Call for Participation
Workshop on
Modelling and Solving Problems with Constraints
ECAI-2004
August 22, 2004
Many companies have scheduling, assignment, supply chain and other
problems that could be solved with a constraint programming (CP)
toolkit. Although the solution of these problems is of vital
commercial importance, CP toolkits are not widely used because
there is limited expertise available to model and solve
problems as constraint programs. Modelling has been an
active research area for a number of years. However,one major problem
is that effective modelling often requires trying alternate models and
selecting a model and a solver that efficiently solve the problem.
Both of these tasks are still an art due to the combinatorial number
of choices. In addition, problems are often over-constrained and the
user has preferences for which constraints to relax. Finally, whilst much
work in algorithm development is for satisfaction problems, many
problems met in practice are naturally optimization problems.
When given a real-world application, one has to take two major,
and closely related, decisions:
How to model the considered problem.
How to solve the proposed model.
Problem modelling cannot be separated from problem solving. Many
modelling decisions have a direct impact on the kind of techniques
that can be used by the solving method. This workshop will
therefore address modelling and solving jointly, looking for the
most efficient way to solve real-world complex applications.
Workshop topics include (but are not limited to):
modelling with non-binary constraints
redundant modelling
symmetry-breaking in constraints
preferences in (non-binary) constraints
filtering algorithms for (non-binary and specialized) constraints
solving methods for problems with preferences
solving methods for problems with uncertainties
solving methods for finding robust solutions
hybrid solution methods
interleaving satisfaction and optimization techniques
(automatic) methods for generating alternate models
methods for model/algorithm selection
comparative case studies
real-life applications
To encourage participation, organizers ask for standard
contributions including research results on the workshops topics,
as well as submissions posting challenging problems to be
discussed at the workshop. In addition to paper presentations, an
invited talk and a panel are planned. Since the whole workshop is
aimed at stimulating interaction among participants, speakers will
be requested to keep that in mind for their presentation.
Submission details:
To submit a paper to the workshop, please email a postscript
or PDF file, preferably in Springer LNCS format to the
workshop chair, Brahim Hnich ([EMAIL PROTECTED]). Papers
can be of any length but should not exceed 15 pages.
All submissions must be received by 4th May 2004.
All workshop participants are expected to
register for the main ECAI 2004 conference.
As the number of participants is limited,
participation is by invitation only. The
submissions of invited participants will be
included in the workshop notes.
Important Dates:
Paper Submission: 4 May, 2004
Acceptance/Rejection Notification: 4 June, 2004
Camera-Ready Version: 10 June, 2004
Organising Committee:
Nicolas Beldiceanu, Ecole des Mines de Nantes
Christian Bessiere, LIRMM-CNRS
Mats Carlsson, SICS
Brahim Hnich (chair), University College Cork
Ian P. Gent, University of St. Andrews
Jimmy Lee, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Pedro Meseguer, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cient<ED>ficas
Ian Miguel, University of York,
Michela Milano, Universit<E0> di Bologna
Jean-Charles Regin, ILOG
Barbara Smith, University of Huddersfield
Peter Stuckey, University of Melbourne
Mark Wallace, Monash University
Toby Walsh (chair), University College Cork
Contact details:
Brahim Hnich
Cork Constraint Computation Centre
University College Cork
Cork
Ireland
Tel: +353 21 4255420
Fax: +353 21 4255424
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Workshop URL: http://4c.ucc.ie/~brahim/ecai04ws/
