icon

Usetutoringspotscode to get 8% OFF on your first order!

Audits and Program Evaluations

Audits and Program Evaluations
Order Description
Briefly decscribe the audit and the program evaluation from any organization.
Compare the audit and the program evaluation for the organization on the following:
Purpose
Function
Where used in the organization
What they evaluate
How they relate to accountablity
Write a summary statement of your comparison based on what you learned about audits and programs evaluations as they relate to accountability.
Teacher Website Search
Using the Blogger website or a similar site, create a new blog. Post your blog address to the Topic 6 Main Forum.
Research practicing teachers’ websites for ideas and strategies on classroom arrangement, structure, activities, and organization. Choose four favorites and create a blog entry, summarizing the virtues of the chosen sites. Include the following as part of your blog:
1 List the specific examples you have located and justify why they are outstanding examples of supportive learning environments for young learners.
2 . List the website addresses. If the teacher provided an email, you may want to write a short thank you and acknowledgement for sharing their ideas so freely. This is not required as part of the assignment, but preferred in order to recognize the work of others in the field.
3. Review at least two other student blogs and discuss with your classmates, within the blog, the merits of the websites or why you may not agree that the chosen site is a good example.
4. In addition to the blog entry, create a chart, table, or matrix that presents your detailed analysis of the websites.
Rubric please follow
The summary is clear and concise. It Includes arrangement, content, materials, structure, methodology, and organizational ideas. Website addresses are given.
The analysis is clear and concise. Evidence of connections of analysis to all specific website attributes is clear.
Describes chosen websites in detail using appropriate vocabulary and includes all relevant characteristics.
Writer is clearly in command of standard, written English.

1.

imagination

In what ways can we promote imagination in elementary school students, and how will this benefit society as a whole?

Please focus on Waldorf Education and reference the following books/websites:
– Toward Wholeness by MC R

2.

ST. FRANCIC
I’ I E
• L.111) C MUSLIMS WORKING TOGETHER FOR THE COMMON GOOD CATHOLICS AND • • TT*:
ARVIN L. KRIE

Mac
The book is (G. Dardess and M. Mich, In the Spirit of St. Francis and the Sultan. Orbis Books 2011. ISBN: 9781570759079 )
the book report may go over five pages but should not be less than that (e.g. 4 1/2 page-report will receive a point deduction). The book report must include responses to the following questions. Each question should be addressed separately and should be clearly identified by the numeral and/or the question:
(i) What sort of book is this? What subjects are covered? What is the chronological limit? What field of work does it come out of? What kind of questions does this focus allow the author to answer/explore? What kinds of questions are precluded by this focus?
(ii) What is the overall point/thesis of the book? One way of looking at this is what bothers, delights, fascinates, frightens or repulses the author and what are they trying to do with that and why? Another way to consider this question is to ask what problem is this author trying to solve? Do their efforts work to your satisfaction?
(iii) What three new insights about the subject did you learn from this book?
(iv) Identify one confrontation with your own assumptions that you found in this text, i.e. what do you now
have to at least consider differently than before reading this book?
(v) What useful connections do you find between the required readings, discussions in class, and this text?
What relevant dis-connections do you find?
(vi) Would you recommend this book to others? to whom? why or why not?

it is very important that you follow scholarly standards in your writing and presentation. Please cite page numbers within the text of your report as extensively as possible. All assertions and statements taken from the book, whether they are quoted or paraphrased must be cited in a parenthetical format (e.g. author’s last name, p. xx). Similarly all references to ideas or critical issues referred to in your report must include a page reference from the book. Example: “the author includes a long discussion on Buddhism in Asia on “pages xyz”, but never mentions the presence of Buddhism in Indonesia which has a significant Buddhist following….” No book report drafts will be reviewed without adequate in-text references. Book-reports will be graded on the basis of how strictly you observe the following: (1) scholarly format; (2) scholarly writing style and content and (3) timely submission and in-class presentation of the summary of the report.

3.
Food Saver
Task 1 (10 Marks)
Generate a list of five constraints that apply to your project theme. The constraints must be realistic, and they must serve a purpose. Identify the constraints, and indicate why they have been adopted.

Task 2 (10 Marks)
Identify all of the relevant functions of your design project. This includes the basic and secondary functions. When listing the secondary functions, specify whether they are required or unwanted and explain your answer.

Task 3 (30 Marks)
Construct each of the following and explain the results:
• A Pairwise Comparison Chart to rank the goals of your design project.
• A Morphological Chart to illustrate the design space for your design project.
• A Numerical Evaluation Matrix to evaluate the various design options for your design project.

4.

marketing strategy
The text book Perreault, W. & McCarthy, J. (2014) Basic marketing: A marketing strategy planning approach. (19th
ed.). McGraw-Hill. ISBN: 9780078028984.

Prepare a 2-page analysis for the case on pages 608 – 609 of your text called “NOCO United Soccer Academy.”
Assume you are the consultant that a company has retained to help answer the questions listed in the case. Be sure to respond to the questions at the end of the case although write this as a paper in APA format.

5.

Pericles was responsible for dragging Athens into war with Sparta, and next we’ll cover the course of that war during his lifetime and in subsequent decades (he died in the second outbreak of the plague in Athens). For your response, consider the conversation between Athenian envoys and the representatives of the island city-state of Melos in 416 BCE (AW:R 8.9). Against the islanders’ reasonable arguments to forestall the punishment Athens is about to inflict, what straightforward rationale to the Athenians give for the harsh terms they’re imposing upon the Melians? Keeping in mind the soaring patriotic rhetoric of Pericles in the funeral oration, why are the Athenians so apparently angry and determined to see through this brutal destruction of the Melian community?

(Note that Thucydides uses ‘Lacedaemonians’ to refer to Spartans; that’s what ‘Spartans’ called themelseves).

6.

Programming Assignment Specification (Due date 5pm Tuesday Week 13)
PSSD – Assignment
The Travelling Thief Problem
This assignment is to be done individually and handed in via the web submission system.
The due date for this assignment is the end of semester. There will be a lot of assignments in other courses due by then – and the last prac exam is on Thursday in Week 12 – so you must plan your time carefully up that date and start as soon as you can.
Resources
A directory with some input and output cases can be found here. A description of what these mean is given near the end of this specification.
There is a C++ included with these cases called Eval.cpp which evaluates your solution with respect to its TTP setup file. Eval sanity checks the tour for length and duplicates and checks the weight of the knapsack as well as checking that the tour starts at the first city. Any violations print a message to stderr and return a value of INT_MIN on stdin. If your solution is valid then Eval will print a number indicating how good your solution is. A higher number is better.

The Eval program is compiled using
g++ -g -o Eval Eval.cpp

and run using
./Eval fnl.ttp fnl_soln.ttp
where you would substitute the name of your desired ttp setup file (see below) for fnl.ttp and your own ttp solution file for fnl_soln.ttp.
As mentioned above, the result of running Eval is just a number string printed to standard out.

In your program you can call Eval and read it’s result using popen (see: http://www.sw-at.com/blog/2011/03/23/popen-execute-shell-command-from-cc/) for an example. The return string can be parsed using something like the ston<> template in the Eval source.

In an ideal world we would just ship the functions in Eval as a library, but that opens up a lot of failure modes so we are using a self contained executable instead. This has been tested to compile on debian and on the lab image.

The Eval file is the same as that used in testing. If there are are any changes (which we’re hoping will not be the case) then you all will get the new file, of course.
The websubmission systems handin key will be set up shortly. The system has a process limit of one minute per test case, so your solutions will need to be constrained to working in a short time.
You can use algorithms or ideas (but not code) from any location that you find. However, you must credit these ideas in your code comments and in your other submission files so that we know where they came from. If you use someone else’s idea or a published algorithm and you make clear the extent of someone else’s contribution then you cannot get into trouble for misconduct. However, the marks that you get will be aligned with the value that you personally add. If you use a published algorithm (again not code!) and it forms a small part of the total product and you acknowledge the use and you made substantial intellectual effort in the rest of the program then you can still get full marks.
Specification
You are a thief planning a grand tour of a set of cities x={x1,…,xn}. You have to visit every city just once (a Hamiltonian tour) and collect loot from these cites in a knapsack. The cities are connected by a set of roads of known length (measured in kilometres). Your aim is to maximise the profit you make on the loot you collect.
Each city has a number of items that you can steal. You cannot steal in one city the same item several times. For this assignment, you can assume that all cities have the same number of items (e.g. three per city). Since there are no items in the start/end city number 1, this means that the total number of items for a particular scenario is m=(n-1)*itemsPerCity.
Each item of loot yk has a value pk and a weight wk. You are a very talented thief and you able to steal anything that you plan. However, this is the extent of the good news. You are faced with a series of constraints that will affect how much profit you will make. These constraints are:
1. Your knapsack, like all knapsacks, has a limited capacity. The total weight of items that the knapsack can hold is W.
2. Your knapsack is a premium knapsack and, as such, must be rented. You must pay a rent of $R for the knapsack per hour. This will have obvious implications for any profit that you make.
3. Once you are in city you can steal items infinitely quickly. However between cites you can only travel at a maximum speed of vmax kilometres per hour. Moreover, you will go more slowly as the knapsack gets heavier. The formula for your speed is:
vc= vmax- Wc ((vmax- vmin )/W)
where vc is your current speed, Wc is the current weight of the knapsack and vmin is the minimum speed at which you can travel. Recall that W is the total capacity of your knapsack. The formula above means that when your knapsack is empty you can travel at vmax and when your knapsack is full you will travel at vmin.
Now remember that you are in the business of making profit. Your profit can be expressed by the formula:
Profit = LootValue – (R x TourTime)
Where LootValue is the value of items in the bag when you reach home. R is the hourly rent for the knapsack and TourTime is the time it takes to complete the tour. According to this formula, you will want to make sure your tour happens quickly (so you don’t have to pay too much out in rent) and you collect the lightest and most valuable items as a priority. You will also want to plan your trip so that if you want to pick up a heavy (but valuable!) item you would be better leaving that till late in the tour rather than picking it up earlier and lugging it slowly around. Note that the calculation of the value of a tour is done by the Eval program you are provided with.. you do not need to code this part.
Input and Output
The input for your solution is the ttp setup file. This file contains the following on separate lines. See the example in the next section to clarify the meaning of the following.
• n: the number of cities
• m: the number of different items.
• W: the maximum weight capacity of knapsack
• vmax: maximum velocity
• vmin: minimum velociy
• R: the rent of the knapsack (per hour)
• the next n lines define the coordinates of the cities
• the next m lines define the items and where they are located
Very important: city 1 does not contain any items, as it is the start and end city of the thief’s tour!
Note you shouldn’t have to provide this file – we have given you some examples to work with at the link above but we have described it here (and shown an example listing below) in case you want to modify these.
The output of your problem is in the form of a file with two lines of comma-separated integers (optionally surrounded by square brackets)
• a tour consisting of the sequence of cities visited. This will basically be a permutation of the numbers 1 to n.
• a picking plan, which is a sequence of numbers of length <=m denoting which items (given their item ID) you picked.
An example input and output file is shown next.
Example Problem
Consider the following instance simple4_n6.ttp:
PROBLEM NAME: simple4-TTP
KNAPSACK DATA TYPE: manual construction
DIMENSION: 4
NUMBER OF ITEMS: 6
CAPACITY OF KNAPSACK: 100
MIN SPEED: 0.1
MAX SPEED: 1
RENTING RATIO: 1.00
EDGE_WEIGHT_TYPE: CEIL_2D
NODE_COORD_SECTION (INDEX, X, Y):
1 0 0
2 0 10
3 10 0
4 10 10
ITEMS SECTION (INDEX, PROFIT, WEIGHT, ASSIGNED NODE NUMBER):
1 10 1 2
2 20 5 3
3 40 1 4
4 10 1 2
5 20 5 3
6 40 9 4
With a solution (output) like
[1,2,4,3]
[]
your objective score is -40.
With a basic optimisation algorithm that optimises tours and/or stealing plans, you can achieve a score of 29.0535.
With a great optimisation algorithm you can achieve a score of 96.1371. The solution in this case looks like:
[1,2,4,3]
[1,2,3,4,5,6]
Note that, because each object is assigned to only one city in the picking plan in the ttp setup file the numbers second array can be in any order.

For one of the hidden test cases in websubmission, the values are as follows:
• you steal nothing: -2037.9600000000003
• basic algorithm: 3618.177567129562
• great algorithm: 3840.452067682491
For the fnl instance (not part of the testing) that is part of our distributed files, a basic approach will get you into the area of ~200,000, and a great value would be 256,591.
What is a Basic Approach?
For example the following two-phase approach is a basic approach:
1. You generate a good tour for the traveling salesperson problem, e.g. using the Lin-Kernighan heuristic. Then, you keep this tour and you will not modify it anymore.
2. In the next phase, you work exclusively on the set of items. For example, you can start with a random combination (or “none picked”). Then, iteratively you check whether adding or dropping a single randomly picked item increases your objective score (do this with the Eval executable). If the new stealing plan (in combination with the fixed tour from step 1) yields a better objective score, you take this new solution and you do step 2 again… until time is up.
Make sure to generate the file in the end!
What to submit
Note: the following might change slightly in the next days, we will inform you as soon as possible. However, the changes here will not affect your search for good optimisation algorithms.
In your svn repository in a subdirectory called 2015/s2/pssd/assign1 you are to commit the following files:
• a C++ source file called TTP.cpp
• a Makefile that will compile TPP.cpp to a binary called TTP when the user runs make.
• any other source files you will need to compile
• A journal.pdf file containing the notes you created when constructing your program. Note that this file is a PDF document so your source documents can be text or it can be direct scan of (readable) handwritten notes. This file must be a believable commentary of what you did and tried while developing your program.. writing it at the last minute is a bad idea.
• A pdf file called algorithm.pdf that describes the algorithm you used in plain English (with snippets of pseudo code if you like). The formatting of this file can be basic – it can just be plain text but the content must be clear and informative.
NOTE: The websubmission system is not yet set up. If you want to experiment with a more comlex instance, feel free to take this. Basic scores are at around 16000, and great scores are above 18000.
How it will be tested
In the websubmission system will compile and run your program with a series of test maps. The largest instance might contain over 600 cities and over 6000 items. We will test your program according to three criteria:
1. That optimisation is in under 60 seconds.
2. If point 1. above is OK then we will check to see that the produced solution (in file instanceName_soln.ttp) defines a solution that: (1) does not overload the knapsack, (2) starts in city 1.
3. If points 1 and 2 above are OK then we will compute the objective score and mark you accordinly.
Note that we have some hidden thresholds (based on tours on which nothing is packed). Once you reach that threshold, you get 40% of the marks for that test case. In order to get more, you need to achieve better scores. Think of us as being godfathers who know what a good thief should be able to achieve.
Testing your own programs
In the resources folder there are a couple of files to help you simulate the trip. Also look at the Resources section above.
How your work will be assessed
The breakdown of marks for this assignment are:
1. 45% for the actual results on the tests in websubmission
2. 5% for style and commenting of your source code
3. 30% for having the development process convincingly detailed in journal.pdf
4. 20% for a clear explanation of your algorithm in algorithm.pdf
For the first part, we will compute your score based on the following pseudo code:
You have to achieve at least the “basic value” in order to get 40% here. The remaining marks are based on your performancerelative to “great”:

FOREACH instance i do
run instance for a maximum of 60 seconds, computes value obj[i]
IF obj[i] >= basic[i]
THEN marks[i] = (obj[i]-basic[i]) / (great[i]-basic[i])
marks[i] = marks[i]*0.6
marks[i] += 40
markForStudent = marks[0] + … + marks[4]
rescale to fit 45%
Please note: this formula is subject to change in case we encounter problems.
Journal Assessment
Your journal.pdf file must contain the notes that you wrote for your own use as you developed your code. It should contain your ideas, hypotheses, reflections, pointers to resources, commentary on mistakes and test results. It should read like a running commentary of your development. The English does not have to be polished. It can be handwritten (but readable). If you are already using a journal for your development and you are taking enough notes and making enough reflections for it to be helpful in your own development then you should be meeting the requirements to get the marks for this project. Note that we will expect the journal to be quite long if your program was challenging to develop in keeping with the length of the project.
Algorithm Description Assessment
Your algorithm description must be in plain English with pseudo-code. You only have to describe the core of your algorithm the part that moves the cities. The description should be clear, concise and in your own words. We expect this part of the assignment to be between 500 and 1500 words.
End of Specification

Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Comments are closed.

Audits and Program Evaluations

Audits and Program Evaluations
Order Description
Briefly decscribe the audit and the program evaluation from any organization.
Compare the audit and the program evaluation for the organization on the following:
Purpose
Function
Where used in the organization
What they evaluate
How they relate to accountablity
Write a summary statement of your comparison based on what you learned about audits and programs evaluations as they relate to accountability.
Teacher Website Search
Using the Blogger website or a similar site, create a new blog. Post your blog address to the Topic 6 Main Forum.
Research practicing teachers’ websites for ideas and strategies on classroom arrangement, structure, activities, and organization. Choose four favorites and create a blog entry, summarizing the virtues of the chosen sites. Include the following as part of your blog:
1 List the specific examples you have located and justify why they are outstanding examples of supportive learning environments for young learners.
2 . List the website addresses. If the teacher provided an email, you may want to write a short thank you and acknowledgement for sharing their ideas so freely. This is not required as part of the assignment, but preferred in order to recognize the work of others in the field.
3. Review at least two other student blogs and discuss with your classmates, within the blog, the merits of the websites or why you may not agree that the chosen site is a good example.
4. In addition to the blog entry, create a chart, table, or matrix that presents your detailed analysis of the websites.
Rubric please follow
The summary is clear and concise. It Includes arrangement, content, materials, structure, methodology, and organizational ideas. Website addresses are given.
The analysis is clear and concise. Evidence of connections of analysis to all specific website attributes is clear.
Describes chosen websites in detail using appropriate vocabulary and includes all relevant characteristics.
Writer is clearly in command of standard, written English.

1.

imagination

In what ways can we promote imagination in elementary school students, and how will this benefit society as a whole?

Please focus on Waldorf Education and reference the following books/websites:
– Toward Wholeness by MC R

2.

ST. FRANCIC
I’ I E
• L.111) C MUSLIMS WORKING TOGETHER FOR THE COMMON GOOD CATHOLICS AND • • TT*:
ARVIN L. KRIE

Mac
The book is (G. Dardess and M. Mich, In the Spirit of St. Francis and the Sultan. Orbis Books 2011. ISBN: 9781570759079 )
the book report may go over five pages but should not be less than that (e.g. 4 1/2 page-report will receive a point deduction). The book report must include responses to the following questions. Each question should be addressed separately and should be clearly identified by the numeral and/or the question:
(i) What sort of book is this? What subjects are covered? What is the chronological limit? What field of work does it come out of? What kind of questions does this focus allow the author to answer/explore? What kinds of questions are precluded by this focus?
(ii) What is the overall point/thesis of the book? One way of looking at this is what bothers, delights, fascinates, frightens or repulses the author and what are they trying to do with that and why? Another way to consider this question is to ask what problem is this author trying to solve? Do their efforts work to your satisfaction?
(iii) What three new insights about the subject did you learn from this book?
(iv) Identify one confrontation with your own assumptions that you found in this text, i.e. what do you now
have to at least consider differently than before reading this book?
(v) What useful connections do you find between the required readings, discussions in class, and this text?
What relevant dis-connections do you find?
(vi) Would you recommend this book to others? to whom? why or why not?

it is very important that you follow scholarly standards in your writing and presentation. Please cite page numbers within the text of your report as extensively as possible. All assertions and statements taken from the book, whether they are quoted or paraphrased must be cited in a parenthetical format (e.g. author’s last name, p. xx). Similarly all references to ideas or critical issues referred to in your report must include a page reference from the book. Example: “the author includes a long discussion on Buddhism in Asia on “pages xyz”, but never mentions the presence of Buddhism in Indonesia which has a significant Buddhist following….” No book report drafts will be reviewed without adequate in-text references. Book-reports will be graded on the basis of how strictly you observe the following: (1) scholarly format; (2) scholarly writing style and content and (3) timely submission and in-class presentation of the summary of the report.

3.
Food Saver
Task 1 (10 Marks)
Generate a list of five constraints that apply to your project theme. The constraints must be realistic, and they must serve a purpose. Identify the constraints, and indicate why they have been adopted.

Task 2 (10 Marks)
Identify all of the relevant functions of your design project. This includes the basic and secondary functions. When listing the secondary functions, specify whether they are required or unwanted and explain your answer.

Task 3 (30 Marks)
Construct each of the following and explain the results:
• A Pairwise Comparison Chart to rank the goals of your design project.
• A Morphological Chart to illustrate the design space for your design project.
• A Numerical Evaluation Matrix to evaluate the various design options for your design project.

4.

marketing strategy
The text book Perreault, W. & McCarthy, J. (2014) Basic marketing: A marketing strategy planning approach. (19th
ed.). McGraw-Hill. ISBN: 9780078028984.

Prepare a 2-page analysis for the case on pages 608 – 609 of your text called “NOCO United Soccer Academy.”
Assume you are the consultant that a company has retained to help answer the questions listed in the case. Be sure to respond to the questions at the end of the case although write this as a paper in APA format.

5.

Pericles was responsible for dragging Athens into war with Sparta, and next we’ll cover the course of that war during his lifetime and in subsequent decades (he died in the second outbreak of the plague in Athens). For your response, consider the conversation between Athenian envoys and the representatives of the island city-state of Melos in 416 BCE (AW:R 8.9). Against the islanders’ reasonable arguments to forestall the punishment Athens is about to inflict, what straightforward rationale to the Athenians give for the harsh terms they’re imposing upon the Melians? Keeping in mind the soaring patriotic rhetoric of Pericles in the funeral oration, why are the Athenians so apparently angry and determined to see through this brutal destruction of the Melian community?

(Note that Thucydides uses ‘Lacedaemonians’ to refer to Spartans; that’s what ‘Spartans’ called themelseves).

6.

Programming Assignment Specification (Due date 5pm Tuesday Week 13)
PSSD – Assignment
The Travelling Thief Problem
This assignment is to be done individually and handed in via the web submission system.
The due date for this assignment is the end of semester. There will be a lot of assignments in other courses due by then – and the last prac exam is on Thursday in Week 12 – so you must plan your time carefully up that date and start as soon as you can.
Resources
A directory with some input and output cases can be found here. A description of what these mean is given near the end of this specification.
There is a C++ included with these cases called Eval.cpp which evaluates your solution with respect to its TTP setup file. Eval sanity checks the tour for length and duplicates and checks the weight of the knapsack as well as checking that the tour starts at the first city. Any violations print a message to stderr and return a value of INT_MIN on stdin. If your solution is valid then Eval will print a number indicating how good your solution is. A higher number is better.

The Eval program is compiled using
g++ -g -o Eval Eval.cpp

and run using
./Eval fnl.ttp fnl_soln.ttp
where you would substitute the name of your desired ttp setup file (see below) for fnl.ttp and your own ttp solution file for fnl_soln.ttp.
As mentioned above, the result of running Eval is just a number string printed to standard out.

In your program you can call Eval and read it’s result using popen (see: http://www.sw-at.com/blog/2011/03/23/popen-execute-shell-command-from-cc/) for an example. The return string can be parsed using something like the ston<> template in the Eval source.

In an ideal world we would just ship the functions in Eval as a library, but that opens up a lot of failure modes so we are using a self contained executable instead. This has been tested to compile on debian and on the lab image.

The Eval file is the same as that used in testing. If there are are any changes (which we’re hoping will not be the case) then you all will get the new file, of course.
The websubmission systems handin key will be set up shortly. The system has a process limit of one minute per test case, so your solutions will need to be constrained to working in a short time.
You can use algorithms or ideas (but not code) from any location that you find. However, you must credit these ideas in your code comments and in your other submission files so that we know where they came from. If you use someone else’s idea or a published algorithm and you make clear the extent of someone else’s contribution then you cannot get into trouble for misconduct. However, the marks that you get will be aligned with the value that you personally add. If you use a published algorithm (again not code!) and it forms a small part of the total product and you acknowledge the use and you made substantial intellectual effort in the rest of the program then you can still get full marks.
Specification
You are a thief planning a grand tour of a set of cities x={x1,…,xn}. You have to visit every city just once (a Hamiltonian tour) and collect loot from these cites in a knapsack. The cities are connected by a set of roads of known length (measured in kilometres). Your aim is to maximise the profit you make on the loot you collect.
Each city has a number of items that you can steal. You cannot steal in one city the same item several times. For this assignment, you can assume that all cities have the same number of items (e.g. three per city). Since there are no items in the start/end city number 1, this means that the total number of items for a particular scenario is m=(n-1)*itemsPerCity.
Each item of loot yk has a value pk and a weight wk. You are a very talented thief and you able to steal anything that you plan. However, this is the extent of the good news. You are faced with a series of constraints that will affect how much profit you will make. These constraints are:
1. Your knapsack, like all knapsacks, has a limited capacity. The total weight of items that the knapsack can hold is W.
2. Your knapsack is a premium knapsack and, as such, must be rented. You must pay a rent of $R for the knapsack per hour. This will have obvious implications for any profit that you make.
3. Once you are in city you can steal items infinitely quickly. However between cites you can only travel at a maximum speed of vmax kilometres per hour. Moreover, you will go more slowly as the knapsack gets heavier. The formula for your speed is:
vc= vmax- Wc ((vmax- vmin )/W)
where vc is your current speed, Wc is the current weight of the knapsack and vmin is the minimum speed at which you can travel. Recall that W is the total capacity of your knapsack. The formula above means that when your knapsack is empty you can travel at vmax and when your knapsack is full you will travel at vmin.
Now remember that you are in the business of making profit. Your profit can be expressed by the formula:
Profit = LootValue – (R x TourTime)
Where LootValue is the value of items in the bag when you reach home. R is the hourly rent for the knapsack and TourTime is the time it takes to complete the tour. According to this formula, you will want to make sure your tour happens quickly (so you don’t have to pay too much out in rent) and you collect the lightest and most valuable items as a priority. You will also want to plan your trip so that if you want to pick up a heavy (but valuable!) item you would be better leaving that till late in the tour rather than picking it up earlier and lugging it slowly around. Note that the calculation of the value of a tour is done by the Eval program you are provided with.. you do not need to code this part.
Input and Output
The input for your solution is the ttp setup file. This file contains the following on separate lines. See the example in the next section to clarify the meaning of the following.
• n: the number of cities
• m: the number of different items.
• W: the maximum weight capacity of knapsack
• vmax: maximum velocity
• vmin: minimum velociy
• R: the rent of the knapsack (per hour)
• the next n lines define the coordinates of the cities
• the next m lines define the items and where they are located
Very important: city 1 does not contain any items, as it is the start and end city of the thief’s tour!
Note you shouldn’t have to provide this file – we have given you some examples to work with at the link above but we have described it here (and shown an example listing below) in case you want to modify these.
The output of your problem is in the form of a file with two lines of comma-separated integers (optionally surrounded by square brackets)
• a tour consisting of the sequence of cities visited. This will basically be a permutation of the numbers 1 to n.
• a picking plan, which is a sequence of numbers of length <=m denoting which items (given their item ID) you picked.
An example input and output file is shown next.
Example Problem
Consider the following instance simple4_n6.ttp:
PROBLEM NAME: simple4-TTP
KNAPSACK DATA TYPE: manual construction
DIMENSION: 4
NUMBER OF ITEMS: 6
CAPACITY OF KNAPSACK: 100
MIN SPEED: 0.1
MAX SPEED: 1
RENTING RATIO: 1.00
EDGE_WEIGHT_TYPE: CEIL_2D
NODE_COORD_SECTION (INDEX, X, Y):
1 0 0
2 0 10
3 10 0
4 10 10
ITEMS SECTION (INDEX, PROFIT, WEIGHT, ASSIGNED NODE NUMBER):
1 10 1 2
2 20 5 3
3 40 1 4
4 10 1 2
5 20 5 3
6 40 9 4
With a solution (output) like
[1,2,4,3]
[]
your objective score is -40.
With a basic optimisation algorithm that optimises tours and/or stealing plans, you can achieve a score of 29.0535.
With a great optimisation algorithm you can achieve a score of 96.1371. The solution in this case looks like:
[1,2,4,3]
[1,2,3,4,5,6]
Note that, because each object is assigned to only one city in the picking plan in the ttp setup file the numbers second array can be in any order.

For one of the hidden test cases in websubmission, the values are as follows:
• you steal nothing: -2037.9600000000003
• basic algorithm: 3618.177567129562
• great algorithm: 3840.452067682491
For the fnl instance (not part of the testing) that is part of our distributed files, a basic approach will get you into the area of ~200,000, and a great value would be 256,591.
What is a Basic Approach?
For example the following two-phase approach is a basic approach:
1. You generate a good tour for the traveling salesperson problem, e.g. using the Lin-Kernighan heuristic. Then, you keep this tour and you will not modify it anymore.
2. In the next phase, you work exclusively on the set of items. For example, you can start with a random combination (or “none picked”). Then, iteratively you check whether adding or dropping a single randomly picked item increases your objective score (do this with the Eval executable). If the new stealing plan (in combination with the fixed tour from step 1) yields a better objective score, you take this new solution and you do step 2 again… until time is up.
Make sure to generate the file in the end!
What to submit
Note: the following might change slightly in the next days, we will inform you as soon as possible. However, the changes here will not affect your search for good optimisation algorithms.
In your svn repository in a subdirectory called 2015/s2/pssd/assign1 you are to commit the following files:
• a C++ source file called TTP.cpp
• a Makefile that will compile TPP.cpp to a binary called TTP when the user runs make.
• any other source files you will need to compile
• A journal.pdf file containing the notes you created when constructing your program. Note that this file is a PDF document so your source documents can be text or it can be direct scan of (readable) handwritten notes. This file must be a believable commentary of what you did and tried while developing your program.. writing it at the last minute is a bad idea.
• A pdf file called algorithm.pdf that describes the algorithm you used in plain English (with snippets of pseudo code if you like). The formatting of this file can be basic – it can just be plain text but the content must be clear and informative.
NOTE: The websubmission system is not yet set up. If you want to experiment with a more comlex instance, feel free to take this. Basic scores are at around 16000, and great scores are above 18000.
How it will be tested
In the websubmission system will compile and run your program with a series of test maps. The largest instance might contain over 600 cities and over 6000 items. We will test your program according to three criteria:
1. That optimisation is in under 60 seconds.
2. If point 1. above is OK then we will check to see that the produced solution (in file instanceName_soln.ttp) defines a solution that: (1) does not overload the knapsack, (2) starts in city 1.
3. If points 1 and 2 above are OK then we will compute the objective score and mark you accordinly.
Note that we have some hidden thresholds (based on tours on which nothing is packed). Once you reach that threshold, you get 40% of the marks for that test case. In order to get more, you need to achieve better scores. Think of us as being godfathers who know what a good thief should be able to achieve.
Testing your own programs
In the resources folder there are a couple of files to help you simulate the trip. Also look at the Resources section above.
How your work will be assessed
The breakdown of marks for this assignment are:
1. 45% for the actual results on the tests in websubmission
2. 5% for style and commenting of your source code
3. 30% for having the development process convincingly detailed in journal.pdf
4. 20% for a clear explanation of your algorithm in algorithm.pdf
For the first part, we will compute your score based on the following pseudo code:
You have to achieve at least the “basic value” in order to get 40% here. The remaining marks are based on your performancerelative to “great”:

FOREACH instance i do
run instance for a maximum of 60 seconds, computes value obj[i]
IF obj[i] >= basic[i]
THEN marks[i] = (obj[i]-basic[i]) / (great[i]-basic[i])
marks[i] = marks[i]*0.6
marks[i] += 40
markForStudent = marks[0] + … + marks[4]
rescale to fit 45%
Please note: this formula is subject to change in case we encounter problems.
Journal Assessment
Your journal.pdf file must contain the notes that you wrote for your own use as you developed your code. It should contain your ideas, hypotheses, reflections, pointers to resources, commentary on mistakes and test results. It should read like a running commentary of your development. The English does not have to be polished. It can be handwritten (but readable). If you are already using a journal for your development and you are taking enough notes and making enough reflections for it to be helpful in your own development then you should be meeting the requirements to get the marks for this project. Note that we will expect the journal to be quite long if your program was challenging to develop in keeping with the length of the project.
Algorithm Description Assessment
Your algorithm description must be in plain English with pseudo-code. You only have to describe the core of your algorithm the part that moves the cities. The description should be clear, concise and in your own words. We expect this part of the assignment to be between 500 and 1500 words.
End of Specification

Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Comments are closed.

Powered by WordPress | Designed by: Premium WordPress Themes | Thanks to Themes Gallery, Bromoney and Wordpress Themes