The Comet Hybrid Optimization System (More information: .PDF)

Ivan Dotu. Brown University, RI (USA). Email: idotu@cs.brown.edu
Pascal Van Hentenryck. Brown University, RI (USA). Email: pvh@cs.brown.edu
Miguel A. Patricio. Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain) Email: mpatrici@inf.uc3m.es

This tutorial gives an in-depth overview of Comet, a hybrid optimization platform featuring constraint programming, constraint-based local search, and mathematical programming. Comet is a full object-oriented programming with sophisticated modeling and search abstractions. The tutorial reviews each of these paradigms and illustrate them in Comet on applications in sequencing, scheduling, routing, resource allocation, and rostering. It will both cover how to model with Comet and the underlying technology.

Multiagent systems and electronic institutions (More information: .PDF)

Carles Sierra. IIIA-CSIC Campus. UAB Email: sierra@iiia.csic.es

This subject introduces students to the concept of agent organisations and electronic institutions. Virtual Institutions are software systems composed of autonomous agents, that interact according to predefined conventions on language and protocol and that guarantee that certain norms of behaviour are enforced. This view permits agents to behave autonomously and take their decisions freely up to the limits imposed by the set of norms of the institution. An important consequence of embedding agents in a virtual institution is that the predefined conventions on language and protocol greatly simplify the design of the agents. A Virtual Institution is in a sense a natural extension of the social concept of institutions as regulatory systems that shape human interactions. Social concepts like roles, norms, and institutions are gaining momentum in software design as a way to cope with the increasing complexity of software systems. Students will gain knowledge on the basic notions of agent computing and multiagent systems design and on the social and organisation-based models used to build such systems. The most relevant approaches to autonomous agent organisation will be reviewed and students will receive an state-of-the-art view of one of the currently most important developments in programming techniques.

Metaheurísticas (Invited Tutorial)

Francisco Herrera. University of Granada

Human-Robot Interaction (Invited Tutorial)

Rachid Alami. LAAS. Toulose