2010 Quarter 1 | Association for Constraint Programming

REPORT FROM THE ASSOCIATION FOR CONSTRAINT PROGRAMMING

This is a short summary of activities within the ACP during the months
January-March 2010.

ACP.1. The 2010 ACP Executive Committee

The 2010 ACP Executive Committee comprises the following people,
in alphabetical order (officers identified)::

- John Hooker
- Jimmy H.M. Lee - Secretary
- Pedro Meseguer - Conference Coordinator
- Barry O'Sullivan - President
- Karen Petrie
- Thomas Schiex - Treasurer
- Peter Stuckey
- Roland Yap

ACP.2. ACP Summer School 2010

The ACP Summer School 2010 will be held in Aussois (France) from May 3rd
to May 7th 2010, and it is organized by Yves Deville and Christine Solnon.
The school aims at introducing the grounds of CP as well as more challenging
research areas of CP. At this point 53 students have registered for the school,
and 18 grants have been given to support the attendance of those who have
limited funding. These grants are sponsored by the ACP and the AFPC (the French
Association for CP).

Web: http://becool.info.ucl.ac.be/summerschool2010

ACP.3. Call for Bids for CP-2012

We are reissing the Call for Bids for CP 2012.
[ Please see the attached call ]

ACP.4. Surplus from CP 2009

Pedro Barahona, CP Conference Chair in 2009, has finalised the accounts for
the conference, which was held in Lisbon. The ACP is delighted to report that
CP 2009 has declared a good surplus for the community. A total of ‚Ç¨10,005.90
has been returned to the ACP. The ACP would like to extend our thanks to
Pedro for running an excellent conference last September.

ACP.5. Report from the CP Standardisation Group

On March 25, 2010 Java Community Process (JCP) published the Early Draft Review
of the JSR-331 ‚ÄúConstraint Programming API‚Äù see:

http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=331.

It includes the initial Java CP API that is a result of multiple discussions
between different CP experts and vendors. Several open source implementations
of the JSR-331 are already on the way (Choco, Constrainer, JaCoP). Any CP
vendor who wants to create a JSR-331 implementation may receive a secure access
to the JSR-331 SVN repository now. Any CP practitioner, who wants to write a
CP-based program in Java using JSR-331 API, can already do it with the
alpha-implementations. Remember that the JSR-331 architecture allows a user
to switch between different implementations without changing a line of the
application code. Please direct all inquiries to j.feldman@4c.ucc.ie or
Narendra.Jussien@emn.fr. All CP experts and practitioners are welcome to
provide their comments and suggestions or join JSR-331 as members of the
Expert Group or as observers. Check the latest CP Standardization news at
http://www.cpstandards.org and share your opinion at the Discussion Forum.

ACP.6. Call for Nominations: for the ACP Distinguished Service Award 2010.

The Executive Committee of the ACP invites nominations for the inaugural
(2010) ACP award for Distinguidhed Service to the Constraint Programming
Community, which will be presented at CP 2010 in St.Andrews, Scotland, in
September 2010. The purpose of this award is to celebrate those CP community
members who have made exceptional contributions to the CP community. Areas of
service could include, but are not limited to: association service, service as
an editor, conference organisation, representation of CP in other organizations,
etc, resulting in positive effects on the field of CP. The recipient of this
award will have the costs of is/her participation at the CP conference covered
by the ACP. The call text for this award is appended to this report.

ACP.7. Call for Nominations: for the ACP Doctoral Research Award 2010.

The Executive Committee of the ACP invites nominations for the 2009 ACP
Doctoral Research Award, which will be presented at CP 2010 in St.Andrews,
Scotland, in September 2010. The ACP Doctoral Research Award is awarded
every year to a promising young researcher working in the area of
constraint programming and who defended his/her thesis between January and
December of the previous two years. The call for nominations for this award
is included in this edition of the CP-News.

ACP.8. Sponsorships

The ACP has sponsored the First International Summer School on Constraint
Handling Rules to the value of ‚Ç¨1500. Details of this event can be found at:

http://www.cs.kuleuven.be/~dtai/CHR/summerschool/

ACP.9. CP Conference 2010

The ACP-EC looks forward to seeing you in St. Andrews for CP 2010 in
September - http://cp2010.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/

ACP.10. ACP-EC Elections in 2010

This year there will be additional elections to replace those EC members
whose terms will expire at the end of this year. A formal call for
nominations will be circulate, but in the meantime please consider the
names of those you think would be suitable for the ACP-EC.

____________________________________________________________________________

CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO HOST CP-2012

We invite proposals to host the 18th International Conference on the
Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP-2012). Proposals are
due on or before June 1st, 2010. These proposals will be evaluated by the
Executive Committee of the Association for Constraint Programming and a
decision made for the site shortly afterwards.

The CP conferences are the premier international conferences on constraint
programming. They have been held annually since 1995. CP 2010 will be held
in St. Andrews (Scotland) and in Perugia (Italy) in 2011. Previous CP
conferences have been held in Lisbon (Portugal), Sydney (AUS), Providence RI
(USA), Nantes (Frances), Sitges (Spain), Toronto (Canada), Kinsale (Ireland),
Cornell (USA), Paphos (Cyprus), Singapore, Alexandria (USA), Pisa (Italy),
Schloss Hagenberg (Austria), Cambridge (USA), and Cassis (France).

Proposals should be up to two pages of plain text and should address the
following numbered topics:
* 1. Proposal for conference chair(s).
* 2. Local CP community support.
* 3. University, government and industry support, especially financial.
* 4. Proposed dates, and flexibility around these dates.
* 5. Co-located events that might be held alongside CP.
* 6. Conference and exhibition facilities (CP typically attracts between
200 and 250 delegates).
* 7. Accommodation and food services.
* 8. Site accessibility, attractiveness, and desirability.
* 9. Previous experience in running conferences and workshops.
* 10. Provisional budget.

If available, please include URLs to any additional information (e.g. web
site for the conference venue or hotel).

Guidelines for the CP conference organization, as well as the duties of the
conference chair(s), can be found on the ACP web site.

Proposals should be sent to the secretary of the Association for Constraint
Programming committee preferably by email to secretary@a4cp.org. In preparing
a proposal, please feel free to address questions (e.g. regarding
the suitability of the proposed dates) to the same address, or to
any member of the ACP Executive Committee.

____________________________________________________________________________

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS FOR THE

Association for Constraint Programming

DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD 2010

OVERVIEW

ELIGIBILITY

Nominations for this award are invited from members of the ACP.

NOMINATION PROCESS

A nomination package consists of a nomination form from one nominator, and
reference letters from at least 2 references.

Typically, a nominator is somebody who knows the nominee very well, and locates
the references, ensuring that they do their parts in time to produce a
convincing nomination package. Ideally, a reference is a well known member of
the CP community who has never had a very close relationship with the nominee,
but who can speak with authority for him or her.

Nomination forms should follow the form below and should be sent (nomination
forms by the nominators, and reference forms by references) by email to
secretary@cp-online.org.

TIMEFRAME

The nomination package must arrive at the above address by June 21, 2010.
We cannot accept anything received after that date. We will acknowledge
receipt of nominations. The decision will be available on July 12, 2010.

AWARD COMMITTEE

Every other year, an Award Commmittee will decide the award receipient among
the nominees, and will include: the president and secretary of the ACP-EC,
two previous recipients of an ACP award or senior members of the community,
and the program chair of the CP conference where the award will be given.
Members of the award committee cannot be candidates, nor can they support
a candidate by being a nominator or a reference.

Enquiries concerning nominations should be directed to the ACP EC Secretary
at the address secretary@cp-online.org.

_____________________________ Nomination Form _______________________________

NOMINATION FORM: ACP DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD

Please answer, as completely as possible, Questions 1 to 5 by editing this form
directly, and email to secretary@cp-online.org. The email submission must be
in plain text (ASCII).

The information on this form is confidential. Neither the candidate nor the
references will be informed of the views you express.

1. Nominator's Name and Affiliation
(first, middle, last; address; telephone; fax; and email address)

2. References (list at least 2 people who will submit reference reports)

3. Candidate's Name and Affiliation
(first, middle, last; address; telephone; fax; email address; and webpage)

4. List principal positions of service to the CP community, and briefly describe
primary responsibilities for each position. Examples of service positions
include society service, service as an editor, conference organization, etc.,
resulting in positive effects on the field of CP.

Position:
Dates:
Responsibilities:

5. Proposed Citation (to appear on the award certificate -- citation should
begin "For contributions to the field of constraomt programming through
sustained service ..." followed by a phrase of not more than 20 carefully
edited words that reflect this candidate's demonstrated service to the
community):

____________________________________________________________________________

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS FOR THE

Association for Constraint Programming

DOCTORAL RESEARCH AWARD 2010

OVERVIEW

The ACP Doctoral Research Award will be awarded every year to a promising
young researcher working in the area of constraint programming and who
defended his/her thesis between January and December of the previous two
years. The award, in the form of a certificate, will be presented at the
CP 2010 conference, where the winning researcher will present a talk on
the topic of his/her doctoral dissertation.

ELIGIBILITY

Eligible doctoral researchers are those who defended their doctoral thesis
between January 1, 2008 and December 31st 2009 in the area of constraint
programming. The researcher must be a current member of the Association for
Constraint Programming.

NOMINATION PROCESS

Nominations must be made by the thesis supervisor, who is responsible
for ensuring that the following items are submitted to the secretary
of the ACP at secretary@cp-online.org.

1. A URL to a zip-file containing the following items:

- A PDF version of the dissertation. No specific
language for the dissertation is imposed;

- A PDF of an extended abstract of the doctoral dissertation,
3-5 pages in length, written in English;

- PDF versions of each of up to five papers published at international
peer-reviewed conferences or journals based on the work reported in
the doctoral dissertation;

- A PDF description, and pointer to, any software or systems developed
during the research;

- A PDF version of a nomination letter from the supervisor of the research.

2. In addition to the supervisor's nomination letter, two additional letters
should be forwarded directly to the secretary of the ACP from two referees,
selected by the dissertation supervisor, supporting the submission and stating
their assessment of why the thesis should win the award. These letters will
not be shown to the research supervisor or the candidate.

TIMEFRAME

Deadline for nominations: Monday 31st May 2010
Notification: Monday 2nd August 2010

SELECTION

The selection of the winning candidate is based on the originality, impact,
and quality of the research work. The evaluation will consider all
contributions to the CP community, including publications, software
and systems.

The work of the candidates will be reviewed by a committee of researchers
selected by the ACP Executive Committee, based on the nominations received.

____________________________________________________________________________

Content

Section

Executive Committee Decisions