Equity and Diversityadvanced series
We are back in the inconsequential world of academic administration. This puzzle requires you to say that several things exist (a representative of each team, for example) and to think of a way of ensuring that the numbers of men and women are [close to] equal. The underlying computational problem is also of more general interest: the committee has to be a hitting set for the teams. That is, it has to have at least one member in common with each of them. The problem of finding a minimum-sized hitting set is expected to be hard in principle, if the number of teams is large, but with a relatively small collection like this Footling Department, it should not delay the solver for long.
Remember that an easy way to force the solver to return the smallest solution is to declare the committee to be a non-enumerated sort with no cardinality specification. See the meeting scheduling example in the “guide” for what this looks like.
The Department of Footling needs to appoint a committee to report to the Faculty of Inconsequential Studies on the impact of committee restructuring on reports to Faculty. Despite boasting some of the most footling research to have been done anywhere in recent years, and some remarkable up-and-coming young footlers among its ranks, the Department finds itself in some difficulty deciding who should be on the committee.
The Department consists of ten footling scientists: old Alan Dodder (head of department), two more full professors in Geoffrey Strange and Margaret Witter, four associate profs Agnes Fidgett, married couple Sophie and James Feinlein and Sonia Littlepoint, and the three assistants Henry Pratte, Tom Potter and Geoff Strange’s wife Zoe.
Footling is rather special in the way it is organized. The department is made up of six overlapping teams:
| Pure Footling: | G & Z Strange, S Feinlein, Pratte |
| Applied Footling: | Witter, Fidgett, J Feinlein |
| Footling History: | Dodder , Z Strange, Littlepoint, Potter |
| Footlometrics: | Fidgett, J Feinlein, Pratte |
| Comparative Footling: | Witter, Potter, G Strange |
| Metafootling: | Dodder, S Feinlein, Littlepoint, Pratte |
Inconsequential rules require that the committee contain the same number of men as women (plus or minus one if the total is odd), at least one representative of each team, at least one of each rank (full prof, associate, assistant) and no married couple.
Find the smallest possible committee according to the faculty rules. There may be more than one solution.
DISCLAIMER:
This puzzle is a work of fiction. No reference is intended to any actual academic institution. Any resemblance to actual faculty members, whether alive, dead or otherwise, is purely accidental.
See footling.
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