SoCS'12 is the Fifth installment of the The International Symposium on Combinatorial Search. Heuristic search and other forms of combinatorial search are currently very active areas of research in Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Planning and other areas of Computer Science. The International Symposium on Combinatorial Search (SoCS) is meant to bring researchers in such areas together to exchange their ideas and cross-fertilize the field.

Topics of Interest
SoCS is targeting researchers and submissions in all fields that use combinatorial search, including artificial intelligence, planning, robotics, constraint programming, operations research and bioinformatics. Overall, the main focus of SoCS is on the design of novel heuristic search methods, analysis of existing heuristic search methods and their applications. More specifically, topics of interest include but are not limited to the following:

Analysis of search algorithms
Automated synthesis of lower bounds
Bounding and pruning techniques
Combinatorial puzzles
Continuous problem solving
External-memory and parallel search
Incremental and active learning in search
Meta-reasoning and search
Methodology and critiques of current practice
Model-based search
Random vs. systematic search strategy selection
Pattern databases
Portfolios of search algorithms
Real-time search
Search focus in goal-directed problem solving
Search space discretization for continuous state-space problems
Self-configuring and self-tuning algorithms
Symmetry handling
Time, memory, and solution quality trade-offs

Special Scope This Year: Path Planning Competition

Previous SoCS events have provided special focus to Automated Planning and Robotics. This year, SoCS-2012 will include a special session on path planning and will be hosting the 2012 Grid-Based Path Planning Competition (GPPC) organized by Nathan Sturtevant. A call for participation in the competition can be found here. Each competition entry will have a lightly-reviewed 1-page description in the SoCS proceedings. We invite all researchers who use grid-based search to participate in the competition and/or submit their work to SoCS-2012. We are also interested in position papers covering aspects of grid-based search.

Submission Information

We encourage researchers and attendees of SoCS to submit papers to the symposium. Submissions should be in AAAI format and up to 8 pages long (see AAAI guidelines). Submissions should report on substantial, original and new research.

We also encourage submissions of position papers which are intended for the discussion of ideas and concepts related to search. Examples could include thoughtful critiques of the field, historical perspectives and analysis, technical discussions of various implementation techniques, methodological contributions, insightful reports on new and demanding applications, and papers related to the challenge area of this year conference. Position papers can be up to 8 pages in length.

Submissions will be carefully peer-reviewed by at least three reviewers.

SoCS papers should be submitted by following this link.

Multiple Submissions

In order to foster the exchange of ideas at SoCS, we encourage authors to submit papers describing new research which has been accepted to other venues. Authors should clearly indicate where a paper has been or will be published both in the paper (preferably in the running title) and should also send an e-mail to the conference chairs. Such papers will undergo a light reviewing process in order to ensure that they are of interest to the SoCS community. These papers will be given two pages in the proceedings and will be presented at the conference either as a poster or an oral talk.

The SOCS Proceedings

SoCS has a formal archival proceedings. However, the authors of accepted papers (who submitted up to eight-page papers) can choose one of the two following publication options:

* A full paper. Up to eight pages will be allocated in the proceedings for such papers. Every full paper will be allocated a slot for an oral presentation. Papers accepted as full papers in the formal SoCS proceedings cannot be published elsewhere.

* A short paper. Up to two pages will be allocated in the proceedings. They will be presented as posters at the symposium.

Papers published in other venues should be clearly labeled (preferably in the running title) and the conference chairs should be notified so as to ensure proper reviewing. Two pages will be allocated in the proceedings for such papers.

Position papers should be clearly labeled (preferably in the running title) and the conference chairs should be notified so as to ensure proper reviewing. Position papers will be allocated up to 8 pages in the proceedings.

Travel Support for Students

We hope to be able to help students with funding for their trip to SoCS, as we have in all previous years. More information on this support however will be posted later.

Dates and Location

SoCS will be co-located with AAAI 2012 and will take place in Niagara Falls near Toronto (Canada) and Buffalo (New York). The symposium will start with a banquet on Thursday July 19 and will finish in the late afternoon or evening on July 21. Transportation to the AAAI conference will be provided.
SoCS web site: http://www.socs12.org

Important Dates

Submission deadline: April 15, 2012, 11:59PM UTC-12
Notification: May 15, 2012
Camera-ready version due: June 1, 2012
Early registration deadline: June 4, 2012
Late registration deadline: June 15, 2012
SoCS Conference: July 19-21, 2012

Conference Chairs:

Daniel Borrajo, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
Ariel Felner, Ben-Gurion University, Israel
Richard Korf, University of California Los Angeles, USA
Maxim Likhachev, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Carlos Linares Lopez, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
Wheeler Ruml, University of New Hampshire, USA
Nathan Sturtevant, University of Denver, USA

Local Arrangements:
Jonathan Schaeffer, University of Alberta, Canada