Michela Milano - Böcker

Despite differing origins, constraint programming and mathematical programming are beginning to merge. Constraint programming has grown out of the logic programming community as part of an effort to embed constraints in a programming language. Mathematical programming, a much older field, is rooted in the mathematics of optimization. Because these two areas have complementary strengths, there are ongoing efforts to integrate the two. This work presents some of the basic ideas of constraint programming and mathematical programming, explores approaches to integration, brings us up to date on heuristic methods, and attempts to discern future directions in this fast-moving field. The text is organized as follows: Chapter 1 is a high level overview of the main concepts of Constraint Programming (CP) and Integer Programming (IP) used in the book. Chapter 2 informally introduces integration methods describing and classifying the main works in the field. Chapter 3 outlines a unifying framework which involves the main concepts of CP and IP, underlining similarities and differences, and stating the basis for possible integrations.Chapter 4 describes global constraints as a vehicle for integrating IP concepts in CP in a transparent way for the user. Chapter 5 presents various ways to integrate relaxations in Constraint Programming focussing on global constraints. Chapter 6 presents hybrid solvers and Chapter 7 outlines Column Generation and its integration in Constraint Programming. Chapter 8 examines randomization and problem structure as a basis for understanding the intrinsic difficulty of the combinatorial problems. Chapter 9 studies the use of local search and meta-heuristics in CP. Chapter 10 is devoted to open perspectives and future directions.

Hybrid Optimization focuses on the application of artificial intelligence and operations research techniques to constraint programming for solving combinatorial optimization problems. This book covers the most relevant topics investigated in the last ten years by leading experts in the field, and speculates about future directions for research.This book includes contributions by experts from different but related areas of research including constraint programming, decision theory, operations research, SAT, artificial intelligence, as well as others. These diverse perspectives are actively combined and contrasted in order to evaluate their relative advantages.This volume presents techniques for hybrid modeling, integrated solving strategies including global constraints, decomposition techniques, use of relaxations, and search strategies including tree search local search and metaheuristics. Various applications of the techniques presented as well as supplementary computational tools are also discussed.

Constraint and Integer Programming presents some of the basic ideas of constraint programming and mathematical programming, explores approaches to integration, brings us up to date on heuristic methods, and attempts to discern future directions in this fast-moving field.

Hybrid Optimization focuses on the application of artificial intelligence and operations research techniques to constraint programming for solving combinatorial optimization problems. This book covers the most relevant topics investigated in the last ten years by leading experts in the field, and speculates about future directions for research.This book includes contributions by experts from different but related areas of research including constraint programming, decision theory, operations research, SAT, artificial intelligence, as well as others. These diverse perspectives are actively combined and contrasted in order to evaluate their relative advantages.This volume presents techniques for hybrid modeling, integrated solving strategies including global constraints, decomposition techniques, use of relaxations, and search strategies including tree search local search and metaheuristics. Various applications of the techniques presented as well as supplementary computational tools are also discussed.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed conference proceedings of the First International Workshop on the Foundation of Trustworthy AI - Integrating Learning, Optimization and Reasoning, TAILOR 2020, held virtually in September 2020, associated with ECAI 2020, the 24th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence.The 11 revised full papers presented together with 6 short papers and 6 position papers were reviewed and selected from 52 submissions. The contributions address various issues for Trustworthiness, Learning, reasoning, and optimization, Deciding and Learning How to Act, AutoAI,  and Reasoning and Learning in Social Contexts.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference on Electronic Participation, ePart 2015, held in Thessaloniki, Greece, in August/September 2015.

The 2nd International Conference on Integration of AI and OR Techniques in Constraint Programming for Combinatorial Optimization Problems (CPAIOR2005)washeldinPrague,CzechRepublic,duringMay31–June1,2005. The conference is intended primarily as a forum to focus on the integration and hybridization of the approaches of constraint programming (CP), arti?cial intelligence (AI), and operations research (OR) technologies for solving large-scale and complex real-life optimization problems. Therefore, CPAIOR is never far from industrial applications. The high number of submissions received this year, almost 100 papers, in witness to the interest of the research community in this conference. From these submissions, we chose 26 to be published in full in the proceedings. This volume includes summaries of the invited talks of CPAIOR: one from industry, one from the embedded system research community, and one from the operations research community. The invited speakers were: Filippo Focacci from ILOGS.A.,France,oneoftheleadingcompaniesinthe?eld;PaulPop,professor in the Embedded Systems Lab in the Computer and Information Science - partment, Link¨ oping University; and Paul Williams, full professor of Operations Research at the London School of Economics. The day before CPAIOR, a Master Class was organized by Gilles Pesant, where leading researchers gave introductory and overview talks in the area of metaheuristics and constraint programming. The Master Class was intended for PhD students, researchers, and practitioners. We are very grateful to Gilles who brought this excellent program together. For conference publicity we warmly thank Willem Jan van Hoeve and Petr Vil´ ?m who did a great job with the high number of submissions received.

The 7th International Conference on Integration of AI and OR Techniques in Constraint Programming for Combinatorial Optimization Problems (CPAIOR 2010) was held in Bologna, Italy, June 16-18, 2010. The conference is intended primarily as a forum to focus on the integration and hybridization of the approaches of constraint programming (CP), arti?cial intelligence (AI), and operations research (OR) technologies for solving lar- scale and complex real-life combinatorial optimization problems. CPAIOR is focused on both theoretical and practical, application-oriented contributions. The interest of the researchcommunity in this conference is witnessed by the highnumber ofhigh-qualitysubmissions receivedthis year,reaching39 long and 33 short papers. From these submissions, we chose 18 long and 17 short papers to be published in full in the proceedings. ThisvolumeincludesextendedabstractsoftheinvitedtalksgivenatCPAIOR.Namely, one by Matteo Fischetti (University of Padova) on cutting planes and their use within search methods; another by Carla Gomes (Cornell University) on the recently funded NSF "Expedition in Computing" grant on the topic of computationalsustainabilityandonthepotentialapplicationofhybridoptimi- tion approachesto this area;a third by Peter Stuckey (University of Melbourne) on the integration of SATis?ability solvers within constraint programming and integer programming solvers.