2011 ACM-ICPC Asia Specific Regional Contest Rules

ACM-ICPC 2011 Asia Specific Regional Contest Rules (Updated August 17,2011)
Sponsored by IBM;

（The 2011 Rules are the combined result by merging 2010 rules, including administrative sub-regions, and judging team options, and new guidelines of 2011.  The new 2011 guidelines are marked in light blue fonts, and the revisions of 2010 marked in brown fonts.）

I. Mission: The ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) is an activity of the ACM that provides college students with an opportunity to demonstrate and sharpen their problem-solving and computing skills. The ACM/ICPC Asia Regional Contests invite Asian students to meet, to establish friendships, and to promote fair competition in programming.
II. Fundamentals of the Rules of ICPC Regional Contests: Rules for the Asia Regional Contests are additions to the rules of ACM ICPC Regional Programming Contests and ICPC Steering Committee Policies/Procedures（Please refer to hyperlink: http://icpc.baylor.edu/)
III. Additional 2010 Asia regional specific rules:

A. Rules on Asia Regional Contest Organization and Administration

1. The Asia Region covers all territories and countries in Asia except Arabic speaking countries in the Middle East.

2. Asia Regional Contests do not divide the region by political territories. A team that advances to the Contest Finals represents the team’s university, not the team’s political boundary.

3. Three Administrative Sub-regions

(a) Each university competing in the Asia Regional Contest is homed in one of three administrative sub-regions based on past participation and geographical location:

      Pacific & Indochina Peninsula: Universities located in the West Pacific and South East Asia including South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, and Hong Kong.

      Continent East: Universities located in Mongolia, North Korea, Mainland China, and Macau.

      Continent West: Universities in Central, South and West Asia including India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iran, Nepal and optionally Central Asian Countries.

(b) Universities in Central Asia countries may compete at Continent West Sub-Regional Sites with the approval of respective home Regional Director. These countries are Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. Teams from Azerbaijan and Armenia are also invited to participate contests in Continent West Sub-Regional Sites with the approval of respective home Regional Director.

(c) Asia will conduct 12-18 Asia Regional Site Contests distributed among these three sub-regions.

4. Asia (Super) Region is organized as one single region -- Asia Region. The three administrative sub-regions are used for World Finals teams selection.  

5. The Asia Regional Contest is administered under the direction of the "Asia Contests Director or Asia Director," who is charged with executing Regional Contests within a set of rules and guidelines that have been approved by the ACM ICPC Executive Director. The Asia Contests Director selects several contest sites in Asia each year to hold the Asia Regional Contests. The Asia Contests Director also appoints one Site Director to head each Contest Site Steering Committee. Site Directors are charged with responsibilities of planning, organizing and executing the Regional Contests according to ACM/ICPC Operational Guidelines. (Note: This represents the Autonomous spirit for all Asia Regional Contest Sites.) The Asia Contests Director (also called Super Regional Director) also appoints Local Area Contest Directors for National, Provincial, and Invitational contests in the Asia Super Region.

6. The memberships of the Asia Contest Council consist of the following members: the current year and previous one year contest site directors, and one representative (the chair, or the chief coordinator) from each Active council or sub-council in Asia. The Asia Contest Council members have the right to vote for the new amendment of Asia Rules under ICPC guidelines.  The Asia Director will have final interpretation and approval for such amendments. All Asia contest sites are autonomous under ICPC guidelines. There may be some sub-councils organized and approved by Asia Director in between contest site committees and Asia Director. The responsibilities of these sub-councils are providing coordination, assistance and guidance to contest site committees, and making recommendation of host candidates of Asia Regional and provincial contests in their respective territories to Asia Director. There will be no supervision or management responsibility authorized to any sub-council over the contest site committee. Any supervision issues of contest site committee should be directed to Asia Director.    

7. The World ICPC contest is a two-three tiered competition (Regional and World Finals) among teams of students representing institutions of higher education. The ACM-ICPC Asia Regional Contest, however, is a one-three tiered competitions (see item 10).

8. The recommended organization of the Asia Regional Site Steering Committee for each site usually consists of the following members:Honorary Chairs (Optional)
Chair (Regional Contest Site Director)
Co-Chairs (Asia Director is, by default, one of the Co-Chairs)
Committee Coordinator and/or Associate Site Director (optional)
Chief Judge and Judging Team
System (Hardware/Software) Chair(s)
Registration Chair and Publicity Chair
Activities/Operation Chair
The Steering Committee for each contest site may implement additional rules and a different committee organization pertaining to the contest site.

9. Each University or college in Asia can organize teams to participate in the Regional contests at any Asia site. However, a contestant can participate, at most, in two (2) Asian contest sites during a contest year. A contestant may not compete in Asia Regional Contests for more than five (5) years. A contestant may not compete in World Finals for more than two (2) years. A team may participate in the Asia Regional Contest, bypassing the School, provincial, national levels, with the approval of the Asia Regional Site Director.

10. Three levels of Asia Programming Contests:
           (a) Asia Regional Contests, including Online First Round Asia Regional.

The ACM/ICPC Asia Regional must be hosted by a faculty member. The faculty member must apply directly to Asia Director. The Contest Site Director must be an associate professor or above, or equivalent in a university. The Student Chapter members or student leaders can be volunteers in helping or working for the contest. A faculty member must write an e-mail application using his/her university e-mail account. Once approved, the university faculty applicant will be placed in a wait list to be a future host for Asia Regional. Some financial support will be provided from ACM-ICPC and IBM for Asia Regionals. The host university must obtain additional funding locally and from registration fee. The host university is also required to host Provincial/National contest before they are qualified for Asia Regional contest host.

Winning teams of Asia Regional is (are) selected to World Finals. Asia Regional must be on-site contest. If the registration for on-site Asia Regional is too large, a first round online Asia Regional may be held before an on-site contest.

Asia Regional Site Directors or their representatives are required to participate the RCD (Regional Contest Directors) meeting scheduled during the World Finals Contest earlier in the same calendar year for training purpose. If a new Site Director or his/her representative does not participate in the World Finals RCD meeting, the Asia Director may cancel its hosting authorization of the same calendar year.

(b) Provincial /Multi-provincial/Invitational/ National Contests.
The application for a Provincial/National contest by a faculty member is preferred. However, a student organization may host the contest by applying directly to Asia Director. But a faculty supervisor must supervise the contest. This faculty supervisor must be responsible for the fairness of the contest and the integrity of the entire contest operation. The faculty supervisor must send Asia Provincial Coordinator an e-mail using his university e-mail account to confirm this before the application can be approved. No financial support will be provided for provincial/invitational /national contests from ACM-ICPC or from IBM. ACM-ICPC certificates will be signed by faculty supervisor and be issued for winners.

Registration of teams must be done in ICPC web site. Team must be of 3 contestants. No team will be selected and advanced to World Finals from National/Provincials/Invitational Contests. The contest date of Provincial/National must be after March 1 and before Oct 31 of each year.
All National, Provincial and Invitational contests (these contests are together called Local Area contests) will be all grouped together in an independent contest site in ACM-ICPC Asia Region titled “Asia Provincial-National contests”

(c) Campus Contest.
Hosting campus contest by a faculty member is preferred. A student organization may host the contest by applying directly to Asia Director too. But a faculty supervisor must supervise the contest. No financial support will be provided for campus contest. ACM-ICPC certificates will NOT be issued for winners. Your may issue your own certificates. Registration must be done outside of ICPC web site.

11. Asia First Round Online Regional and Asia On-Site Regional:

(a) ACM - ICPC Asia Region has grown substantially in recent years. On-Site Regional Contest usually cannot accommodate large numbers of teams. It is also mandatory that each site accommodates all of qualified registrations. To accomplish such goal, it is strongly recommended that each site conducts two cycles of regional contests – Asia Online First Round and Asia On-Site. Each site should conduct Asia First Round Regional Contest in advance to select an appropriate number of teams for the On-Site regional contest. Those teams not selected for the On-Site Regional Contest will be ranked as honorary mentioned teams in the Asia Regional Final Ranking. Each Contest Site Director may set up its own selection formula for teams to be advanced to On-Site Regional Contest (The selection formula used by China sites in the Appendix 2 is a good reference for all). Contest Site Director may also modify contest rules for the First Round Regional Contest within ICPC guidelines, while On-Site Regional Contest must follow Asia Rules and ICPC Regional Contest Rules. It is also recommended that foreign teams may be exempted from First Round Regional Contest.
(b) If the total registration is low and all teams can be accommodated by On-Site Regional Contest, the First Round Regional Contest may be skipped.

(c) Multi-provincial Online Internet Contest and National Contest hosted by Asia Regional host university are considered as Asia First Round Regional Contest if these contests are used to select teams for Asia On-Site Regional Contest. These Contests will be under the Asia Regional First Round Contest and not be grouped together with “Asia Provincial/National Contests”.

B. Rules on Eligibility of Team Member, the Team, and Registration

1. Rule of Eligibility Decision Tree

(a) All contestants are urged to study the rule of the Eligibility Decision Tree in ACM - ICPC Regional Rules for the eligibility of all contestants throughout the world. A team consists of exactly three contestants. (http://icpc.baylor.edu/)
(b) Remarks on eligibility rule:

Technically, it is possible that a team may consist of three first-year graduate students if each of them meets the rule qualification in a four-year program or university. Students from two years colleges are also qualified to participate Asia Regional Contest.

(c) Participation of two sites for the same year in Asia Regional Contests is considered as one-time competition under the eligibility rule.

2. A student can represent only one university.

3. A student may compete in at most two Asia Site Contests, home or not-home administrative sub-region.
4. The coach of a team must be a faculty or a designated staff member of the team’s university. A coach from outside of the team’s university will disqualify the team.
5. Because of the problem of ‘no-shows’ by teams who register and confirm participation but do not actually participate in the contest, it was decided that: If such team do not cancel their registration at least ten (10) days before the contest date, and do not show up in the contest, this team's contestants will be disqualified for all other contest sites in the same contest year.
6. Registration:

The university name of a team must be already in the ICPC registration database before a team can register. The team coach should request the Contest Site Director to ask ICPC manager to enter the Team’s university name in the database if needed. This registration prerequisite applies to both Asia Regional and Local Area Contests.

7. Registration Fee:
The Steering Committee of each contest site determines the registration fee of each team. In previous years, the regional registration fee ranged from US$0 to US$200 around the world.

8. Verification of the Asia On-Site Regional Contest:

The coach of each team is required to verify and complete the personal information of all contestants before the contest of the Asia On-Site Regional (or Final Round Regional) contest. Without such verification, the team will not be accepted for Asia On-Site or Asia Final Round contest and therefore be disqualified.

9. Team Members Substitution in World Finals and in Regional Contest:

The team members for the team advanced to World Finals must be identical to the members participated in the Asia On-Site Regional Contest. No substitution or reserves will be allowed in the World Finals. Any alteration on the team will disqualify the team to the World Finals. However, Asia Regional Contest may allow reserve team member registration and may allow the substitution of the team member in the regional contest provided that the team composition change is entered in the ICPC registration web site before the Regional Contest. Any change to the team after that regional contest is not allowed.

C. Rules on Conduct, Scoring of the Contest, and Team # Assignments.
1. Electronic dictionaries are not allowed. Paper dictionaries, however, may be allowed. Contest Site Director may alter this rule. The World Finals rule on reference materials may be different from this rule.
2. No personally owned diskettes or calculators are allowed.
3. Questions or requests written in a language other than English may be made from contestants to designated translators and then to judges. Judges will respond to contestants directly in English.
4. Notification of accepted runs may be suspended at the appropriate time (normally one hour before the end) to keep the final results confidential for the purpose of suspension. Notification of rejected runs will continue until the end of the contest.
5. It is recommended that the team numbers should be assigned randomly before the contest. Team numbers should be used in PC^2 or any judging system. University names should not be used in the PC^2 on any judging system and should not be revealed to the judging team during the contest. The Contest Site Director is responsible for posting the matching list of team numbers and university names in the audience area within 60 minutes after the contest starts. Contest Site Directors may contact Asia Contests Director to find out an efficient way of random assignment of team numbers.

D. Rules on Regional Contest Rankings, Award and World Finals Slots

1. In an effort to encourage the participation of female students in Asia Regional Contests, the Asia Regional Contests Director will award each female contestant a cash award of $200 or more if (i) the team has three female contestants; and (ii) the team is ranked in the top 10 of actual ranking and is the best female team in that contest site.
2. It is strongly recommended that each Contest Site Director may rank the teams approximately in the top half. The rest of the teams will be acknowledged in alphabetical order, but not ranked. The final ranking of the top half should combine the rankings of universities as well as teams. Final standings will first be ranked from the top team of each university/college. Other teams from the same college will then be ranked as ties with that of the next ranked team of another university. Each Contest Site Director may select the first 6 or more universities to award special prizes or may apply some good criteria to award teams.

3. Teams (host teams) from host universities of Asia Regional sites do not have preference for world final slots. If the host team’s score is very high and is very close to the WF qualifying line, and if there is slot available, Asia Director may at his discretion provides preferences to these host teams. (The stricter policy to host teams from Mainland China is governed by resolution of China Council in appendix 4.)

4. WF slot allocation and Administrative sub-regions

      (a) Each university fielding a team that wins a Site Contest will advance the team to the World Finals if the Contest Site is in the team’s home sub-region. In the event that a university qualifies for more than one Site Contest in the home sub-region, the university must decide only one team to represent the university to the World Finals. In any situation, a university can send only one team to the WF.

(b) WF Performance Slots are allocated to the Asia Region from ICPC headquarter based on previous year performance, and WF Participation Slots are allocated to the Asia Region based on the number of students and universities competing in Asia Site Contests for the current year. These slots are determined by ICPC headquarter including a few WF bonus slots.

      (c) Students and universities are counted only in their home sub-region for performance. Students are counted only if their team solves at least one problem at a site within their home sub-region. Teams are counted only if they are “Accepted” in the contest site registration.

      (d) The WF slot used by a team should be from slots allocated to the team’s home sub-region. If a team wins a contest outside of its home sub-region, the team will not use any slot from that non-home sub-region. That team may use WF slot from its home sub-region or from an approved  contest site if the approval was secured in advance from either the home sub-region, home contest site or the approved contest site respectively. For example, All China sites will provide slots to teams from other sub-regions if they are within the qualified lines. Please pay attention to such announcements from all other contest sites.

      (e) Simply put it, no WF slots will be used for team from another sub-region. If you attend contest in your home sub-region, you have chance to get WF slot. If you attend contest outside of your home sub-region, you do not have chance to get WF slot unless arrangement has been made in advance with your home sub-region/home contest site, or with the approved contest site which you plan to participate.

5. WF slots calculations

The number of WF slots allocated to the entire Asia Region is determined by ICPC headquarter. In turn the Asia site slots will be assigned to each administrative sub-region and to each contest site according to the following criteria and formula:

(a)    Major Factor: From participation score of each contest site:

      · Number of distinct schools participated (about 80%);          

                         · Number of distinct teams beyond the 1st team (about 15%);

                         · Number of Provincial, Invitational, and National (non-Asia host) contest teams

                          that have participated on ICPC web site ( around 5%).

(The above numbers may be reduced to 85% for China sites, 92% for India due to the fact that about 30% of teams cross registered in two sites in China and 15% expected in India.)

The final participation score for each site will be proportionally recalculated (normalized) based on the registration scores of the entire Asia Region.

(b) For the growth of ICPC Asia (Small factor):

Geographical balance – may apply only when teams are very close to qualified lines (not automatic). Host teams, present and recent past – may apply only when teams are close to qualified lines (not automatic.)

(c) By Asia Director’s discretion for the growth of Asia Region. (This factor was rarely applied. It may be applied only in special case. For example, if a contest site has more than 70 teams participated including at least 30 foreign teams and if the team from the host university earned a rank of 15 or better.)

(d) The number of the allocated slots used in each contest site may employ the following old formula up to its participation score:

                                    

For non-repeated domestic teams = 1.0 ;                  

For others = x:y (0.3:0.5; 0.3:0.6; 0.4:0.7 as situation demands)

where foreign teams in the same home sub-region = x , repeated-university domestic teams = y;  foreign teams from other sub-region allowed to use slots in the site = x; and

for foreign teams from other home sub-region not allowed to use slot in the site = 0.

E. Rules on Organization of Judges/Problem Setters Committee

1. The Chief Judge and Site Director of each contest site are responsible for organizing the judging team. No member of the judging/problem setter team should be the coach of any contest team. It is highly recommended that the judging team consist of faculty from other universities and/or industry professionals. The use of an international judging team is also encouraged, if possible. The size of the judging team is recommended to be equal to the number of contest problems in the contest.
2. The Chief Judge and the Contest Site Director make a final decision in selecting the contest problems, in modifying the submitted contest programs, or in adding additional contest problems.

3. The Chief Judge is encouraged to take care that there is one problem in the set that is fairly easy, and at least one or two problems are of medium difficulty since the WF slots distribution formula will probably count only the teams that have solved at least one problem.
4. All contest problems in Asia Sites must be written in English only. No multiple languages are allowed in creating contest problems effective from May 1, 2009.

5. Contest Site Director must report the names and their affiliated universities of all problem setters and all judges within one week after each Asia On-Site Regional Contest to Asia Director. Asia Director will publish the information on the Asia blog.

6. Judging Team and Options:

Asia Site Directors at his/her own choice are required to adopt one of the following two options for the organization of judges and problem setters committee. If it is difficult for some sites to adopt any option, care of fairness should be taken care of when organizing the judges/problem setters committee. Reasons for no-adoption requires approval from Asia Director.

Option (a): The problem setters/judges of the host site should be a committee of at least 5 members.   If any problem setter/judge committee member expects his/her university team may advance to WF, that member and that university may not contribute more than one contest problem.

Option (b): No host team can be advanced to WF from the host university site.   But the host team may get some preference from other sites under its home sub-region. The preference was given to Asia Director to decide. Asia Director will use it to move up that host team by 1 or more ranks in other sites when deciding the WF slots; Further restriction:  A team cannot be advanced to WF, if the problem setter/judge is from the same university of that team.

Adoption of (a): Amritapuri , Dhaka, Daejeon, Hsinchu, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, and Phuket

Adoption of (b): Beijing, Chengdu, Dalian, Fuzhou, Shanghai

No Adoption with approved reasons: Kanpur, Tehran, Tokyo.

F. Rules on Contest Environment

1. The contest language software will be made available by Contest Site Director to the contestants in advance of the Regional Contests. More specific details on the contest environment, including RAM and hardware configurations, software versions, and printers will be announced by the Contest Site Director and may be different from those used in World Finals.
2. Contest judging software PC Square (e.g., PC^2) will be provided from ACM-ICPC website http://www.ecs.csus.edu/pc2/pc2code.html Other judging software may be used. But the advance announcement by the Site Director is required. IV. Other Administrative Items

A.      Submitting documents.
At the end of the contest, each Regional Site Director is required to submit the following two items to ICPC web site: (1) Contest Ranking: University names, problems solved, and time consumed. (2) Contest Problems. (3) Each Regional Site Director is to submit the following items to Asia Director if requested: At least ten photos containing contestant activities, and five photos containing officer's activities

B.       Guidelines of Travel Stipend for financially poor teams
1. In order to encourage Asian teams of financially poor universities to participate ICPC Asia contests, the Asia Contests Director prepares limited budget each year to tokenly support limited number of teams traveling to Asia contest sites from financially poor universities. All women team may also apply for such travel support. These supports are only for teams attending Asia on-site Regionals contests.
2. Teams from financially poor universities may apply for such travel stipends before the Regional Contests. Forms may be available from Site Directors or Asia Contests Director. The travel stipends support checks may be given at the contest site or after the contests are over
and written in US Bank checks only. The checks will be issued to the team coaches according to the data provided during registration.
3. This Travel Stipend Policy is a guideline. Asia Contests Director reserves the right to modify the guideline or not to issue any travel supports.

C.      Funding, Industrial Sponsorships and Acknowledgement.

1. ACM/ICPC has received major sponsorship from IBM since July 1997 for World Finals events, ICPC organization and regional contest activities, ICPC web site and the development of PC^2. IBM also provides additional funds available to support part of the regional contest activities for each site.
2. The Asia Regional Contests are self-supporting for each contest site. Each Regional Contest Site Director is responsible for obtaining financial support from local industries, government entities, and universities in addition to IBM support.
3. All regional Contests must award ACM-ICPC/IBM certificates, use ICPC/IBM badges, and provide conforming ICPC/IBM T-shirts. All Regional Contests must comply with ICPC/IBM sponsoring agreements regardless of whether ICPC/IBM sponsored funding, or local IBM funding is provided.

V. Appendices
A. Appendix 1: Each regional contest site director must sign the acknowledgement in item 2 each year for confirming IBM Sponsorship:

1. Letter To Site Directors from Asia Director:

 Beginning of Letter

Dear Asia Directors: Every year we have new hosts, new directors, and new coordinators for the Asia Regional contests. Most of the new volunteers attended the recent RCD symposium at the World Finals. Yet, the knowledgeable volunteers may not be the persons in charge of contest operations. These scenarios had caused some violations of ACM-ICPC guidelines. Some of these violations are listed as follows:

(a) IBM sponsorship was not clearly displayed. The IBM logo was not
clearly printed on T-shirts, on bags, or on the contest materials including the regional contest web site.
(b) IBM was not being acknowledged as the primary sponsor. As you all know, ACM-ICPC has contract with IBM as the sole sponsor of the World Finals, and primary sponsor of the worldwide regional contests. You may obtain additional sponsors for Asia Regional contest. Even if you have not obtained support from the local IBM office, IBM must be acknowledged as the primary sponsor for your Asia Regional Contests.

In order to prevent such violation from happening, I am asking you to
sign on the attached “Acknowledgement” form of this file before I authorize release of the IBM funding to you. Many of you have followed the guidelines very well for all these years. Please bear with me to sign the “Acknowledgement” for fairness. Those of you have followed guidelines well and you are the one in charge of contest operation, one signature (yours) is enough. Those of you are new contest sites or have not followed guidelines, I need two signatures from you. One can be coordinator in charge of operation, and one must be either Dean, Vice President, or Director who is supervising the contest expenses. After you sign the “Acknowledgement”, please e-mail me the image. I do not need the original. Or you can fax to my electronic fax number in the US.
Thanks,
C J Hwang, ACM-ICPC Asia Director

2. Guidelines of Sponsorship Interpretation:  http://hi.baidu.com/cjhwang/blog/item/98f546ed19f5bf5578f055df.html

3. *******Beginning of Acknowledgement

       I (we) understand that ACM-ICPC has contract with IBM that IBM is the World Sponsor and is the primary (first) sponsor for ICPC Asia Regional contests including my (our) ACM-ICPC Asia Regional Contest Site. We will put the “ACM-ICPC Asia Regional sponsored by IBM logo” on all of our contest material including the web site and banners. We acknowledge that we will put IBM as the primary sponsor for our contest. The IBM and ACM-ICPC logo will be clearly displayed. It will be clearly printed on T-shirts, on bags, and on contest materials as the primary sponsor. In cases where only sponsor logos are displayed, the IBM logo will be displayed first, and be of equal size of other sponsor logos.
We acknowledge that we will use the IBM fund to purchase T-shirts and bags(optional) for the contestants, and prizes for the winners. We also acknowledge that IBM is to be recognized for the prizes purchased using IBM funds.

Contest Site: ______________________
Signature 1 (Coordinator in charge of operation, T-shirts and banner logo decoration): _____________
Date: _________________

       Signature 2 (Dean, Vice President, or Director who is supervising the contest expenses.): ____________
Date: __________________
******* End of Acknowledgement

B. Appendix 2:   Formula recommended in selecting teams from Online First

                    Round Contest to On-site Contest for ACM-ICPC China Sites:

                 http://hi.baidu.com/cjhwang/blog/item/d95b0e19b627ae4b42a9ad65.html

C. Appendix 3: Additional Stricter Special Rules for China sites:

         http://hi.baidu.com/cjhwang/blog/item/d95b0e19b627ae4b42a9ad65.html