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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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
to (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 to (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

5. 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 ( ) for absence is mandatory
12/7/2018
Course Administration Slides

6. 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 address at CSE (you must have one)
Posted on web: cse.unl.edu/~choueiry/F /
If you drop the class, let us know ASAP
12/7/2018
Course Administration Slides

7. 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
Need more feedback? Please, let us know how
12/7/2018
Course Administration Slides

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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, etc.
12/7/2018
Course Administration Slides

12. Course Administration Slides
More resources
Web
Check links:
Benchmark problems:
eLists: comp.constraints
Electronic 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

13. 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