We present a technique to further narrow the gap between recipe-based and domain theory-based plan recognition through decompositional planning, a planning model that combines hierarchical reasoning as used in hierarchical task networks, and least-commitment refinement reasoning as used in partial-order causal link planning. We represent recipes through decompositional planning operators and use them to compile observed agent actions into an incomplete decompositional plan that represents them; this plan can then be input to a decompositional planner to identify the recognized plan-space plan. Our model thus synthesizes the heretofore disparate recipe-based and domain theory-based plan recognition variants into a unified knowledge representation and reasoning model.

In 1960s and 70s Britain, immigrant ethnic minority children were dispersed across schools in the hope that it would help them integrate. The process saw children - largely of south Asian and African or Caribbean descent - being "bussed" out of their local areas to go to school. Eleven Local Area Authorities (LEAs) decided there should be no more than 30% of immigrants at any one school. It meant once that quota was reached, children were taken elsewhere. The process, which became known as "bussing", is now at the heart of a project in Bradford where Shabina Aslam is trying to trace children who, like herself, were sent to school away from where they lived.

For most people, the sound of wedding bells evokes happiness. Whether you're remembering the time you tied the knot with your significant other or finally jumping the broom, weddings are always a joyful celebration. But if you've already gone through the process, or are going through it now, you know just how untrue that emotion is when you're in the planning process. While I haven't had the pleasure of marrying my fiancé yet, I have had the pleasure of being a Maid of Honor quite a few times and am currently in the planning phases with my sister for her wedding – so I speak from experience when I say it's definitely not all sunshine and rainbows. Working with a budget, getting guest lists, picking venues and vendors is no easy task.

Robert Martin will show slides from his recent journey to Lebanon as well as a short visit to Jerusalem. Learn where and why avalanches occur, how to manage risk and simple ways to avoid avalanche hazards. Whitney expert and mountain guide Kurt Wedberg will discuss gear, trip planning and popular routes to the summit. Please email announcements at least three weeks before the event to travel@latimes.com.

The paper describes a simple heuristic approach to solving large-scale constraint satisfaction and scheduling problems. In this approach one starts with an inconsistent assignment for a set of variables and searches through the space of possible repairs. The search can be guided by a value-ordering heuristic, the min-conflicts heuristic, that attempts to minimize the number of constraint violations after each step. The heuristic can be used with a variety of different search strategies. We demonstrate empirically that on the n-queens problem, a technique based on this approach performs orders of magnitude better than traditional backtracking techniques.

The Space Telescope Science Institute developed the Spike planning and scheduling software in support of the Hubble Space Telescope as a general toolkit for planning and scheduling under Contract NAS5-26555 with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It is our desire that this toolkit be used to promote scientific research through the effective and efficient use of ground- and space-based astronomical observatories. By providing the Spike system to other facilities, we are developing a community of users who use and enhance the Spike system. The STScI is a clearinghouse for users, bug fixes, modifications, etc. Spike is a general framework for planning and scheduling.

The journal is in three parts: a) full length scholarly articles; b) research in progress and reflections; c) Student Forum for young researchers to communicate their ongoing research to the wider academic community, mentored by the Journal Advisory Board; Book Reviews and News; Curmudgeon Corner for the opinionated.

Ever since its beta launch two years ago, x.ai's "Amy Ingram" virtual assistant has been scheduling meetings through Google Calendar. Now, the bot -- along with her gender opposite, Andrew Ingram -- can work with Office 365 and Outlook.com, "We knew from the start that enabling Amy and Andrew to work across the Outlook.com and Office 365 calendars would be one of the first things we did once we had trained the machine to schedule meetings nearly autonomously," said Dennis Mortensen, x.ai's founder and CEO. The wider reach means x.ai can now target its beta service at a potential 90 million U.S. knowledge workers, the company reckons, who schedule roughly 10 billion meetings a year. The technology is due out of beta this fall.

The International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS) is the premier forum for researchers and practitioners in planning and scheduling - two technologies that are critical to manufacturing, space systems, software engineering, robotics, education, and entertainment. The ICAPS conference resulted from merging two bi-annual conferences, namely the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Planning and Scheduling (AIPS) and the European Conference on Planning (ECP). The primary objectives of ICAPS are to further the field of automated planning and scheduling through the organization of technical meetings, including the annual ICAPS conference, through the organization of summer schools, tutorials and training activities at various events, through the organization of planning and scheduling competitions, benchmarking and other means of advancing and assessing the state of the art in the field, by promoting the involvement of young scientists in the field through scholarships and other means, and by promoting and disseminating publications, planning and scheduling systems, domains, simulators, software tools and technical material. The ICAPS 2016 conference was held from June 12-17, 2016 in London, UK. Conference chairs are Andrew Coles and Daniele Magazzeni.

Subcontracted by British Aerospace, AIAI were involved in part of a larger project for EUMETSAT, the European agency responsible for meteorological satellites. Our role was helping in the specification and prototyping of the scheduling component. After an initial feasibility study it was decided to prototype the system using PECOS, an object-oriented constraint programming tool. This approach allowed rapid development while retaining the flexibility to make changes as the problem specification evolved. A typical problem that the EUMETSAT scheduler has to deal with consists of some 1300 activities over a 14 day period. Activities to be scheduled include regular fixed activities (e.g.