Resource Allocation through Negotiation and Compromise: A Database Approach

In this paper, a resource allocation system is modeled with relational database technology. To allocate resources through a negotiation-based system, two steps of pre-allocation and negotiated allocation have been modeled with a join procedure for two relations. These relations represent the requirements for experiential nursing practice and the availability of such experience at hospitals, respectively. The first step was implemented through a new join operation called [alpha]-Distance Join. After the first step, some nursing departments and some hospitals have fully satisfied requirements or fully utilized availability. Other nursing department and hospitals have partial or no satisfaction of requirements or availability, respectively. The second step was implemented through a custom-designed implementation of a user-interface that provides coordinated negotiation among the nodes involved in the system. With the customized interface and join operation, an off-the-shelf or packaged database management system is used. Through this interface, nursing departments and hospitals negotiate until potentially all demands and availability are totally satisfied. This negotiation takes place without face-to-face meetings but with complete knowledge of the entire situation by all parties. This provides the potential for complete fulfillment of nursing experience requirements and total utilization of hospital experience availability.