ParSearchOpt 2014 - Workshop on Parallel Methods for Search Optimization (ParSearchOpt 2014)

ParSearchOpt is the fourth workshop in this series. It is a continuation of the CP 2011 "Workshop on Parallel Methods for Constraint Solving", the 2012 Shonan Meeting on "Parallel Methods for Constraint Solving and Combinatorial Optimization", and the CPAIOR 2013 workshop on "Parallel Methods for Combinatorial Search & Optimization".
Workshop topics
In the last decade, with the development of multi-core workstations, the availability of GPGPU-enhanced systems and the access to Grid platforms and supercomputers worldwide, Parallel Programming reached mainstream programming and appeared as a key issue in order to use in an efficient manner the computing power at hand. With the move towards Exascale computing during this decade, this trend will continue to gain importance.
Search methods and combinatorial optimization techniques are not isolated from this phenomenon, as bigger computing power means the ability to attack more complex combinatorial problems. In the last years several experiments have been done to parallelize the execution of search methods such as SAT solving, Constraint Programming and combinatorial optimization methods such as Local Search, Meta-heuristics and Branch & Bound. However these works have mostly been done for shared memory multi-core systems (i.e. with a few cores) or for small PC clusters (a few machines). The next challenge is to devise efficient techniques and algorithms for massively parallel computers with tens or hundreds of thousands of cores in the form of heterogeneous hybrid systems based on both multi-core processors and GPUs.
An important point is also for researchers working on the parallel search and optimization in different fields to share their experience on both theoretical and practical issues. This workshop is thus aimed to be a forum for researchers willing to exchange ideas, theoretical frameworks, design of algorithms and methods, implementation issues, experimental results and to further boost this growing area of research through cross-fertilization.