Hector Geffner

I am  a researcher at the Institucion Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA)
and a professor at the  Departamento de Tecnologia, Universitat Pompeu Fabra 
where I head the Artificial Intelligence Group

My mailing address is:

Hector Geffner
DTIC, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
C/Roc Boronat 138
E-08018 Barcelona, Spain

+34 93 542 2563 (voice)
+34 93 542 2451  (fax)

firstname.lastname@upf.edu

Index

• Teaching
• Software
• Opportunities
  
• Recent Publications
• Brief Biography

Teaching

• Slides

• CPT  Temporal POCL Planner based on Constraint Programming -- Distinguished at  2004 International Planning Competition
• HSP2.0  Heuristic Search Planning -- Distinguished at  2000 International Planning Competition
• TP*  Optimal Heuristic Regression Planner with Time and  Resources
• GPT  Planner than handles uncertainty and sensing -- Distinguished at 2004 Probabilistic Planning Competition
• T0  Planner that translates conformant problems into classical problems -- Winner of the  2006 IPC Conformant Track
  

Opportunities

Recent Papers, Reports, Slides

• Automatic Derivation of Memoryless Policies and Finite-State Controllers Using Classical Planners. B. Bonet, H. Palacios, H. Geffner. Proc. ICAPS-09. Thessaloniki. Greece. 9/2009.
• Inference and Decomposition in Planning Using Causal Consistent Chains. N. Lipovetzky and H. Geffner. Proc. ICAPS-09. Thessaloniki. Greece. 9/2009.
• Plan Recognition as Planning. M. Ramirez and H. Geffner. Proc. IJCAI-09. Pasadena, USA. 7/09.
• A Translation-based Approach to Contingent Planning. A. Albore, H. Palacios, H. Geffner. Proc. IJCAI-09. Pasadena, USA. 7/09.
• Trees of Shortest Paths vs. Steiner Trees: Understanding and Improving Delete Relaxation Heuristics. E. Keyder and H. Geffner. Proc. IJCAI-09. Pasadena, USA. 7/09.
• Solving POMDPs: RTDP-Bel vs. Point-based Algorithms. B. Bonet and H. Geffner. Proc. IJCAI-09. Pasadena, USA. 7/09.
• Compiling Uncertainty Away in Conformant Planning Problems with Bounded Width. H. Palacios and H. Geffner Journal of AI Research (JAIR). To appear. 2009.
• Heuristics for Planning with Penalties and Rewards Formulated in Logic and Computed Through Circuits, B. Bonet and H. Geffner. Artificial Intelligence, 2008 (172) 1579-1604
• Heuristics for Planning with Action Costs Revisited. E. Keyder and H. Geffner. Proc. ECAI-08, Patras, Greece.7/2008.
• Unifying the Causal Graph and Additive Heuristics, M. Helmert and H. Geffner, Proc. 18Int. Conf. On Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS-08), Sydney, 9/2008
• AI at 50: From Programs to Solvers. Models and Techniques for General Intelligence (Slides). H. Geffner. University of Edinburgh, School of Informatics. Distinguished Lecture Series. 12/2007
• From Conformant into Classical Planning: Efficient Translations that may be Complete Too. H. Palacios and H. Geffner. Proc. 17th Int. Conf. on Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS-07), Providence, 9/2007
• Structural Relaxations by Variable Renaming and their Compilation for  Solving MinCostSAT. M. Ramirez and H. Geffner. Proc.  13th Int. Conf. on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP-07), Providence, 9/2007.
• The Causal Graph Heuristic is the Additive Heuristic plus Context. H. Geffner. Proc. 2007 ICAPS Workshop on Heuristics for Domain-Independent Planning. Providence, 9/2007
  
• Fast and Informed Action Selection for Planning with Sensing. A. Albore, H. Palacios, H. Geffner. Proc.  12th Conf.  Spanish AI (CAEPIA-07),  Springer,  Salamanca, 11/07.
  
• Set-Additive and TSP Heuristics for Planning with Action Costs and Soft Goals. E. Keyder and H. Geffner. Proc. 2007 ICAPS Workshop on Heuristics for Domain-Independent Planning. Providence, 9/2007
  
• Logical Encodings with No Time Indexes for Defining and Computing Admissible Heuristics for Planning. M. Ramirez, B. Bonet, H. Geffner. Proc. 2007 ICAPS Workshop on Heuristics for Domain-Independent Planning. Providence, 9/2007
• Heuristics for Planning with Action Costs. E. Keyder and H. Geffner. Proc.  12th Conf.  Spanish AI (CAEPIA-07),  Springer,  Salamanca, 11/07.
• Compiling Uncertainty Away: Solving Conformant Planning Problems Using a Classical Planner (Sometimes). H. Palacios and H. Geffner. Proc.  21st Nat. Conf. on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-06), Boston, 7/2006
  
• Heuristics for Planning with Penalties and Rewards using Compiled Knowledge. B. Bonet and H. Geffner. Proc. 10th Int. Conf.  on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR-06), Lake District, UK, 6/2006
• Learning Depth-First Search: A Unified Approach to Heuristic Search in Deterministic and Non-Deterministic Settings, and its application to MDPs. B. Bonet and H. Geffner. Proc. 16th Int. Conf. on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS-06), Lake District, UK, 6/2006
• Branching and Pruning: An Optimal Temporal POCL Planner based on Constraint Programming (Extended Version). V. Vidal and H. Geffner. Artificial Intelligence,  Vol 170(3), pp  298-335,  March 2006.
  
• mGPT: a Probabilistic Planner based on Heuristic Search. B. Bonet and H. Geffner. Journal of AI Research, Vol 24, pp 933-944, 2005.
  
• Search and Inference in AI Planning. H. Geffner. Proc. of the 11th Int. Conf. on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP-05). Sitges, Spain, Oct 2005. Invited talk (Slides)
• Mapping Conformant Planning into SAT through Compilation and Projection. H. Palacios and H. Geffner.  Lecture Notes in Computer Sciences, vol 4177.  Proc. CAEPIA-05  (originally in  Spanish)
  
• Learning in Depth-First Search: A Unified Approach to Heuristic Search in Deterministic, Non-Deterministic, Probabilistic, and Game Tree Settings. B. Bonet and H. Geffner. 2005.
• Solving Simple Planning Problems with More Inference and No Search, V. Vidal and H. Geffner. Proc. of the 11th Int. Conf. on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP-05). Sitges, Spain, Oct 2005.
• Selecting Actions and Making Decisions: Lessons from AI Planning. H. Geffner. Proc. IJCAI-05 Workshop on Modeling Natural Action Selection (MNAS-05). Edinburgh,  July 2005. (Slides)
  
• An Algorithm Better than AO*? B. Bonet and H. Geffner. Proc. 20th National Conf. on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-05), Pittsburgh, July 2005, pp 1343-1348. (Slides)
  
• New Admissible Heuristics for Domain-Independent Planning. P. Haslum, B. Bonet and H. Geffner. Proc. 20th National Conf. on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-05), Pittsburgh, July 2005. pp 1163-1168.
• Pruning Conformant Plans by Counting Models on Compiled d-DNNF Representations.H. Palacios, B. Bonet, A. Darwiche, H. Geffner. Proc. of the 15th Int. Conf. on Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS-05). Monterey, CA. AAAI Press, pp 141-150.  
• Learning Generalized Policies from Planning Examples Using Concept Languages (Extended and Revised Version).  M. Martin and H. Geffner, Applied Intelligence 20 (1) , 9-19, 2004
  
• Branching and Pruning: An Optimal Temporal POCL Planner based on Constraint Programming. V. Vidal and H. Geffner.  Proc. 19th National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-04), San Jose, CA, July 2004
• Planning Graphs and Knowledge Compilation. H. Geffner. Proc.  9th Int. Conf. on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR-04). Vancouver, June 2004  (Slides)
• PDDL 2.1: Representation vs. Computation.H. Geffner (a commentary on PDDL 2.1 and the 3rd Int. Planning Competition). J. of AI Research, vol 20, 2003.
  
• Faster Heuristic Search Algorithms for Planning with Uncertainty and Full Feedback. B. Bonet and H. Geffner. Int. Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-2003), Acapulco, Mexico, August 2003
  
• Labeled RTDP: Improving the Convergence of Real Time Dynamic Programming. B. Bonet and H. Geffner. 13th International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS-2003), Trento, Italy, June 2003
  
• Branching Matters: Alternative Branching in Graphplan. J. Hoffmann and H. Geffner. 13th International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS-2003), Trento, Italy, June 2003.
• Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence Planning. H. Geffner Proceedings Eighteenth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-2002), 2002, AAAI/MIT Press, pp 1013-1023. Invited talk (Slides)
• Planning as Branch and Bound: A Constraint Programming Implementation;  H. Palacios and H. Geffner. XVIII Latin-American Conference on Informatics (CLEI-2002), Montevideo, Uruguay, 11/2002
• Heuristic Search Planning: Progress and Challenges , Slides Invited Talk at European Conf. on Planning (ECP-2001), 9/2001, Toledo, Spain (4 slides per page)
• Planning as Branch and Bound and its Relation to Constraint-based Approaches;  H. Geffner, 4/2001
• GPT: A Tool for Planning with Uncertainty and Partial Information;  B. Bonet and H. Geffner;  IJCAI-2001 Workshop on Planning with Incomplete Info, 8/2001
• Planning and Control in Artificial Intelligence: a Unifying Perspective.  B. Bonet and H. Geffner. Applied Intelligence, Vol 14(3), 2001, pp  237--252.
• Heuristic Planning with Time and Resources;  P. Haslum and H. Geffner,  Proceedings ECP-2001  4/2001, Springer
• HSP2:  Decription HSP Planner  in AIPS-2000 Competition, B. Bonet and H. Geffner, AI Magazine Vol 22 (3), 2001, pp 77--80
• Planning as Heuristic Search  B. Bonet and H. Geffner.  Artificial Intelligence, Special issue on Heuristic Search. Vol 129 (1-2) 2001
• Planning with Incomplete Information as Heuristic Search in Belief Space B. Bonet and H. Geffner. Proc. 5th Int. Conf. on AI Planning and Scheduling (AIPS 2000), Colorado, 4/2000, AAAI Press, pp 52-61. (Slides)
• Admissible Heuristics for Optimal Planning P. Haslum H. Geffner. Proc. 5th Int. Conf. on AI Planning and Scheduling (AIPS 2000), Colorado, 4/2000, AAAI Press pp 140-149. (Slides)
• Learning generalized policies in planning using concept languages M. Martin and H. Geffner. Proc. 7th Int. Conf. on Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR 2000). Colorado, 4/2000, Morgan Kaufmann. (Slides)
• HSP: Heuristic Search Planner B. Bonet and H. Geffner. Entry at AIPS-98 Planning Competition, AI Magazine Vol 21(2), 2000
• Functional Strips: a more flexible language for planning and problem solving H. Geffner. In Logic-Based Artificial Intelligence, Jack Minker (Ed.), Kluwer, 2000. Earlier version presented at Logic-based AI Workshop, Washington D.C., June 1999.
• Planning as Heuristic Search: New Results B. Bonet and H. Geffner. Proc. European Conference on Planning (ECP-99), Durham, UK, Springer. (Slides)
• Modelling Intelligent Behaviour: the Markov Decision Approach H. Geffner. Invited talk Iberamia 98, Lect. Notes in AI 1484, H. Coelho (Ed), pp 1--12, Springer, 1998
• Classical, Probabilistic and Contingent Planning: Three Models, One Algorithm H. Geffner. Proceedings AIPS'98 Workshop on Planning as Combinatorial Search. (Slides)
• High-Level Planning and Control with Incomplete Information Using POMDPs H. Geffner and B. Bonet. Proceedings Fall AAAI Symposium on Cognitive Robotics, 1998. (Slides)
• Solving Large POMDPs by Real Time Dynamic Programming H. Geffner and B. Bonet. Working Notes Fall AAAI Symposium on POMDPS. 1998.
• Modeling action, knowledge and control H. Geffner and J. Wainer. Proceedings European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI-98), Brighton, UK. 8/98.
• Learning Sorting and Decision Trees with POMDPs B. Bonet and H. Geffner. Proceedings International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML-98), Madison, WI, 7/98. (Slides)
• Causality, Constraints and the Side Effects of Actions H. Geffner. Proceedings IJCAI-97, Naogoya, Japan, 8/97.
• A fast and robust action selection mechanism for planning B. Bonet, G. Loerincs, H. Geffner. Proceedings AAAI-97. Provide, RI, 7/97. (Slides)
• An Analysis of control programs using models of action. J. Ramirez and H. Geffner. AAAI-97 Workshop on Theories of Action, Planning and Control. 1997 (Slides)
• Tutorial Slides: Modeling with Defaults, Causal and Temporal Reasoning (74 pages) H. Geffner. AAAI-97, IJCAI-97,FAPR-96,SBIA-95. 1997. (Slides compressed 8 into 1 ,References)

Biographical Information