Volume 11, Number 4, 295-313, DOI: 10.1007/s10601-006-9002-8

Identifying and Exploiting Problem Structures Using Explanation-based Constraint Programming

Hadrien Cambazard and Narendra Jussien

From the issue entitled "Special Issue on the International Conference on Integration of AI and OR Techniques in Constraint Programming for Combinatorial Optimization Problems (CP-AI-OR 2005). Guest Editors: Roman Bartak and Michela Milano"

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Abstract

Identifying structures in a given combinatorial problem is often a key step for designing efficient search heuristics or for understanding the inherent complexity of the problem. Several Operations Research approaches apply decomposition or relaxation strategies upon such a structure identified within a given problem. The next step is to design algorithms that adaptively integrate that kind of information during search. We claim in this paper, inspired by previous work on impact-based search strategies for constraint programming, that using an explanation-based constraint solver may lead to collect invaluable information on the intimate dynamically revealed and static structures of a problem instance. Moreover, we discuss how dedicated OR solving strategies (such as Benders decomposition) could be adapted to constraint programming when specific relationships between variables are exhibited.

Keywords  explanations - structures - search heuristics

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