Constraint-based reasoning is a paradigm for formulating knowledge as a set of constraints without specifying the method by which these constraints are to be satisfied. A variety of techniques have been developed for finding partial or complete solutions for different kinds of constraint expressions. These have been successfully applied to diverse tasks such as design, diagnosis, truth maintenance, scheduling, spatiotemporal reasoning, logic programming and user interface. Constraint networks are graphical representations used to guide strategies for solving constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs).

Bucket elimination is an algorithmic framework that generalizes dynamic programming to accommodate many problem-solving and reasoning tasks. Algorithms such as directional-resolution for propositional satisfiability, adaptive-consistency for constraint satisfaction, Fourier and Gaussian elimination for solving linear equalities and inequalities, and dynamic programming for combinatorial optimization, can all be accommodated within the bucket elimination framework. Many probabilistic inference tasks can likewise be expressed as bucket-elimination algorithms. These include: belief updating, finding the most probable explanation, and expected utility maximization. These algorithms share the same performance guarantees; all are time and space exponential in the inducedwidth of the problem's interaction graph. While elimination strategies have extensive demands on memory, a contrasting class of algorithms called "conditioning search" require only linear space. Algorithms in this class split a problem into subproblems by instantiating a subset of variables, called a conditioning set, or a cutset. Typical examples of conditioning search algorithms are: backtracking (in constraint satisfaction), and branch and bound (for combinatorial optimization). The paper presents the bucket-elimination framework as a unifying theme across probabilistic and deterministic reasoning tasks and show how conditioning search can be augmented to systematically trade space for time.

The paper presents an algorithm called directional resolution, a variation on the original Davis-Putnam algorithm, and analyzes its worst-case behavior as a function of the topological structure of propositional theories. The concepts of induced width and diversity are shown to play a key role in bounding the complexity of the procedure. The importance of our analysis lies in highlighting structure-based tractable classes of satisfiability and in providing theoretical guarantees on the time and space complexity of the algorithm. Contrary to previous assessments, we show that for many theories directional resolution could be an effective procedure. Our empirical tests confirm theoretical prediction, showing that on problems with a special structure, namely k-tree embeddings (e.g. chains, (k,m)-trees), directional resolution greatly outperforms one of the most effective satisfiability algorithms known to date, the popular Davis-Putnam procedure. Furthermore, combining a bounded...

4, and Toby Walsh 5

This paper characterizes connectionist-type architectures that allow a distributed solution for classes of constraint-satisfaction problems. The main issue addressed is whether there exists a uniform model of computation (where all nodes are indistinguishable) that guarantees convergence to a solution from every initial state of the system, whenever such a solution exists. We show that even for relatively simple constraint networks, such as rings, there is no general solution using a completely uniform, asynchronous, model. However, some restricted topologies like trees can accommodate the uniform, asynchronous, model and a protocol demonstrating this fact is presented. An almost-uniform, asynchronous, networkconsistency protocol is also presented. We show that the algorithms are guaranteed to be selfstabilizing, which makes them suitable for dynamic or error-prone environments. 1 Introduction Consider the distributed version of the graph coloring problem, where ea...

Local consistency has proven to be an important concept in the theory and practice of constraint networks. In this paper, we present a new definition of local consistency, called relational consistency. The new definition is relation-based, in contrast with the previous definition of local consistency, which we characterize as variable-based. We show the conceptual power of the new definition by showing how it unifies known elimination operators such as resolution in theorem proving, joins in relational databases, and variable elimination for solving linear inequalities. Algorithms for enforcing various levels of relational consistency are introduced and analyzed. We also show the usefulness of the new definition in characterizing relationships between properties of constraint networks and the level of local consistency needed to ensure global consistency.

In this paper we propose a family of algorithms combining tree-clustering with conditioning that trade space for time. Such algorithms are useful for reasoning in probabilistic and deterministic networks as well as for accomplishing optimization tasks. By analyzing the problem structure it will be possible to select from a spectrum the algorithm that best meets a given time-space specification. 1 INTRODUCTION Topology-based algorithms for constraint satisfaction and probabilistic reasoning fall into two distinct classes. One class is centered on tree-clustering, the other on cycle-cutset decomposition. Tree-clustering involves transforming the original problem into a treelike problem that can then be solved by a specialized tree-solving algorithm [ Mackworth and Freuder, 1985; Pearl, 1986 ] . The tree-clustering algorithm is time and space exponential in the induced width (also called tree width) of the problem's graph. The transforming algorithm identifies subproblems that together ...

Constraint networks have beenshown to be useful in formulating such diverse problems as scene labeling, natural language parsing, and temporal reasoning. Given a constraint network, we often wish to (i) nd a solution that satis es the constraints and (ii) nd the corresponding minimal network where the constraints are as explicit as possible. Both tasks are known to be NP-complete in the general case. Task (i) is usually solved using a backtracking algorithm, and task (ii) is often solved only approximately by enforcing various levels of local consistency. In this paper, we identify a property of binary constraints called row convexity and show its usefulness in deciding when a form of local consistency called path consistency is sufficient to guarantee that a network is both minimal and globally consistent. Globally consistent networks have the property that a solution can be found without backtracking. We show that one can test for the row convexity property e ciently and we show, by examining

This paper studies a version of the job shop scheduling problem in which some operations have to be scheduled within non-relaxable time windows (i.e. earliest/latest possible start time windows). This problem is a wellknown NP-complete Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP). A popular method for solving these types of problems consists in using depth-first backtrack search. Our earlier work focused on developing efficient consistency enforcing techniques and efficient variable /value ordering heuristics to improve the efficiency of this procedure. In this paper, we combine these techniques with new lookback schemes that help the search procedure recover from so-called deadend search states (i.e. partial solutions that cannot be completed without violating some constraints). More specifically, we successively describe three intelligent backtracking schemes: Dynamic Consistency Enforcement dynamically enforces higher levels of consistency in selected critical subproblems, Learning From Fa...

The performance of backtracking algorithms for solving finite-domain constraint satisfaction problems can be improved substantially by look-back and look-ahead methods. Look-back techniques extract information by analyzing failing search paths that are terminated by dead-ends. Look-ahead techniques use constraint propagation algorithms to avoid such dead-ends altogether. This survey describes a number of look-back variants including backjumping and constraint recording which recognize and avoid some unnecessary explorations of the search space. The last portion of the paper gives an overview of look-ahead methods such as forward checking and dynamic variable ordering, and discusses their combination with backjumping.