Foundations of Constraint Processing CSCE421/821, Fall 2003 - Welcome - GTA: Catherine Anderson (anderson@cse.unl.edu) - Pre-req: 310 & 476/876, or permission - Sign-up sheet: check your name and email address - Check: www.cse.unl.edu/~choueiry/F03-421-821/ Berthe Y. Choueiry (Shu-we-ri) Ferguson Hall, Room 104 choueiry@cse.unl.edu Tel: +1(402)472-5444

Course Administration Slides Time: Monday, Wednesday, Friday: 10:30—11:20 a.m. Office hours: Instructor: Monday/Wednesday: 11:30 a.m.—12:30 p.m. GTA: Monday: 12:30—1:30 p.m. Friday: 11:20 a.m.—12:30 p.m. GRAs: TBA Course: Theory track, 3 credit-hours Lectures by instructor, 1 industrial visitor Occasionally, presentations by students Communications: web page, email: cse421@cse.unl.edu Rules Absence: 6 sessions max. Collaboration policy: Discuss it with others Do it on your own, clearly acknowledge help received & sources 7/6/2019 Course Administration Slides

Course Administration Slides Admin II Grading: Pretest: 3% Quizzes: 32%, cannot not be made up Assignments: 30% (programming, pen+paper) Search competition/Project: 35% ( mid-term)  (  final) Improve your grades: Present a research paper (10% per presentation) Critical summary of a research paper (5% per summary) Write a chapter of a “textbook” (20% total) Glossaries: weekly & final (5% total) Bonus for: 100% attendance, class interaction, “riddles”,... etc. 7/6/2019 Course Administration Slides

Course Administration Slides Admin III Important dates: Regularly check class schedule on WWW Friday, Aug 29th: pretest (20 min. max) Monday, Sep 29th: project topic must be chosen. Friday, Oct 31st: progress reports/pre-presentation due Friday, Dec 5: final reports due Dec. 8—12 (dead weak): project presentations Wed, Dec 17: (project presentations) 7/6/2019 Course Administration Slides

Course Administration Slides Projects Suggestions Contribute to GTA assignment program 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. A detailed list of possible projects is forthcoming Alternatives Propose your own project or discuss with instructor Work with a GRA (Anderson, Gompert, Guddeti, Lal, Zheng, Zou) 7/6/2019 Course Administration Slides

How to Write a Critical Summary This generic template is provided as an aid but is not mandatory PART I: your understanding of the paper PART II: your opinion of the paper 7/6/2019 Course Administration Slides

Course Administration Slides PART I: The Paper What: Context of the paper problem the authors claim to address (i.e., motivation) assumptions they make solution they claim to provide How: Short Description of proposed technique basic algorithmic steps optimizations, if any evaluation: empirical/theoretical Impact: Comparison to previous techniques if provided, how? can you identify/propose some other? What next: Directions for future research 7/6/2019 Course Administration Slides

Course Administration Slides PART II: Your Opinion Is the paper a “real” advancement of the state of the art? Is it useful for the theory? for practice? Can you identify other uses of the proposed technique(s)? What are the shortcomings? Can you identify more? can you propose a fix? Any issues swept-under-the-carpet? Can you identify other directions for future research? 7/6/2019 Course Administration Slides

Additional Information 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 Optional: new textbook by Dechter (available at bookstore) Book by Tsang (on reserve at LL, available on-line, out of print) Papers from: WWW, course web-page, library, electronic reserves, instructor, citeseer.nj.nec.com/cs, etc. 7/6/2019 Course Administration Slides

Course Administration Slides Pointers to Resources Web: Some links: www.cse.unl.edu/~choueiry/F03-421-821/ Archives at CCC @UNH Benchmark problems: www.csplib.org eLists: csp@carlit.toulouse.inra.fr, comp.constraints Conferences: CP (+WSs), IJCAI, ECAI, NCAI (AAAI), FLAIRS, etc. Journals: Constraints, AIJ, JACM, Annals of AI+Math, etc. 7/6/2019 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, JPL, BT Labs (UK), IBM Watson+Almaden, etc. Start your own: Selectica, Seibel, Parc Technologies Ltd, OnTarget, In Time Systems Inc, Blue Pumpkin, etc. - Constraint languages, - Modeling, constraint representation, reasoning & propagation mechanisms Academic - Dedicated reasoning: diagnosis, CBR, planning & scheduling, design, configuration, etc. 7/6/2019 Course Administration Slides