1. Foundations of Constraint Processing CSCE421/821, Fall 2003
- Welcome
- GTA: Catherine Anderson
- Pre-req: & 476/876, or permission
- Sign-up sheet: check your name and address
- Check:
Berthe Y. Choueiry (Shu-we-ri)
Ferguson Hall, Room 104
Tel: +1(402)

2. 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,
Rules
Absence: 6 sessions max.
Collaboration policy:
Discuss it with others
Do it on your own, clearly acknowledge help received & sources
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Course Administration Slides

3. 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.
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4. 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)
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5. 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)
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6. 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
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7. 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
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8. 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?
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9. 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.
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10. Course Administration Slides
Pointers to Resources
Web:
Some links:
Archives at
Benchmark problems:
eLists: comp.constraints
Conferences: CP (+WSs), IJCAI, ECAI, NCAI (AAAI), FLAIRS, etc.
Journals: Constraints, AIJ, JACM, Annals of AI+Math, etc.
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11. 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.
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