Course Administration Welcome Course Foundations of Constraint Processing, CSCE 421/821 Instructor Berthe Y. Choueiry (Shu-we-ri) Class: Mon/Wed/Fri 3:30—4:20 @ AvH 108 Recitation: Mon 4:30-5:20 @ AvH 108 Office hour: Wed/Fri 4:30—5:30 @ AvH 360 Volunteer GTAs Daniel Geschwender Wed: 11:00—12:00 @ AvH 123 (pod) Anthony Schneider Thu: 1:00—3:00 @ AvH 123 (pod) Robert Woodward Thu 10:00—11:00 @ AvH 123 (pod) Attendance sheet Please check your name Course Administration

Course Administration Pre-requisites Pre-requisites Contact instructor Track Undergrads CS: Foundations, AI CE: Applications Grad CS students: Theory track 3 credit-hours Research intensive Students: Committed, motivated, collegial, independent Course Administration

Course Administration Meetings Regular class AvH 108, Mon/Wed/Fri 3:30—4:20 pm Recitation Avh 108, Mon 4:30—5:20 pm, scheduled as necessary Discuss homework, take quizzes, discuss projects Lectures will be given By instructor By visitors TBA Occasionally, presentations by students Course Administration

Course Administration Communications Course WebPage: handouts & detailed schedule Blackboad: for grades. Check regularly and alert us about grading errors within 7 calendar days. Piazza: For a quick response, send your questions to Piazza. handin: homework, projects, reports, etc. Wiki: You can upload the Excel file of the results of your homework on the wiki and check the results of others so that you can debug your code. Anonymous Suggestion Box (also via Piazza) Your Catch: Share your ideas and good pointers with class Good pointers will be listed on the web under “Your catch” Course Administration

Course Administration Expectations I Mastery of pre-requisite's material Effort outside classroom 9 hours of work outside classroom, if you have pre-requisites If you spend more time, let me know Attendance Sign-up sheet circulated for attendance Attendance of lectures (& recitation) is mandatory Absence: maximum 6 sessions (including recitation) Prior notification (email) for absence is mandatory Course Administration

Expectations 2 Collaboration policy Prompt response to notifications Do discuss everything with others But do it on your own Always acknowledge sources & help received Wiki page is set up for exchanging information Prompt response to notifications Piazza Posted on web: cse.unl.edu/~cse421 cse.unl.edu/~choueiry/F16-421-821/ If you drop the class, let me know ASAP Course Administration

Course Administration Grading Pretest: 2% Quizzes: 28%, cannot not be made up Assignments: 40% Programming and pen+paper Turned-in on due date, before lecture Delay penality: 20% per day, starting first minute after deadline You may use any programming language acceptable to GTA’s Project: 30% Individual (preferred) or in small teams (if really necessary) ( mid-term)  (  final) Feedback: Glossaries and HWK will be graded Grades will be posted on Blackboard Need more feedback? Please, let us know how Course Administration

Special for Undergrads You can ask to replace project w/ more homework Course Administration

Course Administration Projects A list of possible projects is forthcoming, will include Implement the game of Clue Implement and evaluate an algorithm Model and solve a (simple) practical problem Investigate an advanced theoretical concept Conduct a critical literature survey (at least 3 papers), etc. Alternatives Propose your own project and discuss it with instructor At the end of project, you must submit with handin: Project report: <lastname>-report.ext Slides: <lastname>-defense.ext Code: <lastname>-code.tar Course Administration

Improving your grades* Do the glossaries: weekly & final (8% total) Must be typewritten, alphabetically sorted Goal: entice you to do required reading Collect bonus points 100% attendance Find bugs in slides, in lectures Fill the course evaluation @ end of course Be vocal in class, solve “riddles”, etc. Do extra work Present a research paper (10% per presentation) Write a critical summary of a research paper (5% per summary) Write a chapter of a “textbook” (20% total) * Restrictions apply (deadlines, max number per student) Course Administration

Course Administration Important dates Regularly check schedule on the web (3 times/week) Fri, Aug 26 Pretest over 235 material Wed, Oct 26 Project must be chosen, use handin Wed, Nov 16 Progress report on projects due, use handin Fri, Nov 18 First deadline for extra-credit work: 1 presentation, 2 summaries, 1 chapter write-up must be done by this date Fri, Dec 2 Final glossary due Project reports due in print and using handin Second deadline for extra-credit work: All paper presentations (Max 2), summaries (Max 4), chapter write-up (Max 2) must be done by this date Course Administration

Important Dates (cont.) Regularly check schedule on the web (2, 3 times/week) Mon, Nov 28; Wed, Nov 30; Fri Dec 2 Quizzes may be given during class or recitation Dead week & Mon, Dec 14 Project presentations Some presentations could be scheduled in evenings if necessary Fri, Dec 9 (midnight) Projects code & defense slides (when applicable) due, use handin Course Administration

Course Administration Course material Content of the course Introduction: definition and practical examples Foundations and basic mechanisms Advanced solving techniques Extensions to the problem definition Alternative approaches to solving the problem Course support New textbook by Dechter (available at bookstore). Will not be followed linearly, but should be used for reference. Book by Tsang (on reserve at LL, available on-line, out of print) Constraint Networks, ebook by Lecoutre @ http://iris.unl.edu Papers from: WWW, course web-page, library, electronic reserves, instructor, http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/, etc. Course Administration

Course Administration More resources Web Check links: www.cse.unl.edu/~choueiry/F16-421-821 Benchmark problems Association for Constraint Programming Conferences CP, AIOR, IJCAI, ECAI, NCAI (AAAI), FLAIRS... Workshops in parallel to conferences Journals: Constraints, AIJ, JACM, Annals of AI+Math, etc. Course Administration

Course Administration Your future: Jobs!! Commercial companies: Ilog, i2 Technologies, Trilogy, PeopleSoft/Red Pepper, Carmen Systems (Sweden), etc. Prestigious research centers: NASA Ames, Microsoft Research (Cambridget), PARC, JPL, SRI International, BT Labs (UK), Ilog (IBM?), etc. Start your own: Selectica, Seibel, Parc Technologies Ltd, In Time Systems Inc, Blue Pumpkin, etc. Academic: Constraint languages Modeling, constraint representation, reasoning & propagation mechanisms Dedicated reasoning: diagnosis, planning & scheduling, design, configuration, Case-Based Reasoning, etc. Course Administration