Question

Assume we have only two classrooms (classroom 1, and classroom 2), and we have a number of lectures that they should be given in these classrooms. The duration of each class is one hour. Here, all we need to know and save is the starting time for each class. Between each two classes we should have 15 minutes rest.

1.Create two data structures to record the lectures starting time in the class rooms. Each classroom’s data should be recorded in a separate data structure. And the number of classes we have in the class rooms is not known
2.Let the user to un-schedule lectures in the classrooms through providing the starting time of that lecture.
3.Let the user to schedule new classes in the class rooms (Note: If the gap between the starting time of a lecture that should be scheduled in the classrooms and an already scheduled class in the classrooms is not 15 minutes (at least), the class should not be scheduled in the classroom). Assume this operation is the most repeated operation in class room2.
4.Find the hour when the first lecture starts and the hour when the last lecture starts. Assume this operation is the most repeated operation for class room1.
5.Find the number of the scheduled lectures in each class room.

Answer 1

For managing scheduling lectures, two dynamic data structures such as an ordered list or tree for classroom 1 and a sorted linked list or skip list for classroom 2 are suggested. These facilitate scheduling, un-scheduling, and the finding of the first and last lectures times, as well as keeping track of the total number of lectures.

Step-by-step explanation:

To manage scheduling lectures in two different classrooms, we need to establish two dynamic data structures which can handle operations such as adding and removing lecture times. For this scenario, we will say:

• For classroom 1, we could use an ordered list or a balanced tree structure like a red-black tree to keep the lecture times sorted, which is useful for finding the first and last lecture quickly, since this operation is repeated often.
• For classroom 2, where scheduling new classes is a common operation, a data structure that allows for quick insertion while maintaining sorted order, such as a sorted linked list or a skip list, can be useful.

To un-schedule a class, the user will provide the start time of the lecture, and the data structure should allow for efficient search and deletion of this time — for example, deletion in a linked list or a tree is efficient once the node is found.

When scheduling new classes, there must be at least a 15-minute gap between the new class start time and existing classes. The data structure should be able to quickly find the class immediately before and after the proposed time to check this condition.

To find the first and last lecture times in classroom 1, we can directly access the first and last elements of the ordered list, or the minimum and maximum elements in the case of a tree structure.

To find the number of scheduled lectures in each classroom, we keep track of the number of elements in each data structure, which is easily done with both lists and trees.