++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Deadline Extension: February 10th, 2006 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ LAST CALL FOR PAPERS & DEMONSTRATIONS PATAT 2006 The 6th International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling http://patat06.muni.cz Wednesday, 30th August - Friday, 1st September 2006 organized by the Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University Hotel International Brno Czech Republic This conference is the sixth in a series of conferences that serve as a forum for an international community of researchers, practitioners and vendors on all aspects of computer-aided timetable generation. For more information about the series of conferences see http://www.asap.cs.nott.ac.uk/patat/patat-index.shtml The themes of the conference include (but are not limited to): o Educational Timetabling o Transport Timetabling o Employee Timetabling and Rostering o Sports Timetabling o Complexity Issues o Distributed Timetabling Systems o Experiences o Implementations o Commercial Packages o Interactive vs Batch Timetabling o Timetable Updating o Data Models and Data Formats o Relationship with Other Scheduling Problems o Timetabling Research Areas, including: Constraint-Based Methods Evolutionary Computation Artificial Intelligence Graph Colouring Expert Systems Heuristic Search Knowledge Based Systems Operational Research Simulated Annealing Local Search Mathematical Programming Soft Computing Tabu Search Meta-Heuristics Hyper-Heuristics Very Large Neighborhood Search Ant Colony Methods Hybrid Methods Multi-Criteria Decision Making Fuzzy Reasoning Combinatorial Optimisation The Featured Keynote Speakers for this conference are: Barry McCollum (Queen's University and eventMAP Ltd., UK) Michel Gendreau (Centre de Recheche sur les Transports, Montréal, Canada) James Orlin (MIT, USA) Andrea Schaerf (Universita di Udine, Italy) Submissions: Authors are invited to submit presentations in one of three categories: (a) Full Papers Authors should submit papers describing significant, original and unpublished work. Such papers are expected to be approximately 10-20 pages in length but this guideline is not strict. These papers will be fully refereed by the programme committee and the accepted ones will appear in a conference proceedings (ISBN 80-210-3726-1). As in previous years, a selection of the papers will appear in a post conference volume published in the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science series. The second round of refereeing for this volume will take place shortly after the conference. (b) Abstracts Authors can submit abstracts of up to 1000 words. Abstracts will be fully refereed. The accepted ones will appear in the conference proceedings. Abstracts will not go forward to the second round of refereeing for the post-conference volume. However, authors of accepted abstracts will have the opportunity to write a full paper based on their abstract and submit it for the selected papers volume. People who wish to give a talk (e.g. practitioners, researchers with preliminary or incomplete papers) but do not want to submit a full paper can submit under this category. (c) System Demonstrations: Authors can submit an abstract, describing the major properties and contribution of implemented and/or commercial timetabling systems. Abstracts should not exceed 1000 words (3-4 pages). Authors of accepted submissions in this category are expected to provide a demonstration of their software during the conference. Demonstration submissions will be evaluated on the basis of their innovation, relevance and scientific contribution. The abstracts will be published in the conference proceedings but they will not be forwarded to the second round of refereeing for the post-conference volume. However, authors of accepted system demonstration abstracts are welcome to submit a full paper to the post-conference volume if they so wish. Submission Instructions: Authors are kindly requested to submit their papers/abstracts/demonstrations (written in English) through our online submission system available from http://patat06.muni.cz . The length of the paper should fulfill the requirements given for each category above. All papers must be submitted as a PDF file and authors are requested to use the Springer llncs style (downloadable from http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html#Proceedings): * the LaTeX version is preferred, * the Microsoft Word version is also acceptable, * no other format can be accepted. Authors using Microsoft Word must use the LNCS template for Microsoft Word. All fonts must be embedded in the sent PDF files. Outline fonts (e.g. Type 1) are strongly preferred to bitmap fonts. Please, check fonts used by Adobe Reader (downloadable from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readermain.html) at File->Document Properties->Fonts. Authors who have problems with the online system should contact one of the co-chairs of the Programme Committee for instructions. Please note that all participants will need to register for the conference and pay the registration fee in order for accepted submissions to appear in the conference proceedings. Preliminary announcement about the format of camera-ready papers: For all accepted papers, we will require PDF file together with all source files. Only documents written in LaTeX or Microsoft Word can be sent as a camera-ready paper. In the case of the LaTeX format usage, please, prepare your figures/pictures either in EPS (encapsulated PostScript) or in EPDF (encapsulated PDF). This is necessary because all vector graphics must remain in a resolution independent format. Deadlines: Paper/abstract/system submissions February 10th 2006 Notification April 28th 2006 (at the latest) Programme Committee: Edmund Burke (co-chair) University of Nottingham, UK Hana Rudova (co-chair) Masaryk University, Czech Republic Hesham Alfares King Fahd University, Saudi Arabia Viktor Bardadym Noveon Inc., Belgium James Bean University of Michigan, USA Peter Brucker University of Osnabrück, Germany Michael Carter University of Toronto, Canada Peter Cowling University of Bradford, UK Patrick De Causmaecker KaHo St.-Lieven, Gent, Belgium Kathryn Dowsland Gower Optimal Algorithms Ltd. UK Andreas Drexl University of Kiel, Germany Moshe Dror University of Arizona, USA Wilhelm Erben FH Konstanz - University of Applied Sciences, Germany Jacques A. Ferland University of Montreal, Canada Michel Gendreau Centre de Recherche sur les Transports, Montréal, Canada Alain Hertz Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada Jeffrey Kingston University of Sydney, Australia Raymond Kwan University of Leeds, UK Gilbert Laporte Université de Montréal, Canada Vahid Lotfi University of Michigan-Flint, USA Amnon Meisels Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel Thiruthlall Nepal Durban Institute of Technology, South Africa Jim Newall eventMAP Ltd, UK Ben Paechter Napier University, Edinburgh, UK Gilles Pesant Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada Sanja Petrovic University of Nottingham, UK Jean-Yves Potvin Université de Montréal, Canada Rong Qu University of Nottingham, UK Andrea Schaerf Universita di Udine, Italy Jan Schreuder University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands Jonathan Thompson Cardiff University, UK Paolo Toth University of Bologna, Italy Michael Trick Carnegie Mellon University, USA Greet Vanden Berghe KaHo St.-Lieven, Belgium Stefan Voss University of Hamburg, Germany Dominique de Werra EPF-Lausanne, Switzerland George White University of Ottawa, Canada Michael Wright Lancaster University, UK Jay Yellen Rollins College, USA About the Venue: Brno is the Czech Republic's second largest city. It lies in the middle of South Moravia and is a thriving centre of commerce and culture. The city has a rich history and a wide variety of architectural styles dating back almost a thousand years. Lying right at the heart of Europe, Brno is well placed to attract visitors from around the world. The city is a major trade fair centre, a grand prix motorcycle venue, and is the home of six universities and a number of research institutes. The conference will be held at the Hotel International (which is a member of the Best Western Premier network of hotels). The hotel is located in a pleasant area of the city between the Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul and the 13th century Spilberk fortress. Parks surrounding the fortress and cathedral provide a very convenient and quiet walking area. Adjacent areas of the old city offer excellent opportunities for shopping and a wide range of restaurants, pubs, and bars. The conference hotel is reasonably priced and includes excellent conference facilities. Conference organizers can also provide details on how to book accommodations in a nearby student hostel. It is located within 5-10 minutes walking distance from the conference hotel. Brno has a growing international airport. There are regular train and bus connections to large international airports at Prague and Vienna (Austria). Detailed travel instructions can be found at the conference web site. You can find more information about Brno at http://www.brno.cz/ and more about the hotel at http://www.hotelinternational.cz/ For more information, contact info@patat06.muni.cz Conference Organisers are: Edmund Burke Automated Scheduling, Optimisation and Planning Research Group School of Computer Science and Information Technology University of Nottingham University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD United Kingdom e-mail: ekb@cs.nott.ac.uk and Hana Rudova Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University Botanicka 68a Brno 602 00 Czech Republic e-mail: hanka@fi.muni.cz PATAT 2006 WEB SITE Full updated information is always available from http://patat06.muni.cz