[bull-ia] Call for Abstracts: CP2018 Workshop on Constraints and AI Planning

CP2018 Workshop on Constraints and AI Planning

       CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

Overview

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The CP2018 Workshop on Constraints and AI Planning will take place on August 27, 2018 in Lille, France as part of the CP2018 conference.

We would like to encourage everyone interested in the intersection of constraint-based techniques (interpreted broadly to include mixed integer programming, SAT, SMT, etc. as well as CP) and AI planning, to submit an abstract describing that intersection.

Submission: Participants wishing to present some of their work during the workshop should submit a 1-2 page abstract through EasyChair (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=constraintsaip2018). We will make every effort to accommodate each relevant proposal given our scheduling constraints.

Purpose

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For this first one-day workshop on the topic of Constraints and AI Planning we take a broad view stemming from the observation that there are fundamental differences in representing and reasoning about a problem via constraints, as is common in CP and optimization, and doing so in the form of a state-transition system, as is common in AI planning, heuristic search, and dynamic programming. Therefore we hope to attract presentations and discussions on the interactions, overlaps, and differences among CP, SAT, mixed integer programming, AI planning in its many forms (e.g., classical, numeric, temporal, stochastic), heuristic search (i.e., A*-style state-based search) and dynamic programming. We are particularly interested in combinations of two or more perspectives. This workshop should interest researchers from academia and industry in the areas of constraint programming, operations research, and AI planning.

Background

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While there has been a history of more than 20 years in the application of SAT, CP, and MIP to AI planning problems, there has been recent interest in a deeper cross-fertilization between the areas of constraint programming, operations research, and planning:

– A number of papers over the past five years at ICAPS (including at least two best paper winners) and planning sessions of AAAI and IJCAI (again, including at least one best paper winner) have focused on the use of techniques coming from Constraint Programming and Operations Research (e.g., LP, MIP, Logic-based Benders Decomposition) for important components of mainstream solutions to AI planning problems;

– A Dagstuhl seminar on AI planning and Operations Research (including in particular several members of the CP community) was held in February 2018;

– The 2018 editions of the ICAPS and CPAIOR international conferences are co-located.

Topics

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Main areas of interest include, but are not restricted to:

– Using constraint-based techniques (e.g., CP, SAT, SMT, MIP) for solving AI planning problems including contributing to components of the AI planning solution such as heuristic evaluation.

– Theoretical/formal work comparing constraint-based and state-based representation and reasoning.

– Empirical studies comparing constraint-based and state-based solution approaches on common classes of problems.

– Extending approaches primarily developed in one area to the other (e.g., Lagrangian relaxation, Logic-based Benders decomposition, A*-style search, abstraction).

– Understanding and comparing techniques that have been developed and applied independently in both optimization/OR and AI literatures (e.g. multi-valued decision diagrams, dynamic programming vs. heuristic search, Markov Decision Processes).

Programme/Venue

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Since some of the regular CP conference attendees may not be familiar with AI planning, the workshop will start with a tutorial on its fundamentals. The rest of the programme is likely to include one or two invited speakers and several informal presentations and discussions based on the submitted abstracts and on the participants’ interests, in keeping with the spirit of Dagstuhl seminars. More details will be available in July.

Registration

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Registration for the workshops day is available from the hosting conference.

Submission

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Submission via EasyChair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=constraintsaip2018

Important dates

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Abstract submission deadline: July 6, 2018

Notification to authors: July 10, 2018

Workshop: August 27, 2018

Organizers

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Christopher Beck, University of Toronto, jcb@mie.utoronto.ca

Michael Cashmore, King’s College London, michael.cashmore@kcl.ac.uk

Malte Helmert, University of Basel, malte.helmert@unibas.ch

Gilles Pesant, Polytechnique Montreal, gilles.pesant@polymtl.ca

Contact

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For any questions related to the workshop, please contact one of the organizers above.