2024 Quarterly Report 3

This quarterly report brings you reports on the CP conference including the awards handed out, the general assembly and new ACP members, a call for DEI representatives and more.

[Reminder: please renew your free ACP membership by logging in on https://www.a4cp.org/user/login and in menu 'Your Membership > Renew membership' pressing the button 'Renew membership']

ACP.1: CP 2024 in Girona

The International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP) is the premier annual conference on all aspects of computing with constraints, including theory, algorithms, models, solvers, and a diverse range of applications in machine learning/artificial intelligence, planning, and scheduling, to name a few. This was the 30th version of the CP series organized by the Association for Constraint Programming.

Besides the main technical track, CP 2024 had three additional specialized tracks: Application track, CP and Machine Learning track and CP and Quantum Computing track. The invited speakers were Ian Gent on "Solving Patience and Solitaire Games with Good Old Fashioned AI" and Francesca Rossi on "Thinking fast and slow in AI: A cognitive architecture to augment both AI and human reasoning". Slides of all the papers, video's of the main hall and more can all be found on the conference website: https://cp2024.a4cp.org/

There were also 3 tutorials (https://cp2024.a4cp.org/tutorials.html): * Modeling and Solving Combinatorial Optimization Problems with Domain-Independent Dynamic Programming, by Chris Beck and Ryo Kuroiwa * Constraint Programming with JuMP, by Benoit Legat * Constraint Acquisition - A Tutorial on Learning Constraint Models, by Dimos Tsouros

and a doctoral program (https://cp2024.a4cp.org/doctoral_program.html) as well as 4 workshops (https://cp2024.a4cp.org/workshops.html): * 26th International Workshop on Configuration (ConfWS 2024) * 23rd Workshop on Constraint Modelling and Reformulation (ModRef 2024) * 7th Workshop on Progress Towards the Holy Grail (PTHG-24) * 1st Workshop on Discrete Optimization with Soft Constraints (Soft 2024)

During the conference, the results of the annual MiniZinc Challenge were announced: https://www.minizinc.org/challenge/ as were the results of the XCSP Competition: https://www.xcsp.org/competitions/

Paper Awards

There were 3 best papers awarded:

• Best Main Track Paper: Peng Lin, Mengchuan Zou and Shaowei Cai. An Efficient Local Search Solver for Mixed Integer Programming
• Best Application Track Paper: Duc Anh Le, Stephanie Roussel, Christophe Lecoutre and Anouck Chan. Learning Effect and Compound Activities in High Multiplicity RCPSP: Application to Satellite Production
• Best ML Track Paper: Augustin Parjadis, Quentin Cappart, Bistra Dilkina, Aaron Ferber and Louis-Martin Rousseau. Learning Lagrangian Multipliers for the Travelling Salesman Problem

The list of all previous CP paper awards can be found at https://www.a4cp.org/awards/paper-awards

ACP Awards

The Association for Constraint Programming (ACP) also awards yearly awards to exceptional individuals of different seniority levels. This year, the following awards were given:

• Distinguished Service Award to Maria Garcia de la Banda from Monash University, Australia
• Early Career Researcher Award to Quentin Cappart from Polytechnique Montreal, Canada
• Doctoral Research Award to Jayanta Mandi from KU Leuven, Belgium
• Honorable mention for the doctoral research award to Ruwei Wang from National University of Singapore, Singapore

All awards can be found on the A4CP website: https://www.a4cp.org/

ACP.2: ACP General Assembly and new EC members

The Association for Constraint Programming aims at promoting constraint programming in every aspect of the scientific world, by encouraging its theoretical and practical developments, its teachning in the academic institutions, its adoption in the industrial world, and its use in the the application fields.

Its yearly Generaly Assembly is held during CP, and the report of the president of the committee, David Bergman, can be found at: https://www.a4cp.org/about/general-assembly-archive

During the assembly, we also voted on the new ACP Executive Committee members, which will be: * Roland Yap * Nadjib Lazaar * Miquel Bofill Arasa * Roie Zivan

They will serve a term of 4 years starting 2025 and replace the outgoing members David Bergman (President), Tias Guns (secretary), Chris Beck (past president) and Zeynep Kiziltan (DEI delegate).

ACP.3 Call for DEI chair of CP2025

Ozgur Akgun is seeking nominations for the DEI Chair role for the CP 2025 conference. This position is held by two people with overlapping terms, to ensure continuity.

Last year, Maria Andreina Francisco Rodriguez from Uppsala and Ozgur served as chairs. For the upcoming term, you would be joining Ozgur in this role and you would be expected to continue for a consecutive two-year term.

Ozgur gave a short talk at CP2024 which was recorded. You can watch this video for additional context: https://diobma.udg.edu/handle/10256.1/7774 and contact him for more information or if interested in the role.

This is a great way to contribute to a warm and inclusive CP community!

ACP.4 ACP Summer School 2025 in Benin, Africa

The ACP Summer School will be in Benin, Africa in 2025! It is organized by CP community members Ratheil Houndji and John Aoga.

The dates are set at 25th - 29th August 2025.

More information will be made available on https://school.a4cp.org/summer2025/

ACP.5 CP2025 will take place in Glasgow, Scotland

The 31st CP conference will take place in Glasgow, Scotland and will be co-located with SAT, SoCS and the SMT workshop.

The conference chairs are Ciaran McCreesh and Blair Archibald, with Program Chair Maria Garcia de la Banda.

More information will be made available on https://cp2025.a4cp.org

Video project

Last but not least, Eugene Freuder, Pascal Van Hentenryck, Helmut Simonis have initiated a video project in which they interview ACP Research Excellece Awardees.

The interviews collected so far have now been posted, to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the CP conference. The playlist is here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcByDTr7vRTb9PrlY7RVgb9S0wnNyu3MW

It is an excellent podcast-style playlist with interviews with Eugene Freuder, Rina Dechter, Alan Mackworth, Patrick Prosser, Jean-Charles Regin, Toby Walsh, Peter Stuckey, John Hooker and Mats Carlsson