Seat Allocation in a Parliament
Let us view a parliament as a physical location where members of parliament (MPs) meet. A parliament consists of seats, and an MP is assigned to a single seat in the parliament. We are interested in the problem of assigning MPs to seats so as to optimize the functioning of the parliament. A number of properties are often relevant in finding such an assignment: (i) MPs from the same party are grouped, (ii) Not all seats are equally important (for instance front-seats have more visibility than other seats), and (iii) The “left-right” spectrum of political parties is reflected in the allocation of seats.
Goals of the bachelor project:
*) Find scientific literature on this subject
*) Design mathematical programming models for this problem
*) Solve instances of this problem that come from practice