Skip to main content

Robust Solutions in Unstable Optimization Problems

  • Conference paper
Recent Advances in Constraints (CSCLP 2008)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 5655))

Abstract

We consider constraint optimization problems where costs (or preferences) are all given, but some are tagged as possibly unstable, and provided with a range of alternative values. We also allow for some uncontrollable variables, whose value cannot be decided by the agent in charge of taking the decisions, but will be decided by Nature or by some other agent. These two forms of uncertainty are often found in many scheduling and planning scenarios. For such problems, we define several notions of desirable solutions. Such notions take into account not only the optimality of the solutions, but also their degree of robustness (of the optimality status, or of the cost) w.r.t. the uncertainty present in the problem. We provide an algorithm to find solutions accordingly to the considered notions of optimality, and we study the properties of these algorithms. For the uncontrollable variables, we propose to adopt a variant of classical variable elimination, where we act pessimistically rather than optimistically.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Bistarelli, S., Montanari, U., Rossi, F.: Semiring-based constraint solving and optimization. Journal of the ACM 44(2), 201–236 (1997)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  2. Dechter, R.: Constraint processing. Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco (2003)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  3. Dechter, R., Dechter, A.: Belief maintenance in dynamic constraint networks. In: AAAI, pp. 37–42 (1988)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Dechter, R., Mateescu, R.: And/or search spaces for graphical models. AI Journal 171(2-3), 73–106 (2007)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  5. Dechter, R.: Bucket elimination: A unifying framework for reasoning. AI Journal 113(1-2), 41–85 (1999)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  6. Faltings, B., Macho-Gonzalez, S.: Open constraint programming. AI Journal 161(1-2), 181–208 (2005)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  7. Fargier, H., Lang, J., Schiex, T.: Mixed constraint satisfaction: a framework for decision problems under incomplete knowledge. In: Proceedings of the 13th National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 1996), vol. 1, pp. 175–180. AAAI Press, Menlo Park (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Gelain, M., Pini, M.S., Rossi, F., Venable, K.B.: Dealing with incomplete preferences in soft constraint problems. In: Bessière, C. (ed.) CP 2007. LNCS, vol. 4741, pp. 286–300. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  9. Lamma, E., Mello, P., Milano, M., Cucchiara, R., Gavanelli, M., Piccardi, M.: Constraint propagation and value acquisition: Why we should do it interactively. In: IJCAI, pp. 468–477 (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Mateescu, R., Dechter, R.: A comparison of time-space schemes for graphical models. In: Proc. IJCAI 2007, pp. 2346–2352. Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Rossi, F., Van Beek, P., Walsh, T. (eds.): Handbook of Constraint Programming. Elsevier, Amsterdam (2006)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  12. Vidal, T., Fargier, H.: Handling contigency in temporal constraint networks. JETAI 11(1), 23–45 (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Wilson, N., Grimes, D., Freuder, E.C.: A cost-based model and algorithms for interleaving solving and elicitation of csps. In: Bessière, C. (ed.) CP 2007. LNCS, vol. 4741, pp. 666–680. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  14. Yorke-Smith, N., Gervet, C.: Certainty closure: A framework for reliable constraint reasoning with uncertainty. In: Rossi, F. (ed.) CP 2003. LNCS, vol. 2833, pp. 769–783. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Pini, M.S., Rossi, F., Venable, K.B., Dechter, R. (2009). Robust Solutions in Unstable Optimization Problems. In: Oddi, A., Fages, F., Rossi, F. (eds) Recent Advances in Constraints. CSCLP 2008. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 5655. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03251-6_8

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03251-6_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-03250-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-03251-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics