Sunday, March 7, 2010

[DMANET] CFP: Hybrid Methods for Nonlinear Combinatorial Problems

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Call for Papers

for the workshop on

Hybrid Methods for Nonlinear Combinatorial Problems

to be held in conjunction with the
international conference CPAIOR 2010

Bologna, Italy
June 15, 2010

http://sites.google.com/site/hybridnl2010/

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The focus of this workshop is on solution techniques for nonlinear
combinatorial problems, which arise in many practical industrial and
financial applications. Two main approaches to optimally solving such
problems are Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP) and
Constraint Programming (CP). In addition, Local Search (LS) techniques
are usually applied to obtain heuristic solutions. The workshop will
aim at theoretical and algorithmic work as well as practical
applications.

The main motivation for this workshop is the observation that
nonlinear combinatorial problems can be extremely difficult to solve
optimally with existing methods, while doing so could result in huge
gains (e.g., in terms of profit or cost reduction). The nonlinear
optimization aspect may for example be handled efficiently by MINLP,
while this is more difficult for CP. On the other hand, a highly
combinatorial substructure, such as a scheduling problem, can be
handled by CP very effectively, while this is not the case for MINLP
due to linearizations. Therefore, a hybrid method has the potential to
effectively combine the strengths of both approaches (or even more),
as witnessed by several successful applications of such hybrid methods
to date.

The organizing committee invites submissions of extended abstracts
(max 5 pages) or research papers (max 15 pages) describing original
work. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

o CP-based domain filtering/bounds reduction techniques for MINLP
o MINLP-based domain filtering/bounds reduction techniques for CP
o Interval analysis for bounds reduction
o Improving nonlinear constraints in CP through MINLP techniques
o Decomposition techniques (e.g., Benders, Column Generation) that
combine NLP, MINLP, CP, or LS
o Successful applications of hybrid CP/MINLP/LS methods
o Applications of Nonlinear Combinatorial Problems that are very
challenging and might benefit from a hybrid approach

After a reviewing process, a selection of papers will be invited
to be presented during the workshop. The selected papers will be
published during the workshop and on the workshop website. It is
expected that workshop participants will also attend CPAIOR.

Abstracts/papers can be submitted by email to:
belotti@lehigh.edu (Pietro Belotti)

Important Dates:

March 20, 2010: Abstract/paper submission due
April 10, 2010: Notification of acceptance
April 24, 2010: Abstract/paper final version due
June 15, 2010: Workshop date

Organizing Committee:

Pietro Belotti, Lehigh University (co-chair)
Laurent Granvilliers, University of Nantes
Stefano Gualandi, Politecnico di Milano
Willem-Jan van Hoeve, Carnegie Mellon University (co-chair)
Leo Liberti, LIX, Ecole Polytechnique
Andrea Lodi, University of Bologna

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