News Journal on Planning and Scheduling

Susanne Biundo
(area editor)

Can we Bridge Refinement-based and SAT-based Planning Techniques?
This challenge problem is described in a paper by Rao Kambhampati, which has been accepted as a "challenge paper" at this year's IJCAI. An introduction into the problem and its discussion can be found on Rao's page.

Adaptive Web Sites: An AI Challenge by Perkowitz and Etzioni.

The RoboCup Synthetic Agents Challenge 97 by Kitano et al.

PATAT-97:   Second International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling.
The conference will be held from August 20th to 22nd in Toronto, Canada. Selected papers from this conference will be published in a post conference proceedings.

IJCAI-97:   Fifteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence.
The conference will be held from August 23rd to 29th in Nagoya, Japan. These are the complete list of accepted papers and the program schedule. More information can be found via the conference homepage. The list of planning and scheduling papers is included in the bibliograhy of the Electronic Colloquium.

ECP-97:   Fourth European Conference on Planning.
The conference will be held from September 24th to 26th in Toulouse, France. The preliminary program schedule and registration information are now available. The list of papers is included in the bibliograhy of the Electronic Colloquium.

KR-98:   Sixth International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning.
The conference will be held from June 2nd to 5th in Trento, Italy.
Deadlines: electronic abstracts due: November 26, 1997 · extended abstracts due: December 1, 1997.

AIPS-98:   Fourth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Planning Systems.
The conference will be held from June 7th to 10th at Carnegy Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA.
Deadlines: workshop proposals due: October 14, 1997 · conference papers due: December 9, 1997.

AAAI-98:   Fifteenth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence.
The conference will be held from July 26th to 30th in Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
Deadlines: electronic title page due: January 20, 1998 · papers due: January 22, 1998.

ECAI-98:   Thirteenth European Conference on Artificial Intelligence.
The conference will be held from August 23th to 28th in Brighton, UK.
Deadlines: workshop and tutorial proposals due: November 1, 1997 · technical papers due: January 23, 1998.

The First International Workshop on RoboCup, organised by Hiroaki Kitano,
to be held at IJCAI-97 on Saturday, August 23rd and Sunday, August 24th.

More information about RoboCup, the Robot World Cup Initiative, can be found here.

Workshop on Planning and Scheduling for Space, organised by Steve Chien, to be held from October 28th to 30th in Oxnard, CA, USA.

Industrial Constraint-Directed Scheduling, organised by Andrew Davenport and Chris Beck, to be held in conjunction with the Third International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP-97) on November 1st at Schloss Hagenberg, Austria. Paper submission deadline is August 15, 1997.

Symposium on Abstraction, Reformulation, and Approximation (SARA-98), organised by Tom Ellman, to be held from May 9th to 12th in Pacific Grove, California, USA.
Deadline for the submission of research summaries and extended abstracts is January 20, 1998.

Constraint Satisfaction Problems and Objects by Pierre Roy and Francois Pachet,
to be held at IJCAI-97 on Sunday, August 24th.

Practical Planning Systems by Steve Chien and Brian Drabble,
to be held at IJCAI-97 on Monday, August 25th.

ShivaSoft Inc., a scheduling-software developer in Edmonton, Canada, is currently looking for candidates to fill a research position. They are particularly interested in acquiring more expertise in constraint programming. More about this offer ...

Many job offers in planning, scheduling, and constraint reasoning can be found on this page.

Job openings at the Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute (AIAI) at the University of Edinburgh are always announced on this page. They include occasional positions and studentships in the Knowledge-Based Planning Group at AIAI.

ShivaSoft Inc.

Research Position - Intelligent Scheduling

ShivaSoft Inc. is a leading developer of advanced planning and scheduling systems for manufacturing companies. The Shiva(tm) system has been successfully installed in numerous large companies in the automotive, metals, repetitive manufacturing, and process industries.

To maintain our technical leadership in a very competitive marketplace we require a highly motivated researcher to join our Edmonton based development team. The position offers an excellent opportunity for those interested in applying academic training to complex manufacturing scheduling models. Demonstrated expertise in the following areas is essential:

- Constraint logic programming
- Genetic algorithms
- Mathematical techniques for optimization
- Hybrid approaches to real scheduling problems

A Ph.D. in a related area of study is preferred. The position also requires:
- Experience in software development and working with software developers
- Good verbal and written communication skills

ShivaSoft's reputation for technical excellence and innovative yet practical solutions is a result of its dedicated personnel and informal, creative atmosphere.
Competitive salary and benefits are offered. This is a permanent position, and opportunities exist for career development in research and other functional areas. ShivaSoft Inc. is an equal opportunity employer.

Send your resume marked "Research" to: HR Manager. e-mail: resume@shivasoft.com, fax: (403) 423 0414
Please direct inquires regarding this position to either vasu@shivasoft.com or john@shivasoft.com.

ShivaSoft Inc.
#455 Phipps McKinnon Building
10020 101A Avenue
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T5J 3G2
URL: http://www.shivasoft.com

The following publications have appeared since the previous issue.