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Soft Constraints: Complexity and Multimorphisms

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Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming – CP 2003 (CP 2003)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 2833))

Abstract

Over the past few years there has been considerable progress in methods to systematically analyse the complexity of classical (crisp) constraint satisfaction problems with specified constraint types. One very powerful theoretical development in this area links the complexity of a set of classical constraints to a corresponding set of algebraic operations, known as polymorphisms.

In this paper we begin a systematic investigation of the complexity of combinatorial optimisation problems expressed using various forms of soft constraints. We extend the notion of a polymorphism by introducing a more general algebraic operation, which we call a multimorphism. We show that a number of maximal tractable sets of soft constraints, both established and novel, can be characterised by the presence of particular multimorphisms.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

    David A. Cohen

  2. IRIT, University of Toulouse III, France

    Martin Cooper

  3. Computing Laboratory, University of Oxford, UK

    Peter Jeavons

  4. Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick, UK

    Andrei Krokhin

Authors
  1. David A. Cohen
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  2. Martin Cooper
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  3. Peter Jeavons
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  4. Andrei Krokhin
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Matematica Pura ed Applicata, Università di Padova, Via Trieste 63, 35121, Padova, Italy

    Francesca Rossi

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Cohen, D.A., Cooper, M., Jeavons, P., Krokhin, A. (2003). Soft Constraints: Complexity and Multimorphisms. In: Rossi, F. (eds) Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming – CP 2003. CP 2003. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2833. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-45193-8_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-45193-8_17

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-20202-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45193-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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