Fourth International Workshop on Soft Constraints, Soft-02

(Held in conjunction with the Eighth International Conference on
                 Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming, CP2002)

September 8th, 2002
Ithaca, N.Y., USA

Schedule:

13:30-13:50
    Searching for Maximal Partial Assignments for Over-Constrained Problems
    Ken Brown
13:50-14:10
    Metric SCSPs: Partial Constraint Satisfaction via Semiring CSPs
augmented with metrics
    Aditya Ghose and Peter Harvey
14:10-14:30
    CP-networks ; semantics, complexity, approximations and extensions
    F. Rossi, K. B. Venable and T. Walsh
14:30-14:50
    Flexible Planning by Leximin Fuzzy Constraint Satisfaction
    Ian Miguel, Qian Sheng and Peter Jarvis
14:50-15:00 Discussion

15:00-15:30 Coffe Break

15:30-15:50
    Solving Finite Domain Constraint Hierarchies by Local Consistency and
Tree Search
    H.K.C. Hui and J.H.M. Lee
15:50-16:10
    Applying Local Search to MAX-SAT Problems with Hard and Soft Constraints
    John Thorton, Stuart Bain, Abdul Sattar and Duc Nghia Pham
16:10-17:00 Discussion


You can find the WORKSHOP NOTES  with the camera-ready papers HERE

 

Soft constraints augment the CSP framework by allowing constraints to be partially satisfied without making a solution unacceptable. The goal now is to find the preferred solution according to some preference criterion.  Therefore, solving soft constraints becomes an optimization  task, harder than satisfaction tasks in classical CSP. Sometimes optimization becomes multi-objective, making the solving process even more complex. The interest of the community on soft constraints has increased in the last years. Several theoretical frameworks have been developed to allow soft constraints in problem modeling. For these frameworks, new algorithms have been built, looking for the solution that brings the highest degree of consistency among all possible assignments. The main motivation for this research is the existence of many real problems involving preferences among values on partially satisfied constraints, which demand an effective solving method.

Previous editions of this workshop were held in:

  1. Alexandria, USA (in conjunction to CP 1999)
  2. Singapore (in conjunction to CP 2000)
  3. Paphos, Cyprus (in conjunction to CP 2001)


In this edition, we want to enlarge the workshop scope by encouraging submissions from domains where soft constraints have specific semantics such as propositional logic formulae (i.e. MAX-SAT) or probability distributions (i.e. probabilistic reasoning).
 

Workshop topics include (but not are limited to):

Workshop Format

Organizers have a special interest in enforcing a friendly and constructive atmosphere to favor the exchange of ideas. Our aim is to provide a forum where researchers currently working in this area can discuss their most recent ideas and developments and think together about the most promising new directions. Therefore we encourage the presentation of work in progress or on specialized aspects of soft constraints.

This will be a half-day workshop. Attendance is open, but all attendees must pay the CP-2002 workshop registration fee.

Submission Process

People wishing to give a talk should submit a 10-page paper, in an article standard format (for instance, latex users can use the article or LNCS style). The deadline for submissions is June 22nd. Submissions should be sent in postscript or pdf format to larrosa@lsi.upc.es. Each submission should have a title page with the name, address, and email address for each author. One of the authors should be identified as the contact author.

Each submission will be reviewed by at least two referees. Decisions on acceptance will be based on their contribution to the topic of the workshop. At least one author of each accepted submission must attend the workshop. All workshop attendees must pay the CP-2002 workshop registration fee.

Workshop Organizers:

   Stefano Bistarelli
   Istituto di Informatica e Telematica  | http:   www.di.unipi.it/~bista/
   C.N.R. Pisa                                          | Phone:  +39-050-315.3438
   Area della Ricerca, Via G. Moruzzi, 1     | Fax:    +39-050-315.2593
   I-56124 Pisa, Italy                                 | mobile: +39-348-8260770
   Stefano.Bistarelli@iit.cnr.it
 
 

   Javier Larrosa                     Tel: (+34) 93 401 56 44
   Software Department          Fax: (+34) 93 401 70 14
   Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, UPC
   Jordi Girona Salgado, 1-3, 08034 Barcelona, Spain
   larrosa@lsi.upc.es

   Thomas Schiex
   Biometry and Artificial Intelligence Dept
   Institut National de La Recherche Agronomique
   Chemin de Borde Rouge BP 27
   31326 Castanet Tolosan Cedex - France
   tschiex@toulouse.inra.fr
 

Program Committee:

  1. Hélène Fargier (IRIT, Université Paul Sabatier, France)
  2. Carmen Gervet (IC-park, Imperial College, U.K.)
  3. Ulrich Junker (ILOG, France)
  4. Jimmy H. M. Lee (The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)
  5. Irina Rish (IBM, USA)
  6. Francesca Rossi (University of Padova, Italy)
  7. Barry O'Sullivan (University College Cork, Ireland)


Important Dates