181, 2000.

[C2] Nysret Musliu, Johannes Gärtner, Wolfgang Slany. Shift scheduling from a combinatorial optimization point of view (abstract). Third Alio-Euro Workshop on Applied Combinatorial Optimization, Erice-Italy, November 1999.

[C1] Wahl S., Musliu N., Angelova R., Slany W., Herber G., Janke M. Shiftplanassistant 4.0 - State of development. XIV International Symposium on Night and Shiftwork, 1999 Wiesensteig, Germany. (Also appeared in: Hornberger S, Knauth P, Costa G, Folkard S, editors. Shiftwork in the 21st century: challenges for research and practice.Frankfurt: Peter Lang; 2000. p. 327-32).

Academic Writings

[A3] Nysret Musliu. Metaheuristics for Scheduling and other Hard Problems. Habilitation Thesis, Technische Universität Wien/Informatik, February 2007.

[A2] Nysret Musliu. Intelligent Search Methods for Workforce Scheduling: New Ideas and Practical Applications. PhD thesis, Technische Universität Wien, October 2001.

[A1] Nysret Musliu. „Ndërlidhja e Gjuhës Clipper me C“. Diploma thesis, University of Prishtina, July 1996.

Technical Reports

[TR9] Lucas Kletzander, Florian Mischek, Nysret Musliu, Gerhard Post and Felix Winter. A General Modeling Format for Employee Scheduling. Technical Report, DBAI-TR-2017-109, Technische Universität Wien, 2017.

[TR8] Michael Morak, Nysret Musliu, Reinhard Pichler, Stefan Rümmele, Stefan Woltran. Evaluating Tree-Decomposition Based Algorithms for Answer Set Programming. DBAI-TR-2011-73, Technische Universität Wien, 2011.

[TR6] Nysret Musliu, Johannes Gärtner, Wolfgang Slany. Efficient generation of rotating workforce schedules. Technical Report DBAI-TR-2000-35, Technische Universität Wien, 2000.

[TR5] Nysret Musliu, Andrea Schaerf, and Wolfgang Slany. Local Search for Shift Design. Technical Report DBAI-TR-2001-45, Technische Universität Wien, 2001.

[TR4] Nysret Musliu. Applying Tabu Search to the Rotating Workforce Scheduling Problem. Technical Report DBAI-TR-2003-49, Technische Universität Wien, 2003/05.

[TR3] Tobias Ganzow, Georg Gottlob, Nysret Musliu, Marko Samer. A CSP Hypergraph Library, DBAI-TR-2005-50, Technische Universität Wien, 2005.

[TR2] Artan Dermaku, Tobias Ganzow, Georg Gottlob, Ben McMahan, Nysret Musliu, Marko Samer. Heuristic Methods for Hypertree Decompositions, DBAI-TR-2005-53, Technische Universität Wien, 2005.

[TR1] Nysret Musliu. An Iterative Heuristic Algorithm for Tree Decomposition. DBAI-TR-2007-56. Technische Universität Wien, 2007.

Software

Contribution to Commercial Scheduling Software Packages

I have been one of main developers of algorithms in software packages:

First Class Scheduler – FCS (part of Shift Plan Assistant (SPA) of Ximes Corp.): This package is internationally recognised software for rotating workforce scheduling, and is licensed and used since 1999 in many companies in Europe.
Operating Hours Assistant (OPA 1.0) of Ximes Corp.: This package is used successfully and licensed since year 2000 in different companies in Europe like airports, call centres, hospitals, etc.
For generation of shifts with breaks: This software was included in OPA 2.0, and was used from different companies in airports, call centres etc.

I have been working on developing of algorithms and object oriented design for RAS (The Representation and Analysis Software): Software of Ximes Corp. for the US Department of Transportation.

Hypertree Library

Includes several algorithms for generation of hypertree decompositions. I have been working on developing of some algorithms in this library. The algorithms have been evaluated for benchmark examples from the literature and the industry

Benchmark Problems

Shift Design Problem

Includes three different sets of randomly generated examples for the shift design problem

Shift Design and Break Scheduling

Includes real life and random instances for the shift design and break scheduling problem

Rotating Workforce Scheduling

Includes 20 benchmark problems for rotating workforce scheduling problem. Example 1-3 appeared earlier in the literature, and other 17 examples are real life problems

Hypertree decomposition - CSP Hypergraph Library

This collection of problems contains hypergraph representation of several classes of CSP instances. These instances include industrial examples and randomly generated examples. These problems are used for evaluation of hypertree decompositions algorithms

Last modified: 03/2017