====================================================================== 7th International Workshop on Preferences and Soft Constraints (Soft 2005) October 1st, 2005 Melia Sitges Hotel, Sitges, Spain Held in conjunction with the 11th International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP 2005) http://www.inra.fr/bia/T/degivry/soft2005/ ******************************************** Extended Paper Submission Deadline: July 4th ******************************************** ====================================================================== Call for Papers ====================================================================== Preferences are ubiquitous in real life: most problems are over-constrained and would not be solvable if we insist that all their requirements are strictly met. Instead, many problems are more naturally described via preference rather than hard statements. The idea of using soft constraints provides an effective way to extend the classical framework of constraints to support the concept of preferences. In parallel to the framework of soft constraints, other frameworks for expressing preferences have been proposed in the last few years in AI and other related disciplines. These diverse frameworks have different features and lead to different results. For example, both qualitative and quantitative preference frameworks are being studied and used to model and solve real-life problems. The purpose of this workshop is to bring together researchers and practitioners who are interested in all aspects of preferences and soft constraints, such as: - theoretical frameworks - problem formulation and modeling - languages - preference aggregation - preference elicitation - efficient exact and approximation algorithms - multi-objective or qualitative optimization - comparative studies - combining/integrating different frameworks and algorithms - real-life applications Submissions ----------- This workshop is intended to build on the experience and success of the workshops on the same subject at CP99, CP2000, CP2001, CP2002, CP2003 and CP2004. Its aim is to provide a forum where researchers currently working in this area can exchange their ideas, discuss new developments and explore possible future directions. Therefore, we welcome and encourage work in progress and presentation on specialized aspects of preferences and soft constraints. Papers that bridge the gap between theory and practice are especially welcome. Prospective attendees wishing to speak or have a paper in proceedings should submit a paper, up to 15 pages in the format of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) style (http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html). Electronic submission in postscript or pdf format is strongly encouraged, through email to degivry@toulouse.inra.fr with the subject line "Soft 2005 Workshop Submission". All submissions will be reviewed and those that present substantial contributions to the workshop topics will be accepted for presentation and publication in the workshop proceedings. The proceedings will be available electronically at the workshop web page and in hard copy on the day of the workshop. At least one author of each accepted paper must attend the workshop. This workshop is open to all members of the CP/ICLP community. All workshop participants must pay the workshop fee (payment of a single fee provides admission to all CP/ICLP workshops). Important Dates --------------- Paper Submission deadline July 4th Notification of acceptance July 29th Early CP/ICLP registration deadline August 1st Camera-ready version deadline August 22th Workshop Date October 1st Organizers ---------- Simon de Givry (primary contact) Unité de Biométrie et d'Intelligence Artificielle INRA, BP 52627, 31326 Castanet-Tolosan cedex, France degivry@toulouse.inra.fr http://www.inra.fr/bia/T/degivry/ Weixiong Zhang Department of Computer Science and Engineering Washington University in St. Louis St. Louis, MO 63130, USA zhang@cse.wustl.edu http://www.cse.wustl.edu/~zhang Program Committee ----------------- Pedro Barahona (Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Caparica, Portugal) Stefano Bistarelli (University of Pescara, Italy --- C.N.R., Pisa, Italy) Martin Cooper (IRIT, Toulouse, France) Rina Dechter (University of California, Irvine, USA) Carmel Domshlak (The Technion, Haifa, Israel) Simon de Givry (INRA, Castanet-Tolosan, France) Philippe Jégou (Université Aix-Marseille, Marseille, France) Jérôme Lang (CNRS, Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France) Jimmy H. M. Lee (The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong) Felip Manya (IIIA-CSIC, Bellaterra, Spain) Bertrand Neveu (INRIA, Sophia Antipolis, France) Gilles Pesant (CRT, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada) Francesca Rossi (University of Padova, Italy) Hana Rudová (Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic) Martin Sachenbacher (MIT CSAIL, Cambridge, USA) Marti Sanchez (IIIA-CSIC, Bellaterra, Spain) Nic Wilson (Cork Constraint Computation Centre, Cork, Ireland) Hantao Zhang (University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA) Weixiong Zhang (Washington University, St. Louis, USA)