2012 Quarter 1

REPORT FROM THE ASSOCIATION FOR CONSTRAINT PROGRAMMING

January-March 2012

This is a short summary of activities within the ACP during the months January-March 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. ACP Membership 2012-13

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. Membership of the ACP is required to vote in elections and at the annual General Assembly.

ACP.2. CP 2012 Conference

Preparations for the CP 2012 conference, to be held in Quebec City, Canada, are well underway. A record number of submissions have been received across the three track of the conference.. The Conference Chairs for the conference are Gilles Pesant and Claude-Guy Quimper, with an additional Local Chair in Louis Martin Rousseau. The Program Chair is Michela Milano (Bologna). There are two special tracks at the conference: one focused on applications (chaired by Helmut Simonis) and another on multidisciplinary research (chaired by Barry O'Sullivan).

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

The Executive Committee of the ACP invites nominations for the 2012 ACP award for Distinguished 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.4. ACP Summer School 2012

This year the 2012 ACP Summer School will take place in Wroclaw, Poland. The School will take place at the Institute of Computer Science of the University of Wroclaw, Poland - http://www.ii.uni.wroc.pl/en - from the 24-28 September 2012. The school will be devoted to the theory and applications of constraint technology.

The organizers are: - Krzysztof R. Apt (CWI and University of Amsterdam) - Witold Charatonik (University of Wroclaw) - Leszek Pacholski (University of Wroclaw)

For further details please see the school web-site:

http://acpss2012.ii.uni.wroc.pl/

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 circulated by the ACP Election Committee, which will be chaired by ACP Secretary, Jimmy Lee. please consider the names of those you think would be suitable for the ACP-EC.

The elected terms of the following EC members come to end on 31/12/2012: - John Hooker - Barry O'Sullivan - Peter Stuckey

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. JSR-331 “Java Constraint Programming API” Update

In March-2012 JSR-331 “Java Constraint Programming API” successfully passed the JCP Executive Committee Final Approval Ballot and became an official standard.

JSR-331 already comes with 3 working implementations based on open-source CP solvers: Choco, JaCoP, and Constrainer. Several more CP vendors expressed their intentions to provide JSR-331 implementations including IBM CP Optimizer, Oracle, Cream, JSetL, and JOpt. Read more at CP Standardization Blog.

JSR-331 software and documentation are available for free downloads from JCP or from http://openrules.com/jsr331. All CP specialists who want to contribute may get an access to the source code. There is a Google Discussion Group where you may post questions and comments.

The ACP would like to sincerely thank Jacob Feldman (OpenRules) and Narendra Jussien (Nantes) for their hard work and leadership on this initiative. Having this standard has the potential to create signficiant opportunities for the uptake of CP technology in the commercial world.

ACP.8. Memoriam: David Waltz, Columbia University

The ACP was saddened to hear the news that David Waltz, a pioneer in the area of constraint satisfaction and filtering algorithms, passed away on the 22nd of March 2012, in hospital in Princeton, NJ, after a valiant fight against brain cancer.

In Memoriam: David L. Waltz, CCLS Director (Columbia University) http://www.engineering.columbia.edu/memoriam-david-l-waltz-ccls-director

David L. Waltz, Computer Science Pioneer, Dies at 68 (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/24/science/david-l-waltz-computer-science...


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 Distinguished 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:

  5. Proposed Citation (to appear on the award certificate -- citation should begin "For contributions to the field of constraint 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).