Call for participation in the IJCAI-01 workshop on:

MODELLING AND SOLVING PROBLEMS WITH CONSTRAINTS

(held at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-2001), Seattle WA)

(You will find HERE the proceedings)

The workshop will be 1.5 days long (August 5, plus 6 in the morning)

Invited Talk: Combining Models and Algorithms - from Alchemy to Cookery by Mark Wallace

Panel discussion: “Challenging Applications”, by F. Laburthe, J.C Regin

Technical Description

This workshop will focus on the gap between industrial applications and academic constraint satisfaction problems. Modelling real-world applications with constraint networks often produces non-binary constraints, specific constraint types, constraint (hyper-)graphs with specific structure, and diversity of domain sizes. Preferences may be needed in order to specify which solutions better fulfill the user's needs. These numerous modelling possibilities can have a great impact on the kind of solution techniques that will be effective. This workshop aims at considering the modelling and solving aspects 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

- modelling with specific constraint types

- reformulating constraints

- including preferences in non-binary constraints

- filtering algorithms for non-binary constraints

- solving methods for specific constraint types

- solving methods for problems with preferences

- interlacing satisfaction and optimisation techniques

- comparative studies

- real-life applications involving some of the above aspects

Relevance

The rapidly growing use of constraint technology in industrial applications makes it crucial to fill the gap between the user's needs and the answers provided by the technology. The modelling and solving phases are often considered separately, but the decisions made in each phase have a wider impact. Integrating the modelling and solving steps would allow analysis of the interaction between these two phases in order to progress towards a better applicability of constraint technology to real-life problems. This workshop will interest both academics working on constraint reasoning in the AI community, and people using constraint technology to solve problems in industry.

Schedule (not completely fixed)

09h00-09h15: People arrive...

09h15-10h30: 3 papers (chair: F. Rossi)

Collaborative learning for constraint solving, S.L. Epstein, E.C. Freuder

Solving incompletely defined constraint satisfaction problems with nearest neighbour method, Y. Ohta, N. Yugami

Towards relational modelling of combinatorial optimisation problems, P. Flener

10h30-11h00: break

11h00-12h15: 3 papers (chair: B. Smith)

Solving interoperability problems using object-oriented CSP modelling, M.H. Sqalli, E.C. Freuder

Constraint-based models for qualitative reasoning on dynamic systems, A. Panati, D.Theseider Dupré

Query planning for intelligent information integration using constraint handling rules, L. Badea, D. Tilivea

12h15-14h15: lunch

14h15-15h30: 3 papers (chair: F. Rossi)

Using explanations for design patterns identification, Y.-G. Guéhéneuc, N. Jussien

QuickXplain: Conflict detection for arbitrary constraint propagation algorithms, U. Junker

Permutation problems and channelling constraints, T. Walsh

15h30-16h00: break

16h00-16h45: 2 papers (chair: T. Walsh)

Symmetry breaking in a rack configuration problem, Z. Kiziltan, B. Hnich

Reducing symmetry in a combinatorial design problem, B.M. Smith

16h45-17h00: small break

17h00-18h00: Invited speaker (chair: T. Walsh)

Combining Models - is it Cookery or Alchemy?, M. Wallace

09h00-10h15: 3 papers (chair: C. Bessiere)

Expanding feature-based constraint grammars: experience with a large-scale HPSG grammar for English, L. Ciortuz

Modular robot control and continuous constraint satisfaction, M.P.J. Fromherz, T. Hogg, Y. Shang, W.B. Jackson

Modeling and solving air traffic control problem with distributed constraints, A. Idrissi, D. Benslimane, E. Bouyakhf

10h15-10h30: 1 short paper (chair: C. Bessiere)

Independent sets and hitting sets, P. Prosser

10h30-11h00: break

11h00-11h25: 1 paper (chair: B. Smith)

Modelling a steel mill slab design problem, A.M. Frisch, I. Miguel, T. Walsh

11h30-12h30: Panel discussion (organized by F. Laburthe, JC Regin)

Organizing committee

Christian Bessiere, LIRMM-CNRS, France

François Laburthe, e-Lab Bouygues, France

Pedro Meseguer, IIIA-CSIC, Spain

Jean-Charles Regin, ILOG, France

Francesca Rossi, University of Padova, Italy

Barbara Smith, University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom

Toby Walsh, The University of York, United Kingdom