6-7 October 2008

8 Octobre 2008
The Université catholique de Louvain will confer the title of Doctor Honoris Causa to A. Fert (Paris-Sud, Nobel Prize Physics 2007), R.L Rivest (MIT, Turing Award 2002), J.N. Tsitsiklis (MIT), and P. Van Hentenryck (Brown Univ.).
More information

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Content
Over the last two decades, constraint programming (CP) has become a fundamental approach to combinatorial optimization and is now in daily use around the world to solve complex applications in a variety of areas such as logistics, manufacturing, and resource allocation.

This graduate class is an introduction to constraint programming using the innovative optimization language Comet. It reviews the essence of constraint programming and how it complements other approaches to combinatorial optimization. It provides an in-depth study of modeling, filtering, and search in constraint programming. The functionalities are constraint programming are illustrated on a variety of realistic applications, highlighting some of the modeling and computational benefits of constraint programming.

The class also studies the architecture of a modern constraint programming system, including the clean separation between the specification of the search and the exploration strategy and the transparent parallelization of constraint programs. Finally, the hybridization of constraint programming and other optimization methodologies is also discussed.

Registration

• The course is open to graduate students and researchers from any university. The number of participants is limited to 40 persons.
• The participation fee for the graduate course is 50 Euros for students and 100 Euros for non students. It is free for the GrasComp graduate students.
• Some rooms are available at the Mercure hotel in Louvain-la-Neuve, at the Novotel at Wavre (with a free shuttle service)., and at the hotel Les 3 clés at Gembloux (15 minutes train from LLN).
  
• Registration is mandatory for the graduate course. For information and registration, contact Stéphanie Landrain (sr@info.ucl.ac.be).

Practical details

• The course will be in organized in the room BA04 (Auditoire Ste Barbe, place Ste Barbe, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve)
• The schedule is the following :
• 9:00 - 12:00  morning session
• 14:00 - 16:00 afternoon session
• Two coffee break will be organized.
• The lunch will be provided for all attendee