The Fourth International Conference on
        Integration of AI and OR Techniques in Constraint Programming for Combinatorial Optimization Problems
(CP-AI-OR'07)
May 23-26, 2007, Brussels, Belgium
(www.cs.brown.edu/sites/cpaior07)        
 
After a successful series of five international workshops (Ferrara, Paderborn, Ashford, Le Croisic, and Montreal) and three international conferences (Nice, Prague, Cork), the fourth international conference on Integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Operations Research  (OR) techniques in Constraint Programming for Combinatorial Optimization Problems will be held in Brussels, Belgium, in 2007.
 
The aim of the conference is to bring together interested researchers from constraint programming (CP), artificial intelligence (AI) and operations research (OR) to present new techniques or new applications in combinatorial optimization and to provide an opportunity for researchers in one area to learn about techniques in the others.  A main objective of this conference series is also to give these researchers the opportunity to show how the integration of techniques from different fields can lead to interesting results on large and complex problems. Therefore papers that actively combine, integrate, or contrast approaches from more than one of the areas are especially solicited. High quality papers from a single area are also welcome, provided that they are of interest to other communities involved. Finally, application papers showcasing CP/AI/OR techniques on innovative and challenging applications or experience reports on such applications are strongly encouraged.
 
CP-AI-OR'07 will be preceded by a Master Class where leading researchers give introductory and overview talks. This year, the topic of the Master Class will be on "Constraint-Based Scheduling". The Master Class is intended for PhD students, researchers, and practitioners.
 
The program committee invites submissions that include but are not limited to the following topics:
 
  1.     Relaxation methods, e.g. constraint propagation, cutting planes,  reduced costs, global constraints, graph algorithms, dynamic  programming, Lagrangean and convex relaxations, heuristic functions based on constraint relaxation.
  2.     Search methods, e.g. branch and bound, intelligent backtracking,  incomplete search, randomized search, column generation and other decomposition methods, local search, meta-heuristics.
  3.     Integration methods, e.g. static/dynamic problem decomposition, solver communication, transformations between models and solvers, collaboration between concurrent methods,  models, and solvers.
  4.     Modeling methods, e.g., comparison of models, symmetry breaking, uncertainty, dominance relationships.
  5.     Innovative Applications of CP/AI/OR techniques.
  6.     Implementation of CP/AI/OR techniques and Optimization Systems.
 
Papers should be at most 15 pages in length, and should be prepared in the format used for the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science series (http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html). The proceedings will be published in the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science series (http://www.springer.com/lncs). All papers are to be submitted
electronically in a PDF or PS format by following the instructions at the URL http://www.easychair.org/CPAIOR07.
 
 
Following the conference, authors of all accepted papers will be invited to submit substantially extended versions of their papers to a special issue of Constraints. These papers will undergo an additional, very thorough refereeing process and a selection of the best papers will be published.
 
IMPORTANT DATES FOR AUTHORS
 
Submission: January 26th, 2007
Notification: February 26th, 2007
Camera-ready copy: March 7th, 2007
Master Class: May 23rd, 2007
Conference: May 24th - May 26th, 2007
 
ORGANIZATION
 
Program Chairs
 
Pascal Van Hentenryck, Brown University, USA
Laurence Wolsey, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium
 
Conference Chair
Etienne Loute, Facultés Universitaires de Siant-Louis
Laurence Wolsey, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium
 
Master Class Chair
 
Amedeo Cesta, ISTC-CNR Rome, Italy
 
Publicity Chair
 
Laurent Michel, University of Connecticut, USA
 
Sponsorship Chair
 
Barry O'Sullivan, University College Cork, Ireland
 
Academic and Industrial Liaison
                                            Susanne Heipcke, Dash Associates
Michael Juenger, University of Koeln
 
 
 
Call For Papers