2011 Quarter 4

REPORT FROM THE ASSOCIATION FOR CONSTRAINT PROGRAMMING

October-December 2011

This is a short summary of activities within the ACP during the months October-December 2011.

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. 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. The Programe Chair will be Michela Milano (Bologna).

The web-site for this year's conference is: http://www.cp2012.org

The organisation of the scientific programme and the reviewing process has undergone some changes. There are two special tracks at the conference: one focused on applications papers (chaired by Helmut Simonis) and another on multidisciplinary papers (chaired by Barry O'Sullivan). The links to the calls for papers for the main conference track and these tracks are:

http://www.cp2012.org/call_for_papers.php http://www.cp2012.org/call_for_application_papers.php http://www.cp2012.org/call_for_multidisciplinary_papers.php

In terms of reviewing, the PC Chair has introduced a senior PC, who will support her in ensuring the higest quality reviews are written, along with a rigorous discussion. A physical meeting of the senior PC and track chairs will take place before final decisions on submissions are made.

The ACP-EC would like to wish the various chairs and members of the organisation committee of the conference a very successful event, and thank them for their hard work and leadership.

ACP.2. Call for Nominations: for the ACP Distinguished Service Award 2012.

The Executive Committee of the ACP invites nominations for the 2012 ACP award for Distinguidhed Service to the Constraint Programming Community, which will be presented at CP 2012 in Quebec City, Canada. 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.

The winner of the inaugural award in 2010 was Francesca Rossi (Padova).

ACP.3. Call for Nominations: for the ACP Doctoral Research Award 2012.

The Executive Committee of the ACP invites nominations for the 2012 ACP Doctoral Research Award, which will be presented at CP 2012 in Quebec City, Canada. 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. Past winners of this award can be found at:

http://www.4c.ucc.ie/a4cp/awards/doctoral-research-award

ACP.4. ACP Membership 2012

The ACP-EC encourages all researchers active in the area of constraint programming to ensure they have formally recorded their membership of the association by visiting our web-site - http://www.a4cp.org - and joining up by following the 'Join the ACP' link.

ACP.5. ACP-EC Elections in 2012

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.

ACP.6. Expressions of Interest in Hosting CP 2013 and CP 2014

We are resending the Call for Bids for CP 2013 and 2014. [ Please see the attached call ]

ACP.7. 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 as soon as possible. We received no proposals to date in response to a number of calls being submitted to the community. A bid is easy to prepare, and should contain 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.


CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO HOST CP-2013 or CP-2014

We invite proposals to host the 19th and 20th International Conferences on the Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP-2013|4). Proposals are due on or before March 1st, 2012 (revised deadline). 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 en Quebec City (Canada). Previous CP conference have been held in Perugia (Italy), 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.


CALL FOR NOMINATIONS FOR THE

Association for Constraint Programming

DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD 2012

OVERVIEW

The Executive Committee of the ACP invites nominations for the 2012 ACP award for Distinguidhed Service to the Constraint Programming Community, which will be presented at CP 2012 in Quebec City, Canada. 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.

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 1st, 2012. We cannot accept anything received after that date. We will acknowledge receipt of nominations. The decision will be available on July 14th, 2012.

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:

  1. 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 2012

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 2012 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, 2010 and December 31st 2011 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: Tuesday 1st May 2012 Notification: Monday 16th July 2012

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.