Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming - CP'96

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming, CP '96, held in Cambridge, MA, USA in August 1996.
The 36 revised full papers presented in the volume were selected from over 100 submissions; also included are abstracts of 22 selected poster presentations and 3 special lectures. CP is the flagship conference series on constraint processing with a number of satellite activities; thus the volume reflects the state of the art in the field.

On confluence of Constraint Handling Rules.- A labelling arc consistency method for functional constraints.- Constraint satisfaction in optical routing for passive wavelength-routed networks.- Using CSP look-back techniques to solve exceptionally hard SAT instances.- MAC and combined heuristics: Two reasons to forsake FC (and CBJ?) on hard problems.- The independence property of a class of set constraints.- Speeding up constraint propagation by redundant modeling.- A constraint-based interactive train rescheduling tool.- Local search and the number of solutions.- Derivation of constraints and database relations.- Constraint programming: an efficient and practical approach to solving the job-shop problem.- An instance of adaptive constraint propagation.- An empirical study of dynamic variable ordering heuristics for the constraint satisfaction problem.- Empirical studies of heuristic local search for constraint solving.- Defeasibility in CLP( $$\mathcal{Q}$$ ) through generalized slack variables.- Inference duality as a basis for sensitivity analysis.- Generalized local propagation: A framework for solving constraint hierarchies.- Transformations between HCLP and PCSP.- A test for tractability.- Combination of constraint systems II: Rational amalgamation.- Tractable disjunctions of linear constraints.- Exploiting the use of DAC in MAX-CSP.- A new approach for Weighted Constraint Satisfaction: Theoretical and computational results.- Towards a more efficient stochastic constraint solver.- A view of local search in constraint programming.- From quasi-solutions to solution: An Evolutionary algorithm to solve CSP.- Existential variables and local consistency in finite domain constraint problems.- Logical semantics of concurrent constraint programming.- Solving non-binary convex CSPs in continuous domains.- An experimental comparison of three modified DeltaBlue algorithms.- Constraint Logic Programming over unions of Constraint theories.- Analysis of Hybrid systems in CLP( $$\mathcal{R}$$ ).- On query languages for linear queries definable with polynomial constraints.- Analysis of heuristic methods for partial constraint satisfaction problems.- Solving satisfiability problems using field programmable gate arrays: First results.- A constraint program for solving the job-shop problem.- PSAP — A planning system for aircraft production (extended abstract).- Using partial arc consistency in a database environment.- Functional constraint hierarchies in CLP.- Towards an open finite domain constraint solver.- Efficient constraint propagation with good space complexity.- Anytime temporal reasoning: Preliminary report (extended abstract).- From constraint minimization to goal optimization in CLP languages.- Looking at full looking ahead.- The arc and path consistency phase transitions.- Experiences with combining constraint programming and discrete event simulation.- Hill-climbing with local consistency for solving distributed CSPs.- Approximate algorithms for maximum utility problems.- A meta constraint logic programming architecture (extended abstract).- N-ary consistencies and constraint-based backtracking.- Global behaviour for complex constraints.- To guess or to think? Hybrid algorithms for SAT (extended abstract).- A local simplification scheme for cc programs.- From evaluating upper bounds of the complexity of solving CSPs to finding all the solutions of CSPs.- Modeling and solving distributed constraint satisfaction problems (DCSPs).- Scheduling an Asynchronously Shared Resource.- The Generalized Railroad Crossing: Its symbolic analysis in CLP ( $$\mathcal{R}$$ ).- A stochastic approach to solving fuzzy constraint satisfaction problems.- Branch- and-price for solving integer programs with a huge number of variables: Methods and applications.- Constraint Databases.- Complexity-theoretic aspects of programming language design.