AIEDAM Special Issue, November 2006, Vol.20 No.4
Constraints and Design
Edited by: Barry O'Sullivan
Constraint processing has emerged as an extremely expressive and
powerful paradigm in which to model, solve and reason about many
complex problems.
Over the past several decades advances in both the fundamental aspects
of constraint processing and practical applications of constraints
have contributed to making it one of the most promising of
Artificial Intelligence technologies.
In product development and design, constraints arise in many forms.
The functional description of an artifact defines a set of constraints,
as does the physical realisation of that functionality.
The production processes that will be used to manufacture the artifact
can constrain the materials and dimensions that the designer can select.
Preferences can be represented as constraints so that optimisation
techniques can be employed, as well as forming a basis for negotiation.
Of course, in many situations constraints emerge during design.
Therefore, techniques for supporting the acquisition and discovery of
constraints are important.
Finally, designers often wish to have explained to them why some design
option is not available to them, or how to overcome blind-alleys.
Techniques from the fields of diagnosis, as well as approaches to
visualisation and explanation are critical.
While the study of constraints has been maturing over the past several
decades, there are many opportunities to hybridise constraint processing
with other technologies from the fields of both Artificial Intelligence
and Cognitive Science to develop sophisticated tools for supporting design.
It is hoped that papers in this special issue will demonstrate
synergies between constraints and techniques from fields such as
machine learning, information retrieval, psychology, engineering,
human-computer interaction, visualistion and intelligent user-interfaces.
However, the objective of this special issue is to collect papers
that primarily exploit developments in constraint processing in the domain
of engineering design.
Topics that may be addressed in papers for consideration for inclusion in this
special issue include, but are not limited to:
- constraint-based approaches to supporting the major phases of
design: conceptual/embodiment/detailed design;
- constraints for integrated product development, concurrent
engineering, Design For X, etc.;
- constraints for configuration;
- constraints and synthesis;
- constraints for design critiquing, design evaluation and design checking;
- fundamental advances in constraints that are relevant to design, such as
constraint acquisition, explanation generation, preference handling,
negotiation, etc.;
- hybrid systems for design involving a significant constraint-based element;
- realworld applications of constraints for design.
All submissions will be anonymously reviewed by at least two expert reviewers,
and a selection for publication made on the basis of these reviews.
Information about the format and style required for
AIEDAM papers can be found at www.cs.wpi.edu/~aiedam/Instructions/.
However, note that all submissions for the special issue go to the
Guest Editor, and not to the Editor in Chief.
Important dates:
Intent to submit (with Title & Abstract) As soon as possible
Submission deadline for full papers: 3 October 2005 ***
Reviews due 16 December 2005
Notification and reviews to authors: 9 January 2006
Revised version submission deadline: 10 March 2006
Final notification to authors: 8 May 2006 ***changed
Final submission deadline: 2 June 2006
Guest editor:
Please direct all enquiries and submissions to the guest editor:
Barry O'Sullivan
Cork Constraint Computation Centre
Department of Computer Science
University College Cork
College Road
Cork
Ireland
Email: b.osullivan [at] cs.ucc.ie