2016 Quarter 1

REPORT FROM THE ASSOCIATION FOR CONSTRAINT PROGRAMMING

This is a short summary of activities within the ACP during the months January-March 2016.

The 2016 ACP Executive Committee (EC) comprises the following people, in alphabetical order:

  • Pierre Flener - Conference Coordinator
  • Alan Frisch
  • Willem-Jan van Hoeve - Secretary
  • Christophe Lecoutre - Treasurer
  • Laurent Michel - President
  • Nina Narodytska
  • Helmut Simonis (ex-officio, non-voting)
  • Guido Tack

The ACP EC welcomes feedback and suggestions from the ACP community. We encourage you to engage with the ACP EC to help design new initiatives that promote constraint programming.

ACP.1: ACP Summer School 2016

The 2016 ACP Summer School will take place in Cork, Ireland, from June 20 to 24, 2016. The school will offer a general introduction to the capabilities and current research directions in the area of Constraint Programming. It is organized by the Insight Centre for Data Analytics, and chaired by Helmut Simonis. The summer school speakers include Nicolas Beldiceanu, Hadrien Cambazard, John Hooker, Lars Kotthoff, Barry O'Sullivan, Jean-Charles Régin, and Helmut Simonis.

In addition to the main program, the summer school will also run a programming competition based on a small, real-world problem. Students can try out different solutions techniques during the week, including their own favourite tools.

More information can be found here: http://school.a4cp.org/summer2016/

ACP.2: Call for Bids for Summer School 2017

The Association for Constraint Programming invites proposals for organizing the ACP Summer School on Constraint Programming in 2017. Since its establishment, the summer school has been a major success with feedback from student attendees being very positive.

The proposed topic of the school can be on general CP or on a specific research subject. A complete list of ACP summer schools can be found here: http://www.a4cp.org/events/summer-schools

Members of the CP community who are interested in organizing the 2017 Summer School should send a proposal to secretary@a4cp.org by August 31 2016, covering the following aspects: 1. topic of the school 2. location 3. dates 4. organizers 5. tentative list of speakers 6. provisional budget

ACP.3: Call for Bids for CP 2018

Since the ACP plans CP conferences two years in advance, we now solicit bids for CP 2018. Such bids, following the guidelines at http://www.a4cp.org/events/conference-organisation-policy, are to be sent to conf-coordinator@a4cp.org by 31 May 2016.

ACP.4: Elections for Executive Committee Members: Call for Nominations

We seek nominations for candidates for election to the Executive Committee (EC) of the ACP. A candidate must be an ACP member and be nominated by a member of the ACP. Nominated persons must agree to be a candidate and must write an election statement that will be posted on the ACP election site.

Please send your nominations and election statements to the Secretary of the ACP (secretary@a4cp.org) by July 1, 2016.

We recall that the Executive Committee of the ACP decides the venue of the annual CP international conference, as well as its programme and conference chairs. It also organises and supports other activities such as the CP doctoral programme, the ACP summer school, the ACP newsletter, web sites, etc. Finally, it retains the surplus from CP conferences and re-invests it in other activities of the CP research community.

Bylaw 5 of the ACP Bylaws (see www.a4cp.org) states the election procedure and rules. The term of EC members is 4 years, and three current EC members will end their term by the end of 2016: Pierre Flener, Willem-Jan van Hoeve, and Guido Tack. Therefore, we shall run an election for three members to a four-year term.

Elections will take place electronically in August, 2016. The results will be communicated to the ACP members before CP 2016. The Election Committee consists of Alan Frisch, Laurent Michel, Nina Narodytska, and Willem van Hoeve (chair).

ACP.5: ACP Doctoral Research Award: Call for Nominations

We invite nominations for the 2016 ACP Doctoral Research Award. The ACP Doctoral Research Award is awarded every year to a promising young researcher working in the area of constraint programming and who defended her/his thesis between January and December in the last two calendar years. The award will be presented at the CP 2016 conference, where the winning researcher will present a talk on the topic of her/his doctoral dissertation. The award includes a cash prize of 500 euros, plus free registration for the conference. The award committee is chaired by Charlotte Truchet.

Past winners of this award can be found at: http://www.a4cp.org/awards/doctoral-research-award

The deadline for submitting nominations is 15 May 2016.

More details about the submission process can be found at http://www.a4cp.org/node/1099.

ACP.6: ACP Distinguished Service Award: Call for Nominations

The Executive Committee of the ACP invites nominations for the 2016 ACP award for Distinguished Service to the Constraint Programming Community, which will be presented at CP 2016 in Toulouse, France. The purpose of this award is to celebrate those CP community members who have made exceptional contributions to the CP community. Areas of service could include, but are not limited to: association service, service as an editor, conference organisation, representation of CP in other organisations, etc, resulting in positive effects on the field of CP. The recipient of this award will have all costs of his/her participation at the CP conference covered by the ACP.

Past winners of this award can be found at: http://www.a4cp.org/awards/distinguished-service-award

The deadline for submitting nomination packages is June 1, 2016. More details about the nomination procedure can be found at http://www.a4cp.org/node/1098.