. A constraint satisfaction problem involves finding values for variables subject to constraints on which combinations of values are allowed. In some cases it may be impossible or impractical to solve these problems completely. We may seek to partially solve the problem, in particular by satisfying a maximal number of constraints. Standard backtracking and local consistency techniques for solving constraint satisfaction problems can be adapted to cope with, and take advantage of, the differences between partial and complete constraint satisfaction. Extensive experimentation on maximal satisfaction problems illuminates the relative and absolute effectiveness of these methods. A general model of partial constraint satisfaction is proposed. 1 Introduction Constraint satisfaction involves finding values for problem variables subject to constraints on acceptable combinations of values. Constraint satisfaction has wide application in artificial intelligence, in areas ranging from temporal r...

Constraint networks are used more and more to solve combinatorial problems in real-life applications. Much activity is concentrated on improving the efficiency of finding a solution in a constraint network (the constraint satisfaction problem, CSP). Particularly, arc consistency caught many researchers' attention, involving the discovery of a large number of algorithms. And, for the last two years, it has been shown that maintaining arc consistency during search is a worthwhile approach. However, results on CSPs and on arc consistency are almost always limited to binary constraint networks. The CSP is no longer an academic problem, and it is time to deal with non-binary CSPs, as widely required in real world constraint solvers. This paper proposes a general schema to implement arc consistency on constraints of any arity when no specific algorithm is known. A first instantiation of the schema is presented here, which deals with constraints given by a predicate, by the set of forbidden c...

Propagating constraints is the main feature of any constraint solver. This is thus of prime importance to manage constraint propagation as efficiently as possible, justifying the use of the best algorithms. But the ease of integration is also one of the concerns when implementing an algorithm in a constraint solver. This paper focuses on AC-3, which is the simplest arc consistency algorithm known so far. We propose two refinements that preserve as much as possible the ease of integration into a solver (no heavy data structure to be maintained during search), while giving some noticeable improvements in efficiency. One of the proposed refinements is analytically compared to AC-6, showing interesting properties, such as optimality of its worst-case time complexity. 1

. The constraint satisfaction community has developed a number of heuristics for variable ordering during backtracking search. For example, in conjunction with algorithms which check forwards, the Fail-First (FF) and Brelaz (Bz) heuristics are cheap to evaluate and are generally considered to be very effective. Recent work to understand phase transitions in NP-complete problem classes enables us to compare such heuristics over a large range of different kinds of problems. Furthermore, we are now able to start to understand the reasons for the success, and therefore also the failure, of heuristics, and to introduce new heuristics which achieve the successes and avoid the failures. In this paper, we present a comparison of the Bz and FF heuristics in forward checking algorithms applied to randomlygenerated binary CSP's. We also introduce new and very general heuristics and present an extensive study of these. These new heuristics are usually as good as or better than Bz and FF, and we id...

Solving non-binary constraint satisfaction problems, a crucial challenge for the next years, can be tackled in two different ways: translating the non-binary problem into an equivalent binary one, or extending binary search algorithms to solve directly the original problem. The latter option raises some issues when we want to extend denitions written for the binary case. This paper focuses on the well-known forward checking algorithm, and shows that it can be generalized to several non-binary versions, all tting its binary denition. The classical version, proposed by Van Hentenryck, is only one of these generalizations.

4, and Toby Walsh 5

Enforcing local consistencies is one of the main features of constraint reasoning. Which level of local consistency should be used when searching for solutions in a constraint network is a basic question. Arc consistency and partial forms of arc consistency have been widely studied, and have been known for sometime through the forward checking or the MAC search algorithms. Until recently, stronger forms of local consistency remained limited to those that change the structure of the constraint graph, and thus, could not be used in practice, especially on large networks. This paper focuses on the local consistencies that are stronger than arc consistency, without changing the structure of the network, i.e., only removing inconsistent values from the domains. In the last five years, several such local consistencies have been proposed by us or by others. We make an overview of all of them, and highlight some relations between them. We compare them both theoretically and experimentally, considering their pruning efficiency and the time required to enforce them.

Constraint satisfaction problems are widely used in artificial intelligence. They involve finding values for problem variables subject to constraints that specify which combinations of values are consistent. Knowledge about properties of the constraints can permit inferences that reduce the cost of consistency checking. In particular, such inferences can be used to reduce the number of constraint checks required in establishing arc consistency, a fundamental constraint-based reasoning technique. A general AC-Inference schema is presented and various forms of inference discussed. A specific algorithm, AC-7, is presented, which takes advantage of a simple property common to all binary constraints to eliminate constraint checks that other arc consistency algorithms perform. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated analytically, and experimentally on real-world problems.

Most of complete search algorithms over Constraint Satisfaction Problems (csp) are based on Standard Backtracking. Two main

Constraint satisfaction problems are widely used in articial intelligence. They involve nding values for problem variables subject to constraints that specify which combinations of values are consistent. Knowledge about properties of the constraints can permit inferences that reduce the cost of consistency checking. In particular, such inferences can be used to reduce the number of constraint checks required in establishing arc consistency, a fundamental constraint-based reasoning technique. A general AC-Inference algorithm schema is presented and various forms of inference discussed. A specific algorithm, AC-7, is presented, which takes advantage of a simple property common to all binary constraints to eliminate constraint checks that other arc consistency algorithms perform. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated analytically, and experimentally.