2008 Quarter 3
REPORT FROM THE ASSOCIATION FOR CONSTRAINT PROGRAMMING
This is a short summary of activities within the ACP during
the months July-September 2008.
The current Executive Committee comprises:
o Officers:
Barry O'Sullivan (President), Jimmy H.M. Lee (Secretary),
Thomas Schiex (Treasurer), Pedro Meseguer (Conference Coordinator)
o Other Members:
Christian Bessiere, Francesca Rossi, Christian Schulte, Michael Trick
The ACP Executive Committee welcomes feedback and suggestions from
the ACP community. We encourage you to engage with the ACP-EC to
help design new initiatives that promote constraint programming.
ACP.1. Brief Comment on CP 2008
On behalf of the ACP, the Executive Committee would like to congratulate
the various people responsible for making CP 2008 in Sydney such a
success. Special thanks goes to Toby Walsh (Conference Chair), Peter J.
Stuckey (Program Chair), Maurice Pagnucco (Local Arrangements Chair),
Jimmy H.M. Lee (Workshop and Tutorial Chair), Roland H.C. Yap and Kostas
Stergiou (Doctoral Programme Co-Chairs), Barry O'Sullivan (Sponsorship Chair),
and Sebastian Brand (Publicity Chair).
Helmut Simonis has made his photographs of the conference available
through the CP 2008 web-site. We thank Helmut for taking the time
for that. [ See http://4c.ucc.ie/~hsimonis/CP2008/index.htm ]
ACP.2. Results of the ACP Election 2008
Bylaw 5 of the ACP Bylaws (see www.a4cp.org) dictates the election procedure
and rules. 2008 is a transition year. In this election, we aimed to elect
(a) three regular members to a four year term and (b) two interim members
to a two year term. The top three elected candidates will serve as regular
members of the EC (four year term), and the next two will serve as interim
members (two year term).
The five elected members of the new ACP EC are the following CPers:
* Barry O'Sullivan, Peter Stuckey, John Hooker (four year term)
* Roland Yap, Karen Petrie (two year term)
Francesca Rossi leaves the ACP EC. On behalf of the CP community, the ACP-EC
would like to thank Francesca for her tireless work on behalf of the
community. Francesca was amongst the people who set about formally
establing a representative body for the international constraints community.
ACP.3. ACP General Assembly 2008
During the CP 2008 conference, the annual ACP General Assembly took place.
It was chaird by the current ACP President, Barry O'Sullivan, and was
well attended by the community. Various decisions of the ACP were supported
by the membership, and a constructive discussion took place on how to move
the community forward from its current position of strength. The minutes
for the assembly will be made available on the ACP web-site.
ACP.4. ACP CSP Solver Competition
The General Assembly supported the EC's proposal to make the CSP Solver
Competition an official part of the CP Conference. The competition will
received financial support from the ACP. Furthermore, since the solver
competition only runs every second year, there is room for a modelling
competition. Persons interested in contributing to the various
competition are invited to contact one of the organisers of the 2008
compeition, or Barry O'Sullivan (b.osullivan@cs.ucc.ie).
The ACP would like to thank the organisers of this year's competition:
Marc van Dongen, Christophe Lecoutre and Olivier Roussel, as well as
the judges and working group associated with the event.
ACP.5. Planning CP Multiple Years Ahead
In order to promote greater integration with other communities, the
ACP-EC will begin planning the location for CP two years in advance.
The proposal was discussed and supported at the General Assembly.
Therefore, a call for bids for hosting CP 2010 will be send out before
Christmas, with a call for bids for the 2011 conference being
circulated later in the year.