Volume 7, Number 0, January 2011

Constraint Programming News

volume 7, number 0, January 2011

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

Contents

News

This is a short summary of activities within the ACP during the months October-December 2010.

ACP.1. Changes to the ACP Executive Committee

The 2011 Executive Committee comprises the following members (along with their elected terms):

  • Yves Deville (Elected 2011-2015)
  • John Hooker (Elected 2008-2012)
  • Barry O'Sullivan (Elected 2008-2012)
  • Thomas Schiex (Elected 2011-2015)
  • Helmut Simonis (Elected 2011-2015)
  • Peter Stuckey (Elected 2006-2012)
  • Roland Yap (Elected 2011-2015)

On behalf of the ACP the EC would like to offer its sincerest thanks to the following whose terms on the Executive Committee came to an end at the end of December 2010:

  • Pedro Meseguer (Elected 2007-2010)
  • Karen Petrie (Elected 2008-2010)

Both of these members have served the CP community extremely well during their time on the EC, for which we're very grateful.

ACP.2. New ACP Website

A new web-site for the Association for Constraint Programming has been launched. It can be found at:

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

The webmaster is Barry O'Sullivan (4C, UCC). Sincerest thanks go to David Devlin at 4C for his assistance in designing the site. The content from the old site, which is still available, has been ported to the new one. We will also be building a new version of the CPOnline site, which will be integrated with the ACP site, with many easier to use facilities for the community to maintain its content.

ACP.3. Early Notification of Upcoming Calls in 2011

This year there will be three calls issued from the ACP:

  • Nominations for the 2011 ACP Research Excellence Award
  • Nominations for the 2011 ACP Doctoral Research Award
  • Bids to Host the 2013 CP

ACP.4. Preparations for CP 2011 and CP 2012

Preparations for CP 2011 are well underway in Perugia. The Conference Chair this year is Stefano Bistarelli. The Program Chair is Jimmy Lee. The deadline for paper submissions is April 22nd. For full details about the conference please visit:

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

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 Program Chair will be announced later this year.

ACP.5. The 2011 ACP Summer School on Constraint Programming

The 2011 Summer School will be organised by Pierre Flener, Justin Pearson, and Christian Schulte in Turunç (Turkey) from Monday 27 June to Friday 1 July 2011. The focus is on hybrid methods.

  • Ian Gent (University of St Andrews, Scotland, UK), on hybridising CP and SAT
  • John Hooker (Carnegie Mellon University, USA), on hybridising CP and MIP
  • Michel Rueher (Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis, France),
    on hybridising CP and global (numerical) optimisation
  • Pascal Van Hentenryck (Brown University, USA), on hybridising CP and SLS

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

ACP.6. Sponsorships

The ACP has agreed to provide sponsorship to CPAIOR 2011, which will be held in Berlin (See http://cpaior2011.zib.de)

This year's CSCLP conference will be held in York, UK, on 12-14 April. The call for papers is available at the website (http://csclp2011.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/), with submissions due on 9th March. Torsten Schaub and Holger Hoos will be giving invited talks.

Journals

CONSTRAINTS Journal Accepted Papers

Solving Subgraph Isomorphism Problems with Constraint Programming
Stéphane Zampelli, Yves Deville, Christine Solnon

Redundant Modeling in Permutation Weighted Constraint Satisfaction Problems
Yat Chiu Law, Jimmy H.M. Lee, May H.C. Woo

Constraint Propagation on Quadratic Constraints
Ferenc Domes, Arnold Neumaier

Tractable Cases of the Extended Global Cardinality Constraint
Marko Samer, Stefan Szeider

Classes of Submodular Constraints Expressible by Graph Cuts
Stanislav Zivny, Peter G. Jeavons

Efficient Algorithms for Singleton Arc Consistency
Christian Bessiere, Stephane Cardon, Romuald Debruyne, Christophe Lecoutre

Dantzig-Wolfe Decomposition and Branch-and-Price Solving in G12
Jakob Puchinger, Peter J. Stuckey, Mark G. Wallace, Sebastian Brand

Formal Languages for Integer Programming Modeling of Shift Scheduling Problems
Marie-Claude Côté, Bernard Gendron, Claude-Guy Quimper, Louis-Martin Rousseau

A Global Constraint for Total Weighted Completion Time for Unary Resources
András Kovács, J. Christopher Beck

SPECIAL ISSUES

Journal of Symbolic Computation on Invariant Generation and Advanced Techniques for Reasoning about Loops.
Paper submission deadline: January 10, 2011.

Journal of the Operational Research Society, Special Issue on Systems to Build Systems.
Paper submission deadline: March 1, 2011.
http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~exo/specialissue/JORS2011.html

Journal of Scheduling, Special Issue on Maintenance Scheduling: Theory and Applications.
Paper submission deadline: March 26, 2011.
http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~exo/specialissue/CFP_JoS2011.html

Special issue of the Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing, "Metaheuristics on GPU".
Paper submission deadline: April 15, 2011.
http://ees.elsevier.com/jpdc/

Thematic series on Constraints and Bioinformatics: Algorithms for Molecular Biology.
Paper submission deadline: April 30, 2011.

Events

Summer Schools

ACP Summer School

As mentioned earlier, the 2011 ACP Summer School will be held from Monday 27 June to Friday 1 July 2011. The focus is on hybrid methods.

  • Ian Gent (University of St Andrews, Scotland, UK), on hybridising CP and SAT
  • John Hooker (Carnegie Mellon University, USA), on hybridising CP and MIP
  • Michel Rueher (Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis, France), on hybridising CP and global (numerical) optimisation
  • Pascal Van Hentenryck (Brown University, USA), on hybridising CP and SLS

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

EURO Summer Institute 2012

Bremen, Germany, June 3 -15, 2012
Maritime Logistics

Aims and Scope

A growing demand of optimization techniques and decision support systems is observed in the maritime industry since many years. Based on advances in information and equipment technologies, maritime shipping, cargo handling and hinterland transportation yield complex logistics processes that have to be managed in increasingly competitive environments. Aim of this EURO summer institute (ESI) is to bring together young researchers with academic experts from operations research, logistics and the maritime business. Every participant will present an own research paper which is intensively discussed within a workshop, for example on ship routing, terminal design, and seaside or yard operations management in container terminals. Next to focused workshops, tutorial lectures on selected topics and invited surveys on recent and future developments in the maritime sector complete the scientific program. With its orientation, the ESI offers a unique opportunity for young researchers in the field to share experience with colleagues from all over Europe and to enter the scientific community.

Participation

Participation is limited to a group of about 20 early stage researchers, who are either PhD students or who have less than two years research experience since completing a PhD. They must have significant experience in maritime logistics and be author of at least one unpublished, high-quality paper. Persons who are interested to attend the ESI can apply for participation with an unpublished paper, a curriculum vitae and a list of publications at their national OR society. The national societies are entitled to nominate up to three applicants, from which the scientific committee selects the group of participants. Participation and accommodation is free for selected persons. The cost of the ESI is jointly met by EURO and other organizations with the exception of traveling cost, which are usually met by the delegating national OR societies. A list of the European OR societies can be found at http://www.euro-online.org/display.php?pageid=440

All participants are invited to present and discuss a research paper within one of the integrated workshops. Selected papers presented at the ESI will be considered for publication in a special issue of OR Spectrum on "maritime logistics".

Invited Speakers
  • Marielle Christiansen (Trondheim, Norway)
  • Ulla Tapaninen (Turku, Finland)
  • Rommert Dekker and Albert Veenstra (Rotterdam, Netherlands)
  • Iris Vis (Groningen, Netherlands)
  • Stefan Voß (Hamburg, Germany)
Conference Venue

The summer institute will be held at the youth hostel Bremen, which offers modern conference facilities and a metropolitan ambiance coupled with a maritime atmosphere. The venue is located at the river Weser in the immediate vicinity of the historical center of Bremen. The city of Bremen is located in the northern part of Germany quite close to the North Sea. It is one of Germany's leading logistic regions and home to a large seaport, numerous freight centers and international trade, transport and industrial companies.

Deadline for application at the national OR societies: October 1st, 2011
Deadline for nomination of participants (by the national OR societies): December 1st, 2011
Decision on participation: February 1st, 2012
ESI 2012: June 3-15, 2012

Contact

Prof. Dr. Christian Bierwirth (chair of the ESI 2012)
School of Law, Economics and Business
Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg
Große Steinstrasse 73, D-06108 Halle (Saale), Germany
Phone: +49 345 55-23422
Fax: +49 345 55-27198
Email: christian.bierwirth@wiwi.uni-halle.de
Url: http://prodlog.wiwi.uni-halle.de/ESI2012

Conferences

DAMP 2011, Declarative Aspects of Multicore Programming, January 23, 2011, Austin, Texas, USA.
http://damp2011.cs.uchicago.edu/

PADL 2011, 13th International Symposium on Practical Aspects of Declarative Languages, January 24-25, 2011, Austin, Texas, USA.
http://www.dcc.fc.up.pt/PADL-2011

SAC 2011, 26th ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, Track on Constraint Solving and Programming, March 21-25, 2011, TaiChung, Taiwan.
http://www.sci.unich.it/~bista/organizing/constraint-sac2011/

ISCL 2011, Third International Spring School on Computational Logic, April 10-15, 2011, Bertinoro, Italy.
http://lia.deis.unibo.it/confs/iscl/

First International Spring School on Declarative Agent Languages and Technologies, April 10-15, 2011, Bertinoro, Italy.
http://lia.deis.unibo.it/confs/dalt_school/

CISched'2011, IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Scheduling, April 11-15, 2011, Paris, France.
http://www.ieee-ssci.org/2011/cisched-2011

CSCLP 2011, Annual ERCIM Workshop on Constraint Solving and Constraint Logic Programming, April 12-14, 2011, York, UK.
Paper submission deadline: March 9, 2011.
http://csclp2011.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/

NFM 2011, Third NASA Formal Methods Symposium, April 18-20, 2011, Pasadena, California, USA.
http://lars-lab.jpl.nasa.gov/nfm2011

DALT 2011, 9th International Workshop on Declarative Agent Languages and Technologies, May 2-3, 2011, Taipei, Taiwan.
Paper submission deadline: January 23, 2011.
http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/~ssardina/DALT2011

VII ALIO/EURO, Workshop on Applied Combinatorial Optimization, May 4-6, 2011, Porto, Portugal.
Abstract submission deadline: February 20, 2011.
http://www.dcc.fc.up.pt/ALIO-EURO-2011

CPAIOR 2011, Eighth International Conference on Integration of Artificial Intelligence and Operations Research Techniques in Constraint Programming, May 23-27, 2011, Berlin, Germany.
Abstract submission deadline: January 19, 2011.
Paper submission deadline: January 26, 2011.
Late breaking abstract submission deadline: May 23-27, 2011.
http://cpaior2011.zib.de/

RTA 2011, 22nd International Conference on Rewriting Techniques and Applications, May 30-June 1, 2011, Novi Sad, Serbia.
Abstract submission deadline: January 7, 2011.
Paper submission deadline: January 14, 2011.
http://www.rdp2011.uns.ac.rs/

IWPSS-11, 7th International Workshop on Planning and Scheduling for Space, June 8-10, 2011, Darmstadt, Germany.
Paper submission deadline: March 1, 2011.
http://www.congrexprojects.com/11c05/

ICAPS 2011, 21st International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling, June 11-16, 2011, Freiburg, Germany.
http://icaps11.icaps-conference.org/

The 3rd Workshop on Learning and Planning, June 12-13, 2011, Freiburg, Germany.
Paper submission deadline: March 18, 2011.
http://icaps11.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/workshops/pal.html

The 3rd Workshop on Heuristics for Domain-independent Planning, June 12-13, 2011, Freiburg, Germany.
Paper submission deadline: March 18, 2011.
http://icaps11.icaps-conference.org/workshops/hdip.html

The 3rd ICAPS Workshop on Verification and Validation of Planning and Scheduling Systems, June 13, 2011, Freiburg, Germany.
Paper submission deadline: March 18, 2011.
http://icaps11.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/workshops/vvps.html

IPCO 2011, 15th Conference on Integer Programming and Combinatorial Optimization (IPCO XV), June 15-17, 2011, New York, USA.
http://ipco2011.uai.cl/

SAT 2011, 14th International Conference on Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing, June 19-22, 2011, Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.
Abstract submission deadline: February 11, 2011.
Paper submission deadline: February 18, 2011.
http://www.lri.fr/SAT2011

MAPSP 2011, Tenth Workshop on Models and Algorithms for Planning and Scheduling Problems, June 19-24, 2011, Nymburk, Czech Republic.
Paper submission deadline: January 31, 2011.
http://www.mapsp.org/

MIP 2011, Mixed Integer Programming Workshop, June 20-23, 2011, Waterloo, ON, Canada.
Poster submission deadline: March 15, 2011.
http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~mip2011/

TAP 2011, 5th International Conference on Tests and Proofs, June 30-July 1, 2011, Zuerich, Switzerland.
Abstract submission deadline: February 4, 2011.
Paper submission deadline: February 11, 2011.
http://www.tap2011.informatik.uni-bremen.de/

ICLP 2011, 27th International Conference on Logic Programming, July 6-10, 2011, Lexington, Kentucky, USA.
Paper submission deadline: January 17, 2011.
http://www.cs.uky.edu/iclp2011/

IFORS 2011, 19th Triennial Conference of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies, July 10-15, 2011, Melbourne, Australia.
Abstract submission deadline: January 31, 2011.
http://www.ifors2011.org/

Workshop on Evolutionary Computation Techniques for Constraint Handling, part of GECCO-2011, July 12-16, 2011, Dublin, Ireland.
Paper submission deadline: March 2011.
http://www.sigevo.org/GECCO-2011/

SoCS-2011, Fourth installment of the The International Symposium on Combinatorial Search, July 15-16, 2011, Barcelona, Spain.
Paper submission deadline: April 25, 2011.
http://www.socs11.org/

IJCAI 2011, 22nd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, July 19-22, 2011, Barcelona, Spain.
Abstract submission deadline: January 19, 2011.
Paper submission deadline: January 24, 2011.
http://www.ijcai-11.org/

MIC 2011, 9th Metaheuristics International Conference, July 25-28, 2011, Udine, Italy.
Paper submission deadline: March 6, 2011.
http://mic2011.diegm.uniud.it/

CADE-23, 23rd International Conference on Automated Deduction, July 31-August 5, 2011, Wroclaw, Poland.
Abstract submission deadline: February 1, 2011.
Paper submission deadline: February 7, 2011.
http://cade23.ii.uni.wroc.pl/

AAAI 2011, Twenty-Fifth Conference on Artificial Intelligence, August 7-11, 2011, San Francisco, California, USA.
Abstract submission deadline: February 3, 2011.
Paper submission deadline: February 8, 2011.
Student abstract and poster program submission deadline: February 15, 2011.
http://www.aaai.org/Conferences/AAAI/aaai11.php

OR 2011, International Conference on Operation Research, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland.
Abstract submission deadline: April 30, 2011.
Paper submission deadline: June 30, 2011.
http://www.or2011.ch/

OR53, the UK OR Societys 53rd annual conference, September 6-8, 2011, Nottingham, UK.
Abstract submission deadline: May 15, 2011.
http://www.theorsociety.com/OR53/

CP 2011, Seventeenth International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming, September 12-16, 2011, Perugia, Italy.
Paper submission deadline: April 22, 2011.
Workshop proposal submission deadline: April 1, 2011.
Tutorial proposal submission deadline: May 13, 2011.
http://www.dmi.unipg.it/cp2011/

ORP3 2011, Operation Research Peripatetic Postgraduate Programme, September 13-17, 2011, Cadiz, Spain.
Paper submission deadline: January 31, 2011.
http://orp3.uca.es/

ICTAI 2011, 23rd IEEE International Conference on Tools with Artificial Intelligence, November 7-9, 2011, Boca Raton, Florida, USA.
Paper submission deadline: June 10, 2011.
http://www.cse.fau.edu/ictai2011/

Career news

Research Positions in Vehicle Routing, Scheduling, OR, CP

National ICT Australia (NICTA) is Australia's ICT Research Center of Excellence.

We currently have a position for a researcher or a senior researcher to join the expanding Intelligent Fleet Logistics project, in Canberra. Successful candidates will hold a PhD in computer science, mathematics operations research or a related discipline. They will have an interest to research one or more of the following areas:

  • Routing and scheduling algorithms for transport optimisation
  • Mixed Integer Programming, Linear Programming
  • Constraint programming
  • Local Search and Meta-heuristics
  • Robustness in routing and scheduling

The ability to contribute new ideas and experience from previous projects together with professionalism and good communication skills is sought. Software development using C/C++ is required. Appointments will be initially for three years with possibility of extension.

Closing date: February 21, 2011.
Applications: Please speak to Prof Toby Walsh for more details and visit NICTA careers (http://nicta.com.au/director/careers.cfm) to apply on-line.

The Constraint Programming Platform Project

The Constraint Programming Platform Project is now commencing its second five year research phase, building on the G12 constraint programming platform. We will be extending the capabilities of the platform with new modelling and hybrid solving techniques, creating new hybrid constraint programming and mathematical programming solvers, integrating local search into the platform, and developing new search control methods.

We seek a talented and innovative researcher in computer science, operations research, or combinatorial optimisation, to join the existing G12 research group. You will share our interest in the design and building of real practical systems for industrial optimisation. They will have an acknowledged ability in research and development of optimisation algorithms. They will understand the benefits of software engineering, in building sound software, and be capable of initiating and leading the research in new directions.

This is a full time position.

Please contact Peter Stuckey peter.stuckey@nicta.com.au or Mark Wallace Mark.Wallace@nicta.com.au if you have any questions. Applications should be made through the http://www.nicta.com.au/careers with tracking code RFVRL.

Open positions at SINTEF ICT, Applied Mathematics

SINTEF ICT is a research division in the Norwegian contract research organization SINTEF. The division has 280 employees in departments both in Trondheim and Oslo. SINTEF ICT carries out research in information and communication technology for the industry and the public sector and cooperates closely with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and the University of Oslo. The department of Applied mathematics consists of five research groups:

  • The Simulation group (Trondheim) develops robust and efficient numerical methods for computational mechanics and geophysical flows.
  • The Optimization group (Oslo) develops advanced optimization methods for applications in business areas such as transportation, logistics, healthcare, sports, air traffic management, and finance.
  • The Heterogeneous Computing group (Oslo) combines multi-core CPUs and accelerator cores, e.g., GPUs, to deliver massively parallel computing.
  • The Geometry group (Oslo) focuses on computational geometry, visualization, and development of 3D technology for the IT industry.
  • The Porous Media Flow group (Oslo) develops efficient computational methods for subsurface flow (petroleum and CO2 storage).

The department has several open positions, see:
http://www.sintef.no/Home/Working-in-SINTEF/Vacant-positions/

In particular, the Optimization group in Oslo is searching for (senior) scientists in industrial optimization. It is looking for skilled and enterprising candidates that have expertise, interest, and experience in several of the following areas:

  • Project acquisition and project management
  • Problem analysis
  • Mathematical modeling and development of optimization algorithms
  • System design and software development (C#, Java, C++)

Experience within some of our main business areas: transportation, healthcare, sports, air traffic management, and finance is an advantage. We require a solid background in exact and approximative optimization methods, and seek candidates with expertise in some of the following domains:

  • Metaheuristics
  • Hybrid methods including matheuristics
  • Heterogeneous and parallel computing
  • Optimization under uncertainty
  • Column generation

To qualify, you must be able to perform high quality research and work independently, as well as in teams. An international research background, experience from industry, and good communication skills are advantageous. Moreover, you should be creative, enthusiastic, devoted, and able to deliver expected results at appointed times. You are expected to focus on value-creation for our clients and contribute to the acquisition of new (research) projects and development of our research areas.

SINTEF offers:

  • Good opportunities for career development.
  • Challenging research tasks based on industrially relevant approaches.
  • Internationally oriented, skillful, experienced, and creative research teams.
  • Well-established national and international scientific and industrial networks.
  • A good work environment.
  • Competitive salary (subject to qualifications).
  • Social benefits (pension plan, insurance coverage, possibility for day-care and kindergarten, etc.).
  • Flexible working hours.

Two research fellow positions (software verification) in Melbourne

The Department of Computer Science at the University of Melbourne invites applications for two new full-time Research Fellow positions. The successful post-doctoral applicants will join our team working on an ARC funded project on Automatic Software Verification: Harnessing Constraint Technology. The project aims to improve the state-of-the-art of software verification by exploiting recent advances in constraint solving technology.

Each position is for a fixed term, initially 2 years, but with the possibility of limited extension. The two successful candidates will be part of a team which collaboratively works on all aspects of the project, from concepts, theoretical underpinning, and design, through implementation and experimentation, to maintenance and distribution of generated software.

Each successful candidate will be expected to take charge of a major implementation task and to play a central role in the publication of results. One will have primary responsibility for the development of software verification technology for LLVM, together with associated tools for program analysis. The other will have primary responsibility for the development of, and experimentation with, new SAT/SMT solving methods and other mathematical techniques that can assist program analysis and verification. For a candidate who aims to build a teaching portfolio, there may also be opportunity to contribute to graduate-level teaching.

For more detail, including position descriptions, salary range, and application form, go to http://www.hr.unimelb.edu.au/careers/ and search for position numbers 0025455 and 0025456. Queries can be directed to:

The deadline for applications is 31 January 2011. An application should address the published selection criteria and should contain a detailed CV, including a list of publications. The names and contact details of three referees are also required.

Postdoctoral position in railway traffic optimization

IFSTTAR (French institute of science and technology for transport, development and networks) will organize an examination in February, 2011 in order to recruit a postdoctoral researcher who will be in charge of a research project on railway traffic optimization.

Research unit

Evaluation and Safety of Automated Transport Systems (ESTAS, leader E. El Koursi, staff of 10 research scientists, 8 technicians and engineers, 6 PhD students). The main objective of ESTAS is to promote the development of automation in public transport, especially in guided public transport systems. ESTAS has developed its research activities in two directions: Safety and Operation of automatic transport systems. Its research skills are recognized in these areas and have led to a third very important activity: expert assessments. ESTAS is mandated by the French ministry of transport to assess the safety of the new automated guided public transport system put into service in France.

Training and skills

PhD, preferably in Operations Research, Traffic Engineering, Mathematical Modeling and Computer Science. Strong methodological background in operations research and some experience or interest in:

  • Mixed-integer linear programming,
  • Constraint programming,
  • Problem decomposition,
  • Scheduling and resource allocation problems,
  • Traffic management,
  • Guided transport systems.

A demonstrated ability to disseminate findings through articles in journals and at international conferences. Interest in industrial applications and capability to actively take part in international cooperative research projects.

Research objectives

The research scientist will be in charge of developing research into the optimization of railway traffic. The project aims at finding novel ways to address the disruption recovery problem and propose new models and decomposition methods (Benders or others methods) to improve real-time railway traffic management.

Application and practical details

  • The position is accessible through open competition.
  • Localization : Lille-Villeneuve d'Ascq, France.
  • Duration : 1 year.
  • Salary: 2900 Euros/month (gross).
  • Starting date: to be agreed after February 2011.
Application package :

A curriculum vitae, The complete list of publications, The PhD defence report form and the evaluation reports of the members of the doctoral evaluation committee, A brief report of the proposed research project, At least two reference letters.

Submission deadline for application package : January 31, 2011. Candidates are invited to contact the two INRETS scientists below, by email initially:

Positions in Applied Math / OR at Polytchenique Montreal

Polytechnique Montreal is one of Canada's leading engineering schools and the largest in Quebec in terms of its student population and the scope of its research activities, with more than 6,500 students and 1,000 employees. Polytechnique Montreal is seeking applicants for Professor positions in the Department of Mathematics and Industrial Engineering, in the fields of:

Candidates are invited to apply until the end of January.

Position for junior scientists (tenure track)

"Combinatorial Optimization for Computational Biology" position for a junior scientist. SaAB team.

The position is opened inside the "Computer Science and Applied Maths" department of INRA, the French National Institute for Agricultural Research. The position is targeted at computer scientists or applied mathematicians with a strong expertize in combinatorial optimization (ILP, constraint programming, SAT) and a good knowledge of complexity theory, graph theory with a PhD in computer science or related areas. No prior experience in bioinformatics or computational biology is, a priori, required. It is welcome however.

The research activity in our team combines:

  1. algorithm design and analysis (in OR, artificial intelligence) published in computer science, OR or applied maths journals and conferences. This usually requires some benchmarking and software development.
  2. adaptation, extension or direct use of recent or established optimisation techniques on generic problems defined in collaboration with molecular biologists or geneticists, leading to publication in bioinformatics, computational biology or molecular biology journals.

In the area of combinatorial optimization, our team as a nice research track in constraint programming and more specifically weighted constraint networks. It collaborates with local (Insitut de Recherche en Informatique de Toulouse), national (coordination or participation in ANR - French NSF - white selective funded programs), international (collaboration with European, American teams, editorial boards of journals such as Constraints or JAIR).

If you wonder what the everyday life of an INRA computer scientist looks like, you may have a look to the web pages of our computer science scientists (information in French). or have a look to the assessment of the lab by the French agency for research evaluation.

For more information, contact us!

Deadline for applying is the 24th of February 2011

Please see

[Open position] Ass't Prof / Research Assoc [scope includes CP]

Uppsala University (Sweden) hereby declares the following position to be open for application:

Assistant Professor/Research Associate in Computing Science at the Department of Information Technology.

The department is presented at www.it.uu.se.

Appointment period: The position can be held for a maximum of 4 years.

Nature of duties: This is a principally a research appointment but will also involve some teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate level and supervision of doctoral students. The appointment is within the programme of Computing Science, where research is conducted on programming languages, process algebra, interactive theorem proving, constraint programming, compiler technology and database technology.

Qualifications required: To qualify for appointment as Research Associate you must have a PhD. Priority is given to applicants who have completed their PhD within 5 years of the application deadline. Even those applicants that received their PhDs earlier should be given priority if special circumstances exist. Special circumstances are prolonged periods of illness, parental leave, military service, union duties and others of similar character. According to Uppsala University's general employment regulations, it is also a requirement that teachers possess the necessary skills and qualifications to carry out their duties proficiently.

The ability to teach in Swedish or English is a requirement.

Criteria for ranking: In ranking qualified applicants importance will be attached to pedagogic and scientific excellence, with special emphasis on scientific proficiency. Applicants with research experience within the areas programming languages (for example language design, semantics, type systems, execution environments, compilers, program development tools) and algorithms and data structures (for example algorithm development, algorithm analysis, distributed algorithms and data structures) in connection with one or more of the areas of research in the programme as described above, will be given first priority.

In examining the pedagogic proficiency, skills and experience in the planning, execution and evaluation of teaching, as well as supervision and examination within the subject field will be considered.

Other qualifications: Administrative proficiency is important and will be considered. Ability to corporate with the surrounding society and to inform the public about research and development work will also be considered.

Administrative skills are demonstrated through ability in overall operational planning, ability to organise and lead personnel and ability to cooperate. Ability to inform the public about research and development work is demonstrated by popular scientific activities, for example participating in extramural education, publishing popular scientific papers and participating in public discussions on topics of education and research.

In filling this position, the university aims to recruit the person who, in a combined evaluation of competence, skills and documented qualifications, is judged most suitable to carry out and develop the work-in-hand and to contribute to a positive development of the department and programme.

Personal circumstances that may be of positive relevance to the application, for example parental leave, should be mentioned in the list of qualifications (CV).

Uppsala University is striving to achieve a more even gender balance in its research and teaching staff and women are especially invited to apply for this position.

For further information about the position, please see:
http://www.personalavd.uu.se/ledigaplatser/3375eng.html

PhD position on weighted constraint solving in Toulouse/Montpellier, France.

A doctoral (PhD) position in the area of (weighted) constraint solving and optimization is available in the framework of a ANR (french NSF) funded project, including the LIRMM (C. Bessiere), IRIT (MC Cooper), GREYC (S. Loudni) and INRA-BIA (T. Schiex) labs. The PhD will be involved in the development of new algorithms for solving weighted constraint networks (WCSP) and other related graphical models.

Applicants should have (or in the process of getting) a Master degree in Computer Science or related discipline. Experience with software development is desirable.

More information is available at the project web site. The deadline for application is mid July, 2011 but applications will be considered as they come. Informal enquiries should be directed to Thomas Schiex (http://www.inra.fr/mia/T/schiex).

Internships at Microsoft Research, Cambridge UK

The Microsoft Research Constraint Reasoning Group (http://research.microsoft.com/constraint-reasoning) is proposing several internship positions. The candidates should be PhD students or post-doctoral researchers interested in:

  • Optimization, constraint satisfaction and AI search, including planning algorithms, SAT and Satisfiability Modulo Theories
  • Artificial intelligence techniques in general, and their innovative applications on the desktop, on devices and on the Web
  • Software verification and program synthesis
  • Parallel processing, high-performance computing and parallelization of existing algorithms

The goal of these internships is to conduct fundamental research driven by long term Microsoft applications. The internship programme offers a highly competitive salary, an exciting work environment and great opportunities to develop connections with other interns from the best universities worldwide! More information here:
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/jobs/intern/about_uk.aspx.

Interested applicants should register here, https://research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/jobs/intern.aspx, and may, additionally, contact us directly by e-mail.

Work location: Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Duration: 12 weeks.
Required availability: from April 2011
Contact: {youssefh, cwinter, lucasb} at Micro (no space) soft dot com
Thanks for forwarding to interested parties