2011 Quarter 3

REPORT FROM THE ASSOCIATION FOR CONSTRAINT PROGRAMMING

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

This is a short summary of activities within the ACP during the months July-September 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

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. Comment on CP 2011

On behalf of the ACP, the Executive Committee would like to congratulate the various people responsible for making CP 2011 in Perugia such a wonderful success. A very special thanks goes to Stefano Bistarelli (Conference Chair), Jimmy Lee (Program Chair), Helmut Simonis (Applications Track Chair and Official Photographer), Christian Schulte (Workshop and Tutorial Chair), Chris Jefferson and Guido Tack (Doctoral Program Chairs), and Ian Miguel (Sponsorship Chair). Stefano was supported by an excellent local organisation team (the Red Team) who are all listed on the conference web-site:

http://www.dmi.unipg.it/cp2011/organization.html

The attendance at the conference was very strong at 178. A number of press reports from Giornale dell'Umbria and Corriere dell'Umbria can be found on the conference web-site also.

ACP.2. ACP Research Excellence Award 2011 -- Professor Patrick Prosser

The 2011 ACP Research Excellence Award was made at CP 2011. The award committee was chaired by the ACP President (Barry O'Sullivan). The members were Rina Dechter, Jimmy Lee, Alan Mackworth, and Pascal Van Hentenryck. The committee recommended that this year's award go to Professor Patrick Prosser. Pat's citation reads as follows: "awarded in recognition of a programme of seminal and outstanding scientific contributions to both the theory and practice of constraint programming." Pat was nominated by Ian Gent, Barbara Smith and Toby Walsh. Pat gave his acceptance talk through the use of a video, which he and Ian Gent made, followed by a Q&A. This is available for viewing from YouTube (search for Patrick Prosser).

ACP.3. ACP Doctoral Research Award 2010

This year's committee responsible for selecting the winning candidate for this award was chaired by Roland Yap. The members of the committee were Peter van Beek and Toby Walsh. The recipient of the award was Standa Zivny for his doctoral dissertation entitled "The Complexity and Expressive Power of Valued Constraints". Guido was nominated by Peter Jeavons (Oxford). On behalf of the ACP, the Executive Committee would like to once again congratulate Standa on his achievement.

Michele Lombardi, nominated by Michela Milano, received an honourable mention for his dissertation entitled "Hybrid Methods for Resource Allocation and Scheduling Problems in Deterministic and Stochastic Environments." 

ACP.4. ACP General Assembly 2011

During the CP 201§ 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. The reports and minutes of the assembly will be made available from the ACP web-site.

ACP.5. CP 2012 Conference

The CP 2012 conference will be held in Quebec City, Canada. The Conference Chairs for the conference will be Gilles Pesant and Claude-Guy Quimper, with an additional Local Chair in Louis Martin Rouseau.

ACP.6. CP 2012 Program Chair

The ACP is delighted to announce that the CP 2012 Program Chair will be Michela Milano (Bologna).

ACP.7. Expressions of Interest in Hosting CP 2013 and CP 2014

The ACP likes to plan CP conferences two years in advance. We are therefore interested in hearing expressions of interest from those who are considering hosting the conference in 2014. A formal call for proposals will be issued early in the new year. In the meantime please consider discussing organising the conference with the ACP Secretary at secretary@a4cp.org

ACP.8. Call for Proposals to Host the ACP Summer School 2012

Members of the CP community who are interested in organizing the 2012 ACP Summer School should send a proposal to secretary@a4cp.org by November 30th 2011, containing at least the following information:

  1. topic of the school
  2. location
  3. dates
  4. organizers
  5. provisional budget

Since its establishment, the summer school has been a major success with feedback from student attendees being very positive.