{"type":"ScholarlyArticle","title":"A Reactive Strategy for High-Level Consistency During Search","authors":[{"name":"Robert J. Woodward","slug":"robert-j-woodward","given":"Robert J.","family":"Woodward","affiliation":"Constraint Systems Laboratory , University of Nebraska-Lincoln , USA; CNRS , University of Montpellier , France"},{"name":"Berthe Y. Choueiry","slug":"berthe-y-choueiry","given":"Berthe Y.","family":"Choueiry","affiliation":"Constraint Systems Laboratory , University of Nebraska-Lincoln , USA"},{"name":"Christian Bessiere","slug":"christian-bessiere","given":"Christian","family":"Bessiere","affiliation":"CNRS , University of Montpellier , France"}],"abstract":"Constraint propagation during backtrack search significantly improves the performance of solving a Constraint Satisfaction Problem.  While Generalized Arc Consistency (GAC) is the most popular level of propagation, higher-level consistencies (HLC) are needed to solve difficult instances.  Deciding to enforce an HLC instead of GAC remains the topic of active research.  We propose a simple and effective strategy that reactively triggers an HLC by monitoring search performance: When search starts thrashing, we trigger an HLC, then conservatively revert to GAC.  We detect thrashing by counting the number of backtracks at each level of the search tree and  geometrically adjust the frequency of triggering an HLC based on its filtering effectiveness.  We validate our approach on benchmark problems using Partition-One Arc-Consistency as an HLC.  However, our strategy is generic and can be used with other higher-level consistency algorithms.","doi":"10.24963/ijcai.2018/193","url":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2018/193","pdf":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2018/0193.pdf","markdown":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2018/193.md","bibtex":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2018/bibtex/193","volume":{"slug":"2018","title":"Proceedings of the Twenty-Seventh International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence","short_title":"IJCAI 2018","url":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2018/","year":2018,"location":"Stockholm","dates":"13-19 July 2018","editors":"Jérôme Lang","isbn":"978-0-9992411-2-7","publisher":"International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence Organization","doi_prefix":"10.24963/ijcai.2018"},"section":"Constraints and SAT","track":"Main track","number":193,"pages":{"first":1390,"last":1397},"keywords":["Constraints and SAT: Constraint Satisfaction","Constraints and SAT: Constraints: Solvers and Tools"],"videos":[],"references":[{"position":1,"raw":"[Balafrej et al., 2013] Amine Balafrej, Christian Bessiere, Remi Coletta, and El-Houssine Bouyakhf. 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