Welcome by Praveen Guddeti Course Foundations of Constraint Processing, CSCE 421/821 Instructor Berthe Y. Choueiry (Shu-we-ri), choueiry@cse.unl.edu Avery Hall, Room 123B, Tel: +1(402)472-5444 Apologizes for absence during first week, attending a conference GTA Yaling Zheng, yzheng@cse.unl.edu, Avery Hall 123D List of names Please check your name, email address, and program of study 12/7/2018 Course Administration Slides

Course Administration Slides Pre-requisites Pre-requisites CSCE 310 and CSCE 476/876 If you do not have pre-reqs, contact instructor Track CS students: theory track PhD qualifier: sub-part of the AI exam 3 credit-hours 12/7/2018 Course Administration Slides

Course Administration Slides Meetings Regular class Monday, Wednesday, Friday: 10:30—11:20 a.m. Recitation Wednesday 5:00—6:00 p.m. Occasionally, will be used for make-up classes Lectures will be given By instructor By visitors 1 academic visitor from UC-Berkeley (Sep 9, 2004) 1 researcher from NASA Ames Research Center (tentative) 1 researcher from PARC (tentative) Occasionally, presentations by students and research assistants 12/7/2018 Course Administration Slides

Course Administration Slides Help Office hours Instructor: Monday, Wednesday 11:30 a.m.—12:30 p.m. GTA: Tuesday, Thursday 5:00—6:00 p.m. (especial effort to increase your chances for asking questions) Q&A: Send your questions Email to cse421@cse.unl.edu (will be set up soon) Will be received by many people (including RAs, GTA, and instructor) Will be answered by the first person who reads it, usually very quickly Share: your ideas and good pointers with class Send email to cse421-ml@cse.unl.edu (will be set up soon) Message will be broadcast to the entire class (use sparinglyl!) Good pointers will be listed on the web under “Your catch” 12/7/2018 Course Administration Slides

Course Administration Slides Expectations I Mastery of pre-requisite's material Effort outside classroom 9 hours of work outside classroom, if you have pre-reqs If you spend more time, contact instructor Attendance Sign-up sheet circulated for attendance Attendance of lectures and recitation is mandatory Absence: maximum 8 sessions (including recitation) Prior notification (email) for absence is mandatory 12/7/2018 Course Administration Slides

Course Administration Slides Expectations 2 Collaboration policy Feel free to discuss it with others But do it on your own Always acknowledge sources & help received Prompt response to notifications Sent to your email address at CSE (you must have one) Posted on web: cse.unl.edu/~choueiry/F04-421-821/ If you drop the class, let us know ASAP 12/7/2018 Course Administration Slides

Course Administration Slides Grading Pretest: 3% Quizzes: 32%, cannot not be made up Assignments: 30% 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 Project: 35% Individual (preferred) or in small teams (if really necessary) ( mid-term)  (  final) Feedback: Copies are quickly corrected & grades are posted immediately (regularly check instructor door for your grade) Grades will NOT be sent by email Need more feedback? Please, let us know how 12/7/2018 Course Administration Slides

Course Administration Slides Projects A list of possible projects is forthcoming, will include Search competition for solving the GTA assignment problem 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 or discuss with instructor Help a research assistant in his/her work (Anderson, Gompert, Guddeti, Lal, Lim, Thota, Shi, Zheng) At the end of project, you must submit with handin: Project report: <lastname>-report.ext Slides: <lastname>-defense.ext Code: <lastname>-code.tar 12/7/2018 Course Administration Slides

Improving your grades* Do the glossaries: weekly & final (10% total) Must be typewritten, and alphabetically sorted Goal: entice you to do required reading Collect bonus points 100% attendance, Find bugs in slides, in lectures, Be vocal in class, solve “riddles”, etc. 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) 12/7/2018 Course Administration Slides

Course Administration Slides Important dates Regularly check schedule on the web (3 times/week) Monday, Oct 4th: Project must be chosen, use handin Friday, Nov 5th: progress report on projects due, use handin Wednesday, Dec 1st: All paper presentations before this date. Max two presentations per student Deadline for submitting summaries. Max 4/student Deadline for submitting book chapter write-up. Max 2/student M/W/F Dec. 6, 8, 10 (dead week): project presentations, some presentations could be schedule in evenings if necessary Friday, Dec 10: projects code & slides (when applicable) due, use handin Sep 27, Oct 1, Dec 17: class does not meet 12/7/2018 Course Administration Slides

Course Administration Slides 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 linearily, but should be used for reference. Book by Tsang (on reserve at LL, available on-line, out of print) Papers from: WWW, course web-page, library, electronic reserves, instructor, http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/, etc. 12/7/2018 Course Administration Slides

Course Administration Slides More resources Web Check links: www.cse.unl.edu/~choueiry/F04-421-821/ Benchmark problems: www.csplib.org eLists: csp@carlit.toulouse.inra.fr, comp.constraints Electronic newsletter: www.math.unipd.it/cp-online/newsletter Conferences CP, AIOR, IJCAI, ECAI, NCAI (AAAI), FLAIRS... Workshops in parallel to conferences Journals: Constraints, AIJ, JACM, Annals of AI+Math, etc. 12/7/2018 Course Administration Slides

Course Administration Slides Your future: Jobs!! Commercial companies: Ilog, i2 Technologies, Trilogy, PeopleSoft/Red Pepper, Carmen Systems (Sweden), etc. Prestigious research centers: NASA Ames, PARC, JPL, SRI International, BT Labs (UK), Ilog (!), 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. 12/7/2018 Course Administration Slides