Competition format, Rules, Scoring and I/O

Competition Categories

The Competition consists of two categories, each one featuring four tracks. In particular, the categories depend on the computational resources allowed:

• One processor allowed (SP)
• Multiple processors allowed (MP)

Of course parallel systems can participate in tracks of MP category, and similarly non-parallel systems can participate in tracks of SP category. The categorization deals with the allowed processors to a system for each run.

Competition Tracks

The ASP Competition Series consisted usually of (sub)-Tracks conceived on the basis of the "complexity" of problems; in the light of the work spent by the community on language standardization, this edition continues the work initiated in 2014. 

According to the availability of benchmarks, to submitted systems, and to participants feedback, both categories of the competition are hence structured into four tracks:

• Track #	Track Name	Track features
  1 (SP/MP)	Basic	Basic Decision. Encodings: normal LP + simple arithmetic and comparison operators
  2 (SP/MP)	Advanced	Advanced Decision. Encodings: full language, excepting optimization statements and non-HCF disjunction
  3 (SP/MP)	Optimization	Optimization. Encodings: full language with optimization statements, excepting non-HCF disjunction
  4 (SP/MP)	Unrestricted	Unrestricted. Encodings: full language

We also plan to introduce this year another track, to analysis ASP systems along a different dimension, i.e., a  Marathon track. The idea, borrowed from past QBF Competitions, is to test the best solvers on a limited set of instances which proved to be difficult in the competition by granting much more time.

Rules and Scoring

Rules and scoring are described in the second part of Section 2 of the LPNMR report .

Input/Output Format

Input and output formats do not change w.r.t. last editions. Please find further info via the official ASPCOMP 2013 website: ASPCOMP input specs   ASPCOMP output specs .