With apologies for multiple copies:
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Call for Papers and Participation
The Fifth Workshop
on Modelling and Solving Problems with Constraints
(http://4c.ucc.ie/~brahim/ijcai05ws/)
To be held at the Nineteenth International Joint Conference
on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2005)
Edinburgh, U.K.
July 30-August 1, 2005
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INTRODUCTION
============
Constraint Programming (CP) is a powerful technology to solve
combinatorial problems which are ubiquitous in academia and
industry. The last ten years have witnessed significant research
devoted to modelling and solving problems with constraints. CP is
now a mature field and has been successfully used for tackling a
wide range of real-life complex applications.
As constraint solving is intractable in general, problems can
become difficult to solve as their size increase. Therefore, there
is always a need for more efficient solvers to cope with ever
difficult problems. Techniques such as the design of specialised
filtering algorithms for recurring constraints, sophisticated
search techniques, heuristics to guide the search, symmetry
breaking have significant impact on the time spent to solve
problems. Efficiency can be improved also by bridging the gap
between CP and the other communities such as Operations Research,
Local Search, SAT, Planning, and Machine Learning.
Formulating an effective model for a given problem often requires
trying alternate models and using ``modelling tricks'' such as
redundant modelling and channelling. This could be a challenge
even for modelling experts. The increasing use of CP necessitates
higher level modelling languages to facilitate the exploitation
of the available technology and to make CP reachable to a wider
user base. The hope is that the next generation modelling
languages will assist modellers by for instance helping acquire
and validate constraints, automatically generating alternate
models and selecting the most appropriate one for the application
in hand, and synthesising propagators for complex constraints.
It is desirable to extend the classical framework for modelling
and solving with constraints to adapt to some real-life scenarios.
For instance, many problems contain uncertainty and thus the user
may require robust solutions. In some cases, problems are
over-constrained and the user has preferences for which
constraints to relax. Explanations can be necessary to understand
the solution process. Real-life problems are often optimisation
problems and the users might want to improve the quality of their
solutions as quickly as possible.
WORKSHOP
========
The rapidly growing use of CP in industrial applications makes it
crucial to fill the gap between the user's needs and the answers
provided by the technology. Developing more efficient ways to
solve constraints, assisting the users in the modelling phase, and
extending the classical modelling and solving framework to capture
real-life scenarios are important steps towards a better
applicability of CP technology to real-life problems. This one-day
workshop will address modelling and solving jointly, looking for
ways to enrich the efficiency, usability and the expressiveness of
the CP tools. It will interest both academics in the AI community
working on constraint reasoning, and people in industry using CP
technology to solve problems.
Workshop topics include (but are not limited to):
filtering algorithms
synthesising propagators
symmetry and constraints
search algorithms and heuristics
local and hybrid search
modelling
constraint acquisition and validation
model generation and selection
preferences
optimisation and over-constrained problems
uncertainty and robustness
explanations
real-life applications
In addition to technical presentations based on accepted papers,
an invited talk and a modelling competition are planned. The
details of the competition will be available shortly.
This workshop is the fifth in the series, following the successful
earlier workshops held alongside ECAI 2000, IJCAI 2001, ECAI
2002, and ECAI 2004. There have also been related workshops at CP
2001/2002/2003/2004, IJCAI 1999/2003 and ECAI 1998.
PARTICIPATION
=============
To encourage participation, organisers ask for standard
contributions including research results on the workshop topics,
as well as submissions posting challenging problems to be
discussed at the workshop. At least one author of each submission
accepted for presentation must attend the workshop and present
the contribution.
The workshop is open to all members of the AI community.
Attendance is limited to active participants only. Workshop
attendees need not register for the main IJCAI conference.
SUBMISSIONS & SELECTION PROCESS
===============================
To submit a paper to the workshop, please e-mail to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] a PS or PDF file in IJCAI conference style
(http://ijcai05.csd.abdn.ac.uk/index.php?section=papers#format).
Papers should not exceed 8 pages. All submissions must be received
by April 23, 2005. The organising committee will acknowledge all
submissions. If a submitted paper is not acknowledged in 2
working days, the authors are kindly asked to contact the chair.
All submissions will be reviewed and those that present a
significant contribution to the workshop topics will be accepted
for publication in the workshop proceedings. The proceedings will
be available electronically at the workshop page and in hard copy
on the day of the workshop.
IMPORTANT DATES
===============
Submission deadline: April 23
Notification of acceptance: May 22
Camera ready deadline: May 29
ORGANISATION
============
Organising Committee:
Zeynep Kiziltan (chair), Universit� di Bologna, Italy
Christian Bessiere, LIRMM-CNRS, France
Brahim Hnich, 4C, University College Cork, Ireland
Toby Walsh, University of New South Wales, Australia
Competition Organisers:
Ian Gent, University of St. Andrews, U.K.
Barbara Smith, 4C, University College Cork, Ireland
Programme Committee:
Claire Bagley, Oracle Corporation, U.S.A.
Roman Bartak, Charles University, Czech Republic
Nicolas Beldiceanu, Ecole des Mines de Nantes, France
Carmen Gervet, IC-Parc, Imperial College London, U.K.
Esther Gelle, ABB Switzerland Corporate Research, Switzerland
Warwick Harvey, IC-Parc, Imperial College London, U.K.
Jimmy Lee, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Pedro Meseguer, IIIA-CSIC, Spain
Michela Milano, Universit� di Bologna, Italy
Wim Nuijten, ILOG, The Netherlands
Patrick Prosser, Glasgow University, U.K.
Jean-Francois Puget, ILOG, France
Jean-Charles Regin, ILOG, France
Thomas Schiex, Institut National de La Recherche Agronomique,
France
Peter Stuckey, University of Melbourne, Australia
Edward Tsang, University of Essex, U.K.
Mark Wallace, Monash University, Australia
