[SMT-LIB] 5th Answer Set Programming Competition 2014 - CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS

[Francesco Calimeri]

[apologies for any cross-posting]

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              5th Answer Set Programming Competition 2014

                     Call for Participant Systems

     Aalto University, University of Calabria, University of Genova

                         Spring/Summer 2014

                https://www.mat.unical.it/aspcomp2014

                      aspcomp2014 at mat.unical.it

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 Special edition of the ASP competition series -system track- part of the
 Olympic Games of the Vienna Summer of Logic 2014

 == Important Dates ==

 * March 1st, 2014: Participant registration opens

 * March 31st, 2014: The competition starts

 * July 2014: Awards are presented at FLoC (22nd) and at ICLP (19th-22nd)

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Answer Set Programming (ASP) is a well-established paradigm of declarative
programming with close relationship to other declarative modeling
paradigms and languages, such as SAT Modulo Theories, Constraint Handling
Rules, FO(.), PDDL, CASC, and many others.

The ASP Competition is usually a biannual event for evaluating declarative
knowledge representation systems on hard and demanding AI problems. Past
ASP Competition editions were held at the University of Potsdam (Germany)
in 2007, the University of Leuven (Belgium) in 2009, the University of
Calabria (Italy) in 2011 and the Vienna University of Technology (Austria)
in 2013.

As anticipated during the 2013 presentation, in order to join the Vienna
Summer of Logic, which is expected to be the largest event in the history
of logic, ASP competition departs, this year, from the "usual" timeline,
and the 5th ASP Competition will be run in the first half of 2014, jointly
at Aalto University (Finland), University of Calabria (Italy) and
University of Genova (Italy). The event is affiliated with the 30th
International Conference on Logic Programming (ICLP). Another reason for
having an event just one year after the 4th ASP Competition is the fact
that the new ASP-Core-2 language standard has been introduced in 2013,
but, unfortunately, it was not fully supported by most participant to the
2013 edition, and/or submitters did not succeed at supporting the new
language features in a completely satisfactory way, due to limited time
resources. Thus, an "early" event can be an opportunity to push the usage
of the new standard, and draw a more complete picture about the approaches
that can efficiently solve problems with various features.


== Call for Participant Systems ==

Participants of the Answer Set Programming Competition will compete on a
selected collection of benchmark problems, taken from a variety of
benchmark problem domains as well as real-world applications.  These
include, but are not limited to:

 * Classic and application-oriented graph problems
 * Scheduling, Timetabling, and other resource allocation problems
 * Sequential and Temporal Planning
 * Combinatorial Optimization problems
 * Deductive Database tasks on large data-sets
 * Puzzles and Combinatorics
 * Ontology reasoning
 * Automated Theorem Proving and Model Checking
 * Constraint Programming problems
 * Other AI problems

The competition consists of a System Track (as called in past
competitions), which compares dedicated solvers on ASP benchmarks.
Participants compete with solving systems for the ASP-Core language.
Some more details are given in the following:

- The benchmark domains are taken from past editions.

- Systems of the 2013 edition will be considered. (Developers will have
  the chance of submitting up-to-date versions of their solvers.)

- Submissions of new solvers are encouraged.

The competition will not be limited to sub-tracks based on
"complexity" of problems (as in past events), but rather will take
into consideration language features: sub-tracks will range from a
basic language, to (by adding features such as aggregates and choice
rules) to the ASP-Core-2 language.  The aim is to clearly indicate what
(combinations of) techniques work for a particular (set of)
feature(s), and also widening the participation to teams that cannot
(yet) support the full standard.  The final sub-track design will depend
on the availability of benchmarks as well as systems.  Participants are
encouraged to inform us about any limitations or requirements of their
systems so that we can take them into account in the sub-track design.

We welcome the submission of parallel and portfolio systems making use of
multiple cores or multiple algorithms for solving the given instances.
These solvers will have dedicated tracks, assuming a sufficient number of
submissions in each track.  Of course, we also welcome the submission of
any kind of solvers, e.g., SAT solvers, SMT solvers, CP systems, FOL
theorem provers, Description Logics reasoners, Planning reasoners, or any
other that can be adapted/applied to the evaluation of logic programs
encoded in ASP-Core-2.

== Important Dates ==

 * March 1st, 2014: Participant registration opens

 * March 31st, 2014: The competition starts

 * July 2014: Awards are presented at FLoC (22nd) and at ICLP (19th-22nd)


For further information and submission instructions please visit the
competition web site

            https://www.mat.unical.it/aspcomp2014

or contact us by email: aspcomp2014 at mat.unical.it