Second Workshop of the ERCIM Working Group on Constraints
by Krzysztof R. Apt
The ERCIM Working Group on Constraints was founded in the fall of
1996. It brings together ERCIM researchers that are involved in research
on the subject of Constraints. Currently it comprises researchers from
14 ERCIM institutes and associated organizations.
The first meeting of the group took place in Paris in January 1997.
The second meeting took place on 27 and 28 October 1997 in Schloss Hagenberg
near Linz in Austria, at the site of the RISC institute. RISC is of the
leading research centres in Europe in computer algebra, automated theorem
proving and constraints.
The meeting was jointly organized with the Concurrent and Constraint
Logic Programming Area of the European Network in Computational Logic,
COMPULOG. It attracted some 30 researchers and ran for 2 full days. The
call for presentations attracted a record number of 28 submissions out
of which, given the time limitations, we could accept only 20.
Because of such a large number of submissions we dropped the idea of
having an invited speaker. Still, some of the external presentations, like
the overview of the research at the University of New Hampshire given by
Eugene Freuder, the Editor-in-Chief of the recently founded Constraints
journal (edited by Kluwer) or by Robert Rodosek from IC-Parc, London about
solving the inventory management problems in the Bouygues company using
constraints, gave us interesting pointers to research on constraint programming
carried out elsewhere.
The workshop was considered to be very successful and led to a number
of interesting discussions. It seems that the subject of constraints comprises
within the ERCIM a diverse community that consists of a healthy mix of
practitioners and researchers involved in foundational work. Consequently,
the workshop provided a useful platform that allowed all of us to exchange
information, learn about each others work and discuss plans for possible
future cooperation.
The meeting preceded the Third International Conference on Constraint
Programming CP '97. The conference itself attracted a record number of
160 participants and a record number of 132 submissions. Personally, I
got an impression that this field is growing fast, encompassing now domains
such as scheduling, program analysis, automatic verification of concurrent
programs and numerical computation. In some areas like scheduling and numerical
computation the transition phase from theoretical advances to commercial
products is remarkably short just a couple of years.
For more information about the Working group, including the detailed
program of the workshop and the listing of the corresponding documents
please consult our web site: http://www.cwi.nl/projects/ercim-wg.html
Please contact:
Krzysztof R. Apt - CWI
Tel: +31 20 592 4135
E-mail: K.R.Apt@cwi.nl
