CPAIOR09: BR-OPT workshop: Bound Reduction for CP and MINLP

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Call for papers

BR-OPT

A workshop on

Bound Reduction techniques for
Constraint Programming and
Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programming

Tepper School of Business
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA
28 May, 2009

http://www.cs.utep.edu/mceberio/Research/br-cpaior09

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This workshop aims at bringing together people in both Constraint
Programming (CP) and Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP). The
purpose is for them to exchange ideas on current trends and
developments in techniques for bound reduction (also known as domain
reduction) and their implementation in exact and heuristic solvers.

This is a one-day workshop organized within the CPAIOR conference,
which will take place at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie
Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, from May 27 to May 31, 2009. The
website for the CPAIOR conference is
https://wpweb2.tepper.cmu.edu/rlang/CPAIOR09/index.html

Bound reduction algorithms are crucial for both CP and MINLP solvers,
as they provide an efficient tool for eliminating suboptimal or
infeasible solutions.

While some MINLP solvers focus on the expression graph and employ
interval analysis techniques with the purpose of tightening the lower
bound obtained by relaxations of the problem, the more discrete flavor
of CP techniques allows to fix variables and/or exclude sets of
solutions from a more symbolic perspective.

The renewed interest in MINLP problems within the Optimization
community and the related development of new exact MINLP solvers
provide a good opportunity to exchange ideas on new bound reduction
techniques and on the efficient implementation of well-known methods.

The organizing committee invites application of extended abstracts of
maximum 5 pages describing an original work on bound reduction in the
context of CP and/or MINLP.

Possible topics for the extended abstract comprise, but are not
restricted to, the following topics:

- Interval analysis;
- Bound reduction in global optimization;
- Preprocessing techniques in MINLP and CP;
- Consistency techniques;
- Integration of global constraints in MINLP solvers;
- Solver architectures.

Important dates:

- Feb 28, 2009: deadline for the submission of extended abstracts;
- Apr 15, 2009: notification of acceptance;
- May 15, 2009: final version of extended abstract due.

All abstracts should be emailed to belotti@lehigh.edu and should
preferably be PDF or Postscript files.

Participants to this workshop are required to register to the CPAIOR
conference; see

https://wpweb2.tepper.cmu.edu/rlang/CPAIOR09

for details and deadlines. However, there is no additional registration
fee for attending this workshop.

Organizing committee:

- Pietro Belotti, Lehigh University
- Martine Ceberio, University of Texas at El Paso
- Laurent Granvilliers, Universit? de Nantes, France
- Leo Liberti, Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France
- Michel Rueher, Universit? de Nice Sophia Antipolis, France
- Nick Sahinidis, Carnegie Mellon University