For the single operating room scheduling problem under con-^sideration, we denote by t the regular working time. For example,^in Shanghai General Hospital, t equals 570 min (9.5 h). An initial schedule is made at least one day ahead. This initial schedule specifies a sequence for the patients and expected starting times of their surgeries. The patients to be scheduled are selected from a given set I = {1, 2, … , np}. The reward of performing surgery on patient i I equals ri. This reward can be interpreted strictly fi-nancially, in which case it corresponds to the associated hospital revenue [13], or can be defined more broadly to incorporate for instance also the benefits for the patients (see also [47]). Notice that in the latter case, the corresponding values may not be readily available from hospital information systems. Scheduled cancella-tion of surgery for patient i I leads to a penalty of ci, which can in turn be a financial penalty incurred by the insurer, including wasted pre-operative costs, and more generally including patient inconveniences and losses of health.