Volume 9, Number 0, January 2013

Constraint Programming News

volume 9, number 0, January, 2013

Editors:
Jimmy Lee (events, career news)
Eric Monfroy (profiles, publications)
Toby Walsh (news, reports)

Due to unforeseen circumstances, there was no 4th issue of the Constraint Programming News (v8n3) in 2012.

Contents



NEWS

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 July-October 2012.

The 2012 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. Results of the 2012 Executive Committee Elections

As reported before the CP conference, three new EC members have been elected to replace those whose terms expire at the end of 2012. On behalf of the ACP, the EC would like to congratulate Pierre Flener, Willem-Jan van Hoeve and Guido Tack, on their election to the Executive Committee. The EC would also like to thank John Hooker, Barry O'Sullivan and Peter Stuckey for their contributions to the ACP and the CP community at large during their past terms of office. According to ACP Bylaw 4.8, Barry O'Sullivan will serve as Past President on the new ACP Executive Committee as a non-voting member. The new EC, which will begin operation in January, 2013, consists of the following members (in alphabetical order):

  • Yves Deville
  • Pierre Flener
  • Willem-Jan van Hoeve
  • Barry O'Sullivan (ex-officio, non-voting)
  • Thomas Schiex
  • Helmut Simonis
  • Guido Tack
  • Roland Yap

ACP.2. Comment on CP 2012

On behalf of the ACP, the Executive Committee would like to congratulate the various people responsible for making CP 2012 in Quebec City such a wonderful success. A very special thanks goes to Gilles Pesant and Claude-Guy Quimper (Conference Chairs), Michela Milano (Program Chair), Helmut Simonis (Applications Track Chair), Barry O'Sullivan (Multidisciplinary Track Chair),Meinolf Sellmann (Workshop ), Michele Lombardi and Stanislav Zivny (Doctoral Program Chairs), Louis-Martin Rousseau (Sponsorship Chair), and the members of the various programme committees.

ACP.3. ACP Summer School 2012

This year the ACP summer school takes place 24-28 September 2012 in Wroclaw,Poland. It was organized by the Institute of Computer Science University of Wroclaw by Krzysztof Apt, Witold Charatonik, and Leszek Pacholski. The subject of the school was the theory and practice of constraint programming. The school was very well attended. For details please see: http://acpss2012.ii.uni.wroc.pl

The programme included talks from:

The ACP would like to sincerely thank the organisers for running such an excellent school this year.

ACP.4. ACP Summer School 2013

The 2013 ACP Summer School will take place on the 6th-11th of January 2013 in ANU's Kioloa Costal Campus (Kioloa, New South Wales, Australia). The chair of the Summer School is Toby Walsh, who is working with a local arrangements committee comprising Phil Kilby, Peter Stuckey, Abdul Sattar, Sylvie Thiebaux, Pascal Van Hentenryck, and Mark Wallace. The School is organized by the Optimisation Research Group at NICTA. The theme of the school is solving large scale combinatorial optimisation problems in practice. The topics covered will include: introduction to constraint programming, modelling, integer programming, global constraints, uncertainty, vehicle routing, scheduling, supply networks and research skills. Lecturers include Simon Dunstall, Phil Kilby, Pascal van Hentenryck, Martin Savelsbergh, Peter Stuckey, Mark Wallace and Toby Walsh. For more information please see: http://go.to/cpschool

The ACP would like to wish Toby and his team every success with the summer school.

ACP.5. ACP Distinguished Service Award 2012 -- Professor Eugene Freuder

The selection committee for this award was chaired by John Hooker. The other members were Krzysztof Apt, Yves Deville, Jimmy Lee (ex officio), Michela Milano (ex officio), and Peter Stuckey. The committee recommended that this year's award go to Professor Eugene Freuder. Gene's citation reads as follows: "For contributions to the field of constraint programming through sustained service, including his central role in the creation of the CP research community, its primary conference, professional association, flagship journal, and a leading research institute." Gene was nominated by Francesca Rossi. The ACP would like to congratulate Gene.

ACP.6. ACP Doctoral Research Award 2012

This year's committee responsible for selecting the winning candidate for this award was chaired by Roland Yap. The members of the committee were John Hooker and Thomas Schiex. The recipient of the award was Geoffrey Chu for his doctoral dissertation entitled "Improving Combinatorial Optimization". Geoffrey was nominated by Peter Stuckey (Melbourne). On behalf of the ACP, the Executive Committee would like to once again congratulate Geoffrey on his achievement.

Nina Narodytska, nominated by Toby Walsh, received an honourable mention for her dissertation entitled "Reformulation of Global Constraints."

ACP.7. CP 2013 Conference

The CP 2013 conference will be held in Uppsala, Sweden. The Conference Chairs for the conference will be Mats Carlsson, Pierre Flener, and Justin Pearson. Details of the conference can be found at: http://cp2013.a4cp.org

ACP.8. CP 2013 Program Chair

The ACP is delighted to announce that the CP 2013 Program Chair will be Christian Schulte (KTH, Sweden).

ACP.9. Expressions of Interest in Hosting and CP 2014 and CP 2015

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 and 2015. 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

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS: ICAPS Awards: Influential Paper, Best Dissertation

Call for Nominations: ICAPS Influential Paper Award

This award honors the authors of a significant and influential paper in any area of automated planning and scheduling. It will be given during the ICAPS conference.

Papers that qualify for the award are those published in one of the ICAPS family of conferences (ICAPS, ECP, EWSP, AIPS) at least 10 years before the year of the current conference (i.e, up to 2003 for this year's award).

The recipients of the 2013 award will receive a certificate, 500 USD and one complimentary registration to the ICAPS 2013 conference.

The award committee is requesting nominations of candidate papers.

The nomination material should include:
  • the reference of the nominated paper,
  • the reasons in favor of the nomination,
  • either a URL from which the paper can be retrieved or a copy of the paper itself. Please contact the committee if this last requirement causes any difficulties.
Nominations should be emailed to the following address: icaps-awards-committee@googlegroups.com

Submission deadline: 15 January 2013

--------------------------------

Call for Nominations: ICAPS Best Dissertation Award

This award honors an outstanding Ph.D. dissertation in any area of automated planning and scheduling. It will be given during the ICAPS conference.

PhD dissertations that were completed and filed in 2011 or 2012 will be considered for the ICAPS 2013 Best Dissertation Award. The recipient will receive a certificate and 500 USD.

The award committee is requesting nominations of candidate PhDs.

The nomination material should include the following:

  • a CV of the candidate with a complete list of publications,
  • a copy of the dissertation,
  • a nomination letter by the PhD advisor (this letter must specify the completion/filing date of the dissertation)
  • two additional recommendation letters or a copy of the request for such letters. If a request is submitted in lieu of the actual recommendation letter, the letter itself must be received by 15 February 2013.

Nominations should be emailed, either as a single PDF file or a ZIP archive of several PDF files, to the following address: icaps-awards-committee@googlegroups.com

Submission deadline: 31 January 2013

A word of caution: it is possible to postpone asking recommenders for their letters until the very last minute (31 January), leaving them only two weeks to get the letters in to the committee. This seems to us to be a high-risk strategy. We urge nominators to request these letters as soon as possible, since the recommenders may need to familiarize themselves with the contents of the thesis. Nominators are responsible for ensuring that the letters of recommendation are submitted by the final deadline. The committee will not solicit missing letters, nor will it review incomplete nomination packets.

The dissertation should preferably be written in English. However, we accept dissertations not written in English if they are submitted together with the following documents that must be written in English: an extended abstract of the dissertation, a series of papers that cover the key results of the dissertation and a document that describes the mapping from the papers to the chapters of the dissertation. Students who did not win an award last year can be nominated again if they are still eligible this year.

More information on the ICAPS conference series can be found at the following URL: www.icaps-conference.org.

ICAPS-13 Doctoral Consortium Call for Participation

23rd International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling

http://icaps13.istc.cnr.it/ June 10-14, 2013, Rome, Italy

Doctoral Consortium - Call for Participation

The Organizing Committee of the 23rd International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS 2013) invites Ph.D. students to apply for the Doctoral Consortium. The aim of the Doctoral Consortium is to provide a forum for students to discuss their PhD work-in-progress with other students and senior researchers working in similar areas, get mentorship by senior researchers in the field, career guidance, research skill advice, and accelerated cohesion with the ICAPS community.

The Doctoral Consortium will be a full day workshop on June 9th, one day prior to the 5-day conference format. The DC participants will also present posters during the main ICAPS conference, in a session open to all ICAPS participants.

Students accepted in the Doctoral Consortium are eligible for partial financial support.

Application Procedure

Applicants should submit:
  • A dissertation abstract (not a paper) of at most 6 pages, using AAAI style.
  • A CV.
  • A short recommendation letter from PhD supervisor verifying applicants enrollment in a PhD program.

To both DC chairs, Emma Brunskill (ebrunskill at cs dot cmu dot edu) and Ioannis Refanidis (yrefanid at uom dot gr).

For any questions or problem, please contact the DC chairs.

Important Dates

  • Submission deadline: February 8, 2013
  • Notification date: March 8, 2013
  • Final versions due: April 5, 2013
  • Doctoral Consortium: June 9, 2013

Doctoral Consortium Co-Chairs:

  • Emma Brunskill, Carnegie Mellon University, US
  • Ioannis Refanidis, University of Macedonia, Greece


CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: 9th Int Summer School of the Assoc of Constraint Programming, Jan 2013 (Summer in OZ!)

Call For Participation:
9th International Summer School of the Association of Constraint
Programming http://go.to/cpschool
Kioloa Beach
New South Wales
Australia
6th to 11th January, 2013

The theme of the school is solving large scale combinatorial optimisation problems in practice. To apply, please complete the form at: http://acpshcool.wufoo.com/forms/registration-form

Applications will be considered as they are received so you are encouraged to apply as soon as possible.

Lectures are planned to include:
  • Modelling (Mark Wallace, Monash and NICTA): an introduction to modelling in Zinc, with hands-on experience in the computer lab;
  • Constraint programming (Peter Stuckey, Melbourne and NICTA): an introduction to using a modern constraint toolkit, with insights about how to get the most out of them;
  • Global constraints (Toby Walsh, NICTA and UNSW): an introduction to global constraints, what they are and why they are your best friend;
  • Integer and mixed-integer programming (Martin Savelsbergh, Newcastle): an introduction to modelling and solving large scale optimisation problems using (mixed) integer programming;
  • Parameterized complexity (Mike Fellows, Charles Darwin): an introduction to using tools from computational complexity to understand the approximability of optimisation problems;
  • Handling uncertainty (Pascal Van Hentenryck, Melbourne and NICTA): an introduction to modelling problems involving uncertainty;
  • Vehicle routing (Phil Kilby, ANU and NICTA): an introduction to solving this very important class of problems;
  • Column Generation and Scheduling (Menkes van den Briel, NICTA): an introduction to solving this important solving technique and its application to an important class of problems;
  • Supply networks (Simon Dunstall, CSIRO): an introduction to decision support tools for managing supply networks;
  • Consulting for industry (Andrew Verden, NICTA): insights into solving optimisation problems in practice based on the experience of many real world consulting gigs;
  • Research skills (Toby Walsh, NICTA and UNSW): lectures, discussion groups and exercises on writing papers, reviewing, managing your supervisor and research ethics.
  • We will also run a modelling competition throughout the school with a small prize for the best solution. Students will also be given an opportunity to present their own work and receive feedback from the lecturers.

The programme will run from Monday morning to Friday afternoon. Participants shoukd arrive Sunday night and depart Friday afternoon (5 nights). We will have a welcome barbecue on Sunday evening, and an excurison on Wednesday afternoon to a local attraction.

The school will run at ANU's seaside conference retreat at Kioloa. Accommodation is in bunkhouse cottages of 4-8 people, with shared bathrooms. Weather in January is pleasant, with average daytime highs of 24 degrees centigrade and average nightime lows of 18 degrees.

The nearest international airport is Sydney. Kioloa is a 3 1/2 hour drive south of Sydney. Whilst there are public buses, we will run a bus from Sydney on Sunday afternoon and from Kioloa on Friday after lunch to make people's travel easier and to start the Summer School experience earlier.

Registration, accommodation and food will be provided free to all persons attending. Attendees therefore just need to get themselves to Sydney.





JOURNALS

CONSTRAINTS journal

Latest Issue: Volume 17, Number 4 / October 2012
  • LS(Graph): a constraint-based local search for constraint optimization on trees and path. Quang Dung Pham, Yves Deville and Pascal Van Hentenryck
  • Solving the quorumcast routing problem by constraint programming Quang Dung Pham and Yves Deville
  • Interval-based projection method for under-constrained numerical systems Daisuke Ishii, Alexandre Goldsztejn and Christophe Jermann
  • A complexity perspective on entailment of parameterized linear constraints Pavlos Eirinakis, Salvatore Ruggieri, K. Subramani and Piotr Wojciechowski


Special Issue of the European Journal on Computational Optimization on Constraint Programming Approaches to Combinatorial Optimization.

NEW SUBMISSION DEADLINE : January 15, 2013

Combinatorial Optimization is at the heart of many real-world applications, while at the same time it is a vibrant and intellectually challenging field of research. Some well-known application areas of combinatorial optimization are vehicle routing, employee scheduling, strategic planning, (financial) asset optimization, production scheduling, timetabling, to name just a few. In this world with ever-more available digital information, the developments in the field of combinatorial optimization are increasingly more important to our society.

The different contexts in which combinatorial problems arise have led to a variety of solution techniques. For example, in Operations Research (OR), the traditional application areas include logistics, supply chain management, and resource allocation problems, while the solution methodology is most often based on integer linear programming, or more generally mathematical programming. On the other hand, the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has historically studied applications such as motion planning, pattern recognition, and learning. Most solution methods in AI for combinatorial optimization utilize specialized search algorithms and constraint reasoning techniques.

Based on a systematic search procedure and constraint propagation, Constraint Programming (CP) has been the main paradigm for the integration of techniques from OR and AI in the last decade. It has fostered the development of new methodologies such as logic-based Benders decomposition and CP-based column generation while providing a framework for state-of-art algorithms for solving both challenging new applications, such as radio therapy planning (IMRT), and fundamental combinatorial optimization problems such as max-clique or graph coloring.

We invite papers that combine ideas from algorithmic combinatorics, mathematical programming, and artificial intelligence in the context of Constraint Programming Approaches to Combinatorial Optimization. Papers, in the EJCO format, should be submitted online at https://www.editorialmanager.com/ejco/ and selecting article type SI: Constraint Programming Approaches to Combinatorial Optimization.

Guest Editors: Willem-Jan van Hoeve (vanhoeve@andrew.cmu.edu) Louis-Martin Rousseau (Louis-Martin.Rousseau@cirrelt.ca)

Special Issue on Scheduling in Healthcare Systems JOURNAL OF APPLIED OPERATIONAL RESEARCH (JAOR).

Guest Editor:
Tomas Eric Nordlander
SINTEF ICT,
tomas.nordlander@sintef.no

Many Healthcare providers have suffered a crisis of poor quality and inefficiency with rapidly increasing costs. Healthcare delivery faces complex scheduling needs and stands to gain from advances in scheduling technology and understanding. The purpose of this special issue is to provide academics and practitioners an opportunity to share the most recent developments in the area of scheduling in healthcare systems. The special issue will cover the general area of scheduling with particular emphasis on healthcare applications, including, but not limited to

  • Automation
  • Expert Systems
  • Exact Methods and Optimization
  • Heuristics and Metaheuristics
  • Machine Scheduling
  • Patient Scheduling
  • Personnel Scheduling
  • Rescheduling and Shift Timetabling
  • Queuing, Simulation and Uncertainty
Submission Deadline: 15-Sep-2013

Paper Submission

Authors should submit their manuscripts in MS Word via email to jaor@tadbir.ca. Each submission will be assigned an identification code. Please quote this in all correspondence. By submitting a manuscript you certify that the contribution is original work and has not been published or under consideration for publishing elsewhere and that no part of the material breaches any right of others. All articles will be peer reviewed by at least two anonymous referees. Authors are advised to ensure that they have conformed to JAOR's script requirements detailed at http://www.tadbir.ca/jaor/authors.htm





PUBLICATIONS

Habilitation Thesis

PhD Thesis



Software

New SCIP version released

Dear colleagues,

We are happy to inform you that version 3.0 of the SCIP Optimization Suite has been released. It is comprised of +SCIP 3.0, SoPlex 1.7, ZIMPL 3.3 and initial releases of GCG 1.0, a generic branch-cut-and-price solver, and UG 0.7, a parallel framework for mixed integer (non-)linear programming.

The SCIP Optimization Suite 3.0 provides many new features, performance improvements, and bug fixes. Some +highlights are: six new presolving and propagation plugins, an iterative refinement procedure for computing high-precision +LP solutions, further improved support of MINLP, and beta-versions of an AMPL and a MATLAB interface. The SCIP +Optimization Suite can be obtained via http://scip.zib.de.


Best regards,
the SCIP team and friends -------------

Release notes of the individual software packages:

SCIP 3.0: http://scip.zib.de/doc/html/RELEASENOTES.shtml SoPlex 1.7: http://soplex.zib.de/notes-170.txt ZIMPL 3.3: http://zimpl.zib.de/ GCG 1.0: http://www.or.rwth-aachen.de/gcg



EVENTS

Conferences

  • LION 2013, 7th Learning and Intelligent OptimizatioN Conference, January 7-11, 2013, Catania, Italy. http://www.intelligent-optimization.org/LION7/
  • PADL'13, 15th International Symposium on Practical Aspects of Declarative Languages, January 21-22, 2013, Rome, Italy. http://www.it.uu.se/conf/padl2013/
  • ICAART 2013, 5th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence, February 15-18, 2013, Barcelona, Spain. http://www.icaart.org/
  • ETAPS 2013, The European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, 16 - 24 March 2013, Rome, Italy. http://www.etaps.org/
  • SAC 2013 (Track on Constraint Solving and Programming), 28th Symposium On Applied Computing, March 18 - 22, 2013, Coimbra, Portugal. http://www.dmi.unipg.it/~bista/organizing/constraint-sac2013/
  • CPAIOR 2013, Tenth International Conference on Integration of Artificial Intelligence and Operations Research Techniques in Constraint Programming, MAY 18 - 22, 2013, IBM Research, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA. http://www.cis.cornell.edu/ics/cpaior2013/
  • ICCI 2013, The International Conference on Computational Intelligence, May 22-23, 2013, Berlin, Germany. Paper submission deadline: December 31, 2012. http://www.waset.org/conferences/2013/berlin/icci/
  • FLAIRS 2013, 26th International Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society Conference, May 22 - 24, 2013, St. Pete Beach, Florida, USA. http://www.flairs-26.info/
  • 10th ESWC 2013 -- Semantics and Big Data, May 26-30, 2013. Montpellier, France. http://2013.eswc-conferences.org/
  • ICAISC 2013, 12th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing, June 9-13, 2013, Zakopane, Poland. http://icaisc.eu/
  • ICAPS 2013, 23rd International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling, June 10th - 14th, 2013, Rome, Italy. http://icaps13.istc.cnr.it/
    • Special Journal Presentation Track@ICAPS 2013, 23rd International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling, June 10th - 14th, 2013, Rome, Italy. Submission deadline: February 15, 2013 http://icaps13.istc.cnr.it/?page_id=486
  • Special Track on Novel Applications@ICAPS 2013, 23rd International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling, June 10th - 14th, 2013, Rome, Italy. http://icaps13.istc.cnr.it/
  • EURO 2013, 26th European Conference on Operational Research, July 1-4, 2013, Rome, Italy. http://euro2013.org/
  • ACAI 2013, International Conference on Advances in Computing & Artificial Intelligence, July 4 -5, 2013, Punjab, India. Paper submission deadline: January 30, 2013. http://acai.chitkara.edu.in/index.html
  • GECCO-2013, 2013 GENETIC AND EVOLUTIONARY COMPUTATION CONFERENCE, Evolutionary Combinatorial Optimization and Metaheuristics (ECOM) Track, July 06-10, 2013, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Paper submission deadline: January 23, 2013. http://www.sigevo.org/gecco-2013
  • SAT 2013, 16th International Conference on Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing, July 8-12, 2013 Helsinki, Finland. Abstract deadline: February 1, 2013. Paper deadline: February 8, 2013. http://sat2013.cs.helsinki.fi/
  • AAAI 2013, The Twenty-Seventh AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, July 14 - 18, 2013, Bellevue, Washington, USA. Abstract submission deadline: January 19, 2013. Paper submission deadline: January 22, 2013. http://www.aaai.org/Conferences/AAAI/aaai13.php
  • IJCAI 2013, 23rd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, August 3-9, 2013, Beijing, China. Abstract submission deadline: January 26, 2013. Paper submission deadline: January 31, 2013. http://ijcai13.org/
  • MISTA 2013, 6th Multidisciplinary International Scheduling Conference, 27-30 August 2013, Gent, Belgium. Paper submission deadline: January 31, 2013. http://www.schedulingconference.org/
  • LPNMR 2013, 12th International Conference on Logic Programming and Nonmonotonic Reasoning, September 15-19, 2013, Corunna, Spain. http://lpnmr2013.udc.es/
  • FroCoS 2013, 9th International Symposium on Frontiers of Combining Systems Nancy, France, September 18-20, 2013. Submission Deadlines: 15 Apr 2013 (Abs.), 22 Apr 2013 (Paper). http://frocos2013.loria.fr/
  • JFPC 2013, Neuvièmes Journées Francophones de Programmation par Contraintes, 12-14 June 2013, Aix en Provence, France. Submission Deadlines: 25 Feb 2013 (Abs.), 4 March 2013 (Paper). http://www.lsis.org/jfpc-jiaf2013/




CAREER NEWS



PhD and Postdoc Openings in Geometric Computing

We are pleased to announce the opening of up to 5 PhD and 4 Postdoc positions in Geometric Computing, within the new project GeomComp (http://erga.di.uoa.gr/projects/main.html#thales)

This is a 4-year project, involving 3 research groups in the following institutions:
  • National Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA), Department of Informatics and Telecommunications, Faculty members: Ioannis Emiris, Dimitrios Gunopulos. The group includes also Leonidas Palios, Theocharis Malamatos and Euripides Markou, collaborating faculty members from University of Ioannina, University of Peloponnese, and University of Central Greece, respectively.
  • National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering. Faculty members: Panagiotis Kaklis, Alexandros Ginnis.
  • Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH), Crete. Faculty member: Menelaos Karavelas. The group includes also Vassilis Samoladas, collaborating faculty member from Technical University of Crete.
The project also involves collaboration with our external partners, who include:
  • Leonidas Guibas, Stanford University, USA.
  • Evanthia Papadopoulou, University of Lugano, Switzerland.
GeomComp is part of the Thales program of the Greek Ministry of Education, funded by EU and Greek funds. The groups above are involved in competitive and exciting EU projects and maintain a high international visibility; the corresponding institutions provide a very competitive research environment. The aim of GeomComp is to employ a modern, multi-disciplinary approach, at the intersection of Computer Science, Engineering, and Computational Mathematics. We expect to deliver top-level algorithmic results for representative and important problems in Geometric Computing, along with robust implementations (often integrated in the CGAL library), leading to the practical solution of specific, critical applications. In particular, research will involve:
  • Computational Geometry and generalizations: convex geometry with extensions to higher dimensions and nonlinear objects, visibility with linear obstacles with extensions to nonlinear obstacles, Voronoi diagrams in 2D with extensions to 3D and curved objects, nearest-neighbor queries with extensions to data-mining, approximate geometric optimization with extensions to massive data.
  • Non-linear Computational Geometry and Geometric Design, including the development of the required mathematical tools.
  • Critical applications in structural bioinformatics, molecular modeling, and industrial design, such as VLSI and ship design.
These are full-time positions and funding is guaranteed initially for two years (PhD) or one year (Postdoc). Funding is extendable for at least 1 more year based on satisfactory academic progress. The preferred starting date is October 1, 2012, however it is negotiable with each institute.

BACKGROUND:

The applicants should have (or be bound to have by the starting date) a MSc degree in computer science, mathematics, or related discipline. Applicants with a strong background in computational geometry and/or geometric design will be preferred. Candidates must be comfortable with writing and speaking in English.

TO APPLY: Applicants should send an email to Euripides Markou (emarkou@ucg.gr) including:

  • Full CV, including Contact details of at least 2 references.
  • PhD candidates: A cover letter to specify their preferred area(s) of research. There is possibility that a PhD student is co-advised by 2 faculty members from different institutes.
  • Postdoc candidates: A statement of their research interests (1-2 pages).

There is no deadline for applying, but the applications will be processed as they come. For further inquiries please email emarkou@ucg.gr.



PHD POSITIONS IN OPTIMISATION @ NICTA VRL MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY & VICTORIAN UNIVERSITIES

National ICT Australia (NICTA) is Australia's Information and Communications Technology Research Centre of Excellence. NICTA is offering scholarships for exceptional PhD students working in the priority area of Optimisation at a number of Victorian universities. NICTA offers both full and top-up scholarships on top of base scholarships at Victorian Universities, including the University of Melbourne, RMIT University and Monash University

Optimisation

The optimisation research group at NICTA VRL, led by Professor Pascal Van Hentenryck, at the University of Melbourne is recognised as a world-class team with pioneering contributions in fields such as constraint programming, hybrid optimisation, and planning. The group currently offers attractive PhD scholarships for high-calibre students interested in contributing to their research effort. The group focuses on grand challenges in disaster management, future energy systems, and multi-modal supply chains. Fundamental and applied research is conducted in continuous and discrete optimisation, decision making under uncertainty, simulation and 3D-visualisation, and algorithmic decision theory. Optimisation and decision-support platforms are being developed that will bring unprecedented support for decision making in complex environments.

NICTA Optimisation Research Group homepage: http://www.nicta.com.au/research/optimisation

For further information please contact Pascal Van Hentenryck, Optimisation Research Group Leader: pvh@nicta.com.au

Application procedure:

Please follow the instructions at http://www.nicta.com.au/education/scholarships/victoria_research_lab

Applications and questions should be directed to vrlschols@lists.nicta.com.au



Postdoctoral Positions in Cognitive Systems

Two postdoctoral positions are available for researchers who have backgrounds and interests in cognitive systems that exhibit integrated, high-level reasoning. Training and experience in applied logic, rule-based systems, or symbolic computing would be useful for both positions.

One project, based at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, focuses on knowledge-guided, meta-level control of inference and problem solving, with an emphasis on reasoning about other agents' mental states. This position is available immediately.

The other project, based at the Institute for the Study of Learning and Expertise in Silicon Valley, California, focuses on using knowledge to guide compositional modeling in scientific domains and transferring such knowledge across modeling tasks. This position will be available starting in September.

For more information about the projects and positions, please contact Pat Langley patrick.w.langley@gmail.com.



Post-Doctoral Position in Constraints, National University of Singapore (availability from Jan 2013)

The Constraint group at the Department of Computer Science, National University of Singapore (NUS) has a opening at the post-doc level and also at the research assistant level.

Post-doc applicants should have a PhD in Computer Science with research experience in constraints. Implementation experience is an important asset. The post-doc position is to look at the interaction between global constraints and table constraints. We are also looking at the use of sophisticated data structures and representations. However, there is flexibility in investigating related areas in constraint solving.

Applicants for the research assistant position should have a good honours degree or an MSc. Ideally, the research assistant should also be pursuing a PhD at NUS.

Both positions are available from January, 2013 onwards. Appointments will initially be for one year with the possibility of extension for another two years.

Please direct inquiries and applications to:
Professor Roland Yap
School of Computing
National University of Singapore
13 Computing Drive
Singapore 117417
Republic of Singapore
E-mail: ryap@comp.nus.edu.sg

Constraint Programming Jobs, University of Dundee, Scotland

The University of Dundee launched a new scheme called Dundee Fellows see: http://www.dundee.ac.uk/dundeefellows/

These are a series of permanent academic jobs. This is to bring in a series of excellent academics onto permanent contracts (subject to the completion of 3 year probation) into any research area within the College of Art, Science and Engineering. These staff will be labelled as Dundee Fellows during their first 5 years, over which time they will receive enhanced staff development and a research focus to their duties, while automatically moving to a regular academic contract (lecturer, senior lecturer, reader or professor) at the end of these 5 years. These will be independent researchers (and not postdocs under supervision). Their teaching load will start low, and will gradually increase over the first 5 years, to phase them into teaching.

The area of Argumentation Technology contains Constraint Programming. If you are interested than please do email Karen Petrie at: karenpetrie@computing.dundee.ac.uk.



Postdoc opening: Department of Informatics and Telecommunications, University of Athens, Greece

We announce the opening of a Postdoc position in the framework of the new project ESPRESSO: Exploiting Structure in Polynomial Equation and System Solving in Geometric and Game Modeling, see http://erga.di.uoa.gr/projects/main.html#espresso.

The project is coordinated by Ioannis Emiris, in collaboration with:

  • Elias Koutsoupias, University of Athens, and Oxford University, UK
  • Bernard Mourrain, INRIA Sophia-Antipolis, France
  • Peter Bro Miltersen, Aarhus University, Danemark

This is a full-time position for up to 2 years; the salary is about 2300 Euro gross. The project started on October 1, 2012, its duration is 3 years, funded in the framework of the Excellence ("Aristeia") program, by EU and the Greek Ministry of Development.

The aim of ESPRESSO is to study important problems in polynomial equation and system solving, and design efficient algebraic algorithms with applications in geometric modeling and computational game theory. The hosting group is involved in competitive EU projects and maintains a high international visibility, while the hosting institution provides an exciting research environment. The Postdoc researcher is expected to collaborate with the PhD student working in the framework of ESPRESSO as well as with the other members of the group.

TO APPLY
Applicants should have a PhD degree in computer science, mathematics, or related discipline, and be fluent in English. There is no firm deadline for applying; the applications are processed until the position is filled. Applicants should email the following to emiris@di.uoa.gr:

  • Full CV, including publications and contact details of at least 3 references.
  • Research statement of up to 2 pages.


POST-DOC RESEARCHER POSITION: Job reference: MI-PI-46-ARH/2012

Transverse Activity on Intelligent Robotics, University of Aveiro, Portugal

Apply by 2012/12/31

In the framework of FP7 project RACE ("3Robustness by Autonomous Competence Enhancement"), the Institute for Electronics and Telematics Engineering (IEETA), University of Aveiro, intends to fill, in the near future, a post- doctoral research position, under a "Contrato a Termo Resolutivo Certo" (a fixed-term work contract for one year, renewable for a second year, index 195, about 45,000 euros / year), in the area of Intelligent Robotics.

The hired person will carry out research work as part of the participation of the University of Aveiro in the mentioned project, focusing on experience gathering and conceptualization for learning about physical objects as well as robot activities. The hired researcher will also contribute to the integration of diverse functionalities for a successful participation of UA in the mentioned project.

To this effect, IEETA is interested in gathering detailed curricula of potential stakeholders in the mentioned position.

Who can apply?

Candidates should have the following general characteristics:

  • Ph.D. degree in Artificial Intelligence, Intelligent Robotics or related field, and, preferably, post-doctoral experience in these areas; the ideal candidate should have a background on at least some of the topics relevant for RACE, namely knowledge representation, AI planning, machine learning, case-based reasoning and computer vision, preferably with experience in the application of such techniques to robotics.
  • Record of high-quality research in some of the areas relevant for the position;
  • Hability for, not only performing high-quality research autonomously, but also for participating in collaborative research projects and supervising other researchers, namely at the PhD student level.
How to apply?

Applications should be addressed to the Rector of the University of Aveiro and submitted electronically by 2012/12/31 to the Human Resources Division of the University of Aveiro (sgrhf-concursos@ua.pt and Cc. to lsl@ua.pt). Applications must be presented in .pdf format, and must include the following documents:

  • Detailed curriculum vitae;
  • Copy of an identification document;
  • A statement of motivations and objectives of the candidate as far as this position is concerned;
  • Copies of certificates of academic qualifications;
  • The names and contact data of three academic references.

The official announcement, with additional information, can be found here: https://www.ua.pt/sgrhf/ReadObject.aspx?obj=27068

The RACE project

The overall aim of this EU FP7 project is to develop an artificial cognitive system able to build a high-level understanding of the world it inhabits by storing and exploiting appropriate memories of its experiences. Robot competence is obtained by abstracting and generalising from experiences, extending task planning and execution beyond preconceived situations. The project aims to produce the following key results: (i) Robots capable of storing experiences in their memory in terms of multi-level representations connecting actuator and sensory experiences with meaningful high-level structures, (ii) Methods for learning and generalising from experiences obtained from behaviour in realistically scaled real-world environments, (iii) Robots demonstrating superior robustness and effectiveness in new situations and unknown environments using experience-based planning and behaviour adaptation. The project developments will be integrated and demonstrated on a PR2 robot, from Willow Garage.

The University of Aveiro is involved in the development of modules concerned with experience gathering, high-level learning about robot activities and the manipulated objects, and human-robot interaction.

Additional information: http://project-race.eu/

UA and ATRI

The University of Aveiro is in the top 2% universities in "Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2011-2012", and is also among the top 100 universities in the world with less than 50 years. UA is attended by about 15,000 students on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. ATRI/UA has been conducting projects leading to the development of integrated architectures for intelligent robotic systems. This group is well known for its successful participation in many robotic competitions (RoboCup, Portuguese Robotics Festival, AAAI, SRVC, etc.)

Additional information: