2011 Quarter 2

REPORT FROM THE ASSOCIATION FOR CONSTRAINT PROGRAMMING

http://www.4c.ucc.ie/a4cp/

This is a short summary of activities within the ACP during the months April-June 2011.

The 2011 ACP Executive Committee comprises the following people, in alphabetical order (officers identified):

  • Yves Deville
  • John Hooker
  • Jimmy H.M. Lee - Secretary
  • Barry O'Sullivan - President
  • Thomas Schiex - Treasurer
  • Helmut Simonis
  • Peter Stuckey
  • Roland Yap

ACP.1. CP Conference 2011

The ACP EC would like to extend an invitation to all members of the CP community to attend the CP 2011 conference in Perugia, Italy. A sincere thanks goes to Jimmy Lee, whose job as PC Chair has taken much of his time recently as he finalised the conference proceedings. We wish Stefano Bistarelli, Conference Chair, and his team every success as they prepare for the conference in September.

Web: http://www.dmi.unipg.it/cp2011/

ACP.2. Advance Notice of the ACP General Assembly at CP 2011

The 2011 General Assembly of the Association for Constraint Programming will take place on Thursday 15th of September at 5:00pm, during the main CP conference programme. All members of the ACP are invited to attend.

ACP.3. ACP Summer School 2011

The Executive Committee of the ACP would like to congratulate Pierre Flener, Justin Pearson (both of Uppsala University, Sweden), and Christian Schulte (KTH - Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden) for organising an excellent ACP Summer School this year. The following report has been submitted by the organisers:

The ACP Summer School 2011, an advanced school on hybrid methods for CP, was held in Turunç (Turkey) from 27 June to 1 July 2011. The lecturers were Ian Gent (University of St Andrews, Scotland, UK), John Hooker (Carnegie Mellon University, USA), Laurent Michel (University of Connecticut, USA), and Michel Rueher (Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis, France), on the hybridisation of CP with SAT, MIP, SLS, and continuous optimisation, respectively. Lecture slides, photos & movies, and the participant list are uploaded at the school's website:

http://www.gecode.org/events/acp-summerschool-2011/

The school attracted 34 participants, including postdocs and industry practitioners in addition to PhD students, from all corners of the world. The all-in-one location and highly affordable rates of the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Physics (ITAP) were considered a key ingredient to the success of the school, due to the stupendous view from its lovely terrace, its succulent food and devoted personnel, and its sufficient (but not excessive) isolation from the distractions of minor and major beach resorts nearby. In addition to the daily lectures (interrupted mid-afternoon for a siesta or a quick swim), experiments were made with what was termed "intellectual nightcap", and a half-day boat cruise in the turquoise waters of the large bay provided the necessary idleness as well as material for legends...

The organisers were Pierre Flener, Justin Pearson (both of Uppsala University, Sweden), and Christian Schulte (KTH - Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden). The school benefitted from generous sponsorship of the ACP, AFCP, Cadence.com, NICTA.com.au, Quintiq.com, and SICS.se. The organisers are grateful to Barry O'Sullivan and Thomas Schiex for the generous administrative support from the ACP, to Yves Deville and Christine Solnon for all the advice they offered based on their 2010 school, and to the ITAP personnel for all the help.

ACP.4. ACP Research Excellence Award 2011

This year a strong field of nominees was received for the ACP Research Excellence Award. A committee established by the EC is responsible for selecting the winning candidate. This committee is chaired by the President of the ACP, Barry O'Sullivan. The other members of this year's committee are: Jimmy Lee (ACP Secretary and CP 2011 PC Chair), Rina Dechter, Alan Mackworth and Pascal Van Hentenryck.

ACP.5. ACP Doctoral Research Award 2011

A strong field of nominations has been received for the ACP Doctoral Research Award. A committee established by the EC is responsible for selecting the winning candidate for this award. Members from the general community are recruited to serve as reviewers and make recommendations on the overall winner. This year's committee is chaired by Roland Yap.

ACP.6. Association for Constraint Programming LinkedIn Group

The ACP have established a LinkedIn group for the association to help promote our research and activities through this professional social network platform. On behalf of the Association for Constraint Programming, the EC would like to invite everyone interested in our field to join this group. We hope it will provide you with an ideal forum for keeping people updated about what you're doing, and help you network with both academic and industry-based colleagues. We would like to acknowledge Guido Tack for the suggestion that we should create this group.

ACP.7. Call for Bids for CP-2013

We are issuing the Call for Bids for CP 2013. [ Please see the attached call ]

____ Attachements below

CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO HOST CP-2013

We invite proposals to host the 19th International Conference on the Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP-2013). Proposals are due on or before September 1st, 2011. 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 2012 will be held in Quebec City (Canada), while CP 2011 will be held in Perugia (Italy). Previous CP conference have been held in St. Andrews (Scotland), Lisbon (Portugal), Sydney (AUS), Providence RI (USA), Nantes (France), 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.