We present the problem of contiguous bin packing, give a formal definition of the problem and an example, for a better presentation to the reader and an easier explanation of the algorithms in later chapters. We also present a mapping of classifying students into lecture halls onto our problem and other uses.
We present three exact algorithms and two heuristic algorithms for solving optimization problems such as the problem of contiguous bin packing. We develop an implementation for each of the presented algorithms. After developing the implementations we experimentally evaluate them and compare with each other in terms of the time it takes for them to return a solution. For approximate algorithms we also compare their given solutions, specifically how close these are to the correct ones given by the exact algorithms.
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