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Call for Papers and Participation
Second International Workshop On
MODELLING AND REFORMULATING CONSTRAINT SATISFACTION PROBLEMS:
Towards Systematisation and Automation
To be held at the 9th International Conference on
Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP 2003)
Kinsale, County Cork,Ireland
29 September 2003
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Many organisations have scheduling, assignment, supply chain and other
problems that could be solved with a constraint programming toolkit.
Although the solution of these problems is of vital importance,
constraint programming toolkits are not widely used because there is
insufficient expertise available to model problems as constraint
programs.
This so-called modelling bottleneck could be reduced by the
development of a general, principled understanding of modelling that
in the future could guide the manual or automatic formulation of
models and the choice among alternative models. We solicit original
papers that contribute to this general understanding of any aspect of
modelling constraint satisfaction problems and especially to the
systematisation or automation of this understanding.
Researchers and practitioners have developed effective models for a
wide range of problems. The time has come to form generalisations
from these case studies that can be used to guide modelling in the
future. These generalisations could then be systematised for use by a
non-expert and be codified in textbooks in much the same way that data
structuring expertise is. Ultimately this modelling expertise could
be embedded in automated modelling tools. Progress on any of these
fronts would bring the proven power of constraint programming to a
wider user base.
The following are among the workshop themes that could contribute
to such progress:
1) Finding generalisations that can be used in the future to guide a
modeller in formulating alternative models and choosing among them:
This includes topics such as refining abstract specifications into
concrete models, identifying and exploiting patterns in models,
forming combined models through channelling or hybrid solution
techniques and choosing between alternative (though perhaps logically
equivalent) representations of constraints.
2) Identifying the criteria that should be used in evaluating models
and understanding how these are traded off in alternative models:
Important criteria include efficiency, sensitivity, robustness, and
the ability to faithfully represent the problem (including problems
that contain uncertainty and soft constraints).
3) Understanding how models can be improved through reformulation:
Examples of reformulations include adding implied constraints,
detecting and breaking symmetry, removing redundant constraints, and
executing large-scale changes of representation such as changing the
choice of variables or translating to another problem, such as SAT.
Another technique used by expert modellers is the construction of a
more abstract formulation whose solution can aid in solving the
original problem.
4) Developing systems that can take an abstract problem specification
from a non-expert and automatically reformulate it into a form that
can be solved efficiently: Such a system might provide a high-level
language for specifying constraint satisfaction problems and a
compiler to translate high level specifications to executable models.
The workshop is interested in any research that can contribute towards
this ambitious goal.
SUBMISSION
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To submit a paper, send an email to the Programme Chair
([EMAIL PROTECTED]) with title, authors' names and emails, name of
corresponding author, and a URL of the submission in postscript or
(preferably) in pdf. Submissions must be formatted in the Lecture
Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) style and must not exceed 15 pages.
Submissions of shorter papers, including position papers, are welcome.
All submissions will be reviewed and those that are well written and
make a worthwhile contribution to the topic of the workshop will be
accepted for publication in the workshop proceedings. The proceedings
will be available electronically and in hardcopy at CP-2003. All
accepted papers will be presented at the workshop, either as a talk or
in a poster session. At least one author of each accepted paper must
attend the workshop.
THE WORKSHOP
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This will be a half-day workshop open to anyone interested in the
topic. The event will have a strong workshop flavour, with ample time
allocated to discussion. The workshop timetable will allow
participation in both this workshop and the half-day Workshop on
Symmetry in Constraint Satisfaction Problems. All workshop
participants must pay the CP-2003 registration fee in addition to the
workshop fee.
The workshop will feature an invited talk by Pascal Van Hentenryck
from Brown University, USA.
IMPORTANT DATES
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Submission deadline: 16 July 2003
Notification of acceptance: 5 August 2003
Camera Ready deadline: 22 Aug 2003
Workshop: 29 Sept 2003
FURTHER INFORMATION
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CP'03 Conference: http://www.cs.ucc.ie/cp2003/
Modelling Workshop: http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/~frisch/Reformulation/03
PROGRAMME COMMITTEE
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Alan M. Frisch (Chair) ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
University of York, United Kingdom.
Marco Cadoli ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Universita` di Roma "La Sapienza", Italy.
Pierre Flener ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Uppsala University, Sweden.
Eugene Freuder ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
University College Cork, Ireland.
Brahim Hnich ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
University College Cork, Ireland.
Jimmy Lee ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Ian Miguel ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
University of York, United Kingdom.
Barbara Smith ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom.
Toby Walsh ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
University College Cork, Ireland.
