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Constraint Processing

Rina Dechter
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TLDR
Rina Dechter synthesizes three decades of researchers work on constraint processing in AI, databases and programming languages, operations research, management science, and applied mathematics to provide the first comprehensive examination of the theory that underlies constraint processing algorithms.
Abstract
Constraint satisfaction is a simple but powerful tool. Constraints identify the impossible and reduce the realm of possibilities to effectively focus on the possible, allowing for a natural declarative formulation of what must be satisfied, without expressing how. The field of constraint reasoning has matured over the last three decades with contributions from a diverse community of researchers in artificial intelligence, databases and programming languages, operations research, management science, and applied mathematics. Today, constraint problems are used to model cognitive tasks in vision, language comprehension, default reasoning, diagnosis, scheduling, temporal and spatial reasoning. In Constraint Processing, Rina Dechter, synthesizes these contributions, along with her own significant work, to provide the first comprehensive examination of the theory that underlies constraint processing algorithms. Throughout, she focuses on fundamental tools and principles, emphasizing the representation and analysis of algorithms. ·Examines the basic practical aspects of each topic and then tackles more advanced issues, including current research challenges ·Builds the reader's understanding with definitions, examples, theory, algorithms and complexity analysis ·Synthesizes three decades of researchers work on constraint processing in AI, databases and programming languages, operations research, management science, and applied mathematics Table of Contents Preface; Introduction; Constraint Networks; Consistency-Enforcing Algorithms: Constraint Propagation; Directional Consistency; General Search Strategies; General Search Strategies: Look-Back; Local Search Algorithms; Advanced Consistency Methods; Tree-Decomposition Methods; Hybrid of Search and Inference: Time-Space Trade-offs; Tractable Constraint Languages; Temporal Constraint Networks; Constraint Optimization; Probabilistic Networks; Constraint Logic Programming; Bibliography

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Book ChapterDOI

Solving minimal constraint networks in qualitative spatial and temporal reasoning

TL;DR: This paper shows, for several qualitative calculi including Interval Algebra and RCC-8 algebra, that deciding the minimality of qualitative constraint networks and computing a solution of a minimal constraint network are both NP-hard problems.
Journal ArticleDOI

Accelerating exact and approximate inference for (distributed) discrete optimization with GPUs

TL;DR: This paper proposes the design and implementation of a novel inference-based technique, which exploits modern massively parallel architectures, such as those found in Graphical Processing Units (GPUs), to speed up the resolution of exact and approximated inference- based algorithms for discrete optimization.
Book ChapterDOI

On the complexity of program debugging using constraints for modeling the program's syntax and semantics

TL;DR: This paper proposes a constraint representation of programs whose behavior is equivalent to the original programs, and analyzes the constraint representation to obtain its hypertree width, which is an indicator for the complexity of the corresponding constraint satisfaction problem.
Proceedings Article

Consistency checking of basic cardinal constraints over connected regions

TL;DR: An O(n4) algorithm is given to check the consistency of a network of basic cardinal constraints with variables ranging over the set of connected regions homeomorphic to the closed unit disk to show that it is NP-Complete.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

Optimization by Simulated Annealing

TL;DR: There is a deep and useful connection between statistical mechanics and multivariate or combinatorial optimization (finding the minimum of a given function depending on many parameters), and a detailed analogy with annealing in solids provides a framework for optimization of very large and complex systems.
Book

Computers and Intractability: A Guide to the Theory of NP-Completeness

TL;DR: The second edition of a quarterly column as discussed by the authors provides a continuing update to the list of problems (NP-complete and harder) presented by M. R. Garey and myself in our book "Computers and Intractability: A Guide to the Theory of NP-Completeness,” W. H. Freeman & Co., San Francisco, 1979.
Book

Introduction to Algorithms

TL;DR: The updated new edition of the classic Introduction to Algorithms is intended primarily for use in undergraduate or graduate courses in algorithms or data structures and presents a rich variety of algorithms and covers them in considerable depth while making their design and analysis accessible to all levels of readers.
Book

Probabilistic Reasoning in Intelligent Systems: Networks of Plausible Inference

TL;DR: Probabilistic Reasoning in Intelligent Systems as mentioned in this paper is a complete and accessible account of the theoretical foundations and computational methods that underlie plausible reasoning under uncertainty, and provides a coherent explication of probability as a language for reasoning with partial belief.