This is the only legally valid version for the 1999 Mid Central European Regional Programming Contest. It will be given to the participants upon registration.

Team Composition

• A member of the faculty of the institution sponsoring the team, called the "Faculty Advisor", must certify the eligibility of the contestants.
• The faculty advisor must serve as or designate the team "Coach" who will be the team representative and point of contact before (e-mail, fax or material mail) and during (direct conversation) the Mid Central European Regional Contest activities.
• A team is not eligible to compete in the Mid Central European Regional Contest until the Contest Secretary has received all materials from the faculty advisor that certify the eligibility.
• All teams who want to participate have to check-in at the registration desk. A team cannot compete in the Mid Central European Regional Contest if the participation fee is not paid by the start of the actual contest. The location of the registration desk and the office hours will be announced to the participants in advance.
• The participation fee will not been refunded in case the team can not or does not want to participate after registration.
• Contestant eligibility is determined during the academic term ending closest to the 21st November 1999 . Graduation and degree conferrals occur after a term has been completed, not during that term. Any questions of eligibility should be posed to the Regional Contest Director. His decision is final.
• Each team consists of up to three "contestants".
• Each contestant must be a student enrolled in a degree program at the sponsoring institution with at least a half-time load. This rule is not to be construed as disqualifying co-op students on regular co-op activity away from the institution who are otherwise in good academic standing.
• At least two contestants of each team must be undergraduate students, neither of whom may hold baccalaureate degrees.
• No contestant may have completed two years of post-baccalaureate studies or hold a graduate degree.
• Students who have competed in two Contest Finals are not eligible to compete in a Regional Contest.
• Students and educational institutions may only participate in one Regional Contest per year.
• A certain educational institution can send up to three teams to the Mid Central European Regional Contest. Team places (two per institution) are assigned on a first-come first-served basis. If all requests for first and second teams are satisfied, third teams may be accepted on a first-come first-served basis. The Regional Contest Secretary is responsible for accepting or rejecting teams. Only the Regional Contest Director may overturn his decisions.
• Contestants are not required to be student members of the ACM in order to be eligible to compete in a regional contest. Note however that all Contest Finals contestants are required to be student members of ACM by February 1, 2000.
• Each team that competes in the Mid Central European Regional Contest may make one substitution for a contestant who is unable or unwilling to compete provided that the team Coach or Faculty Advisor notifies the Contest Secretary as soon as he is aware of the change, but no later than at team check-in. The resulting team must be properly constituted.
• The Mid Central Western European Regional Contest organisers are absolutely not responsible for the accommodation or other expenses of the teams.
• Appropriate insurance (e.g. against accidents or diseases) is in the responsibility of the team.

Contest Environment

• Each team will use one single computer. All teams will have equivalent computing equipment.
• Each team will have access to three compilers: a Pascal Compiler, a C Compiler and a C++ Compiler. Each submission may be in either language, without regard to the language used in previous submissions.
• For each compiler, there will be a set of manuals available for the contestants. If there are not enough manuals to serve all teams, a manual desk will be installed. Manuals may not be removed from the desk. It is possible to provide on-line instead of printed manuals.
• Each submission must be one self-contained program. It must not rely on the presence of external data files (except for the test data input file), nor may it create such files.
• Submissions in Pascal must adhere to the ISO level 1 standard. No extensions to the language are permitted. It is the responsibility of the team, not the compiler, to ensure that the submission meets the required standard.
• Submissions in C must adhere to the ANSI standard X3.159-1989. The only permitted extension to the language are chosen functions of the ANSI standard library. It is the responsibility of the team, not the compiler, to ensure that the submission meets the required standard.
• Submissions in C++ must adhere to the language as defined in "The C++ Programming Language, Second Edition" by Bjarne Stroustrup. The only permitted extensions to the language are chosen functions of the ANSI C standard library and the iostreams library. It is responsibility of the team, not the compiler, to ensure that the submission meets the required standard.

Conduct of the Regional Contest

• All team mebers must attend all contest activites as specified by the Contest Director. These activities include the Opening Ceremony and Practice Session (on Saturday) and the Contest and Award Ceremony (on Sunday). Failure to attend any of the designated Contest events will result in automatic disqualification and forfeiture of any prizes and final berths.
• At least six problems will be posed. As far as possible, problems will avoid dependence on detailed knowledge of a particular applications area or a particular contest language.
• Problems will be posed in English. During the contest, all communications with contest officials must be in English. Contestants may bring dictionaries or electronic pocket translators.
• Contestants may bring resource materials such as books, manuals and program listings. Contestants may not bring any machine-readable versions of software or data. Contestants may not bring their own computers, computer terminals or calculators. Contestants may not bring any kind of communication device such as radio sets, cellular phones or pagers.
• Solutions to problems submitted for judging are called runs. Each run is judged as accepted or rejected, and the team is notified of the result. Rejected runs will be marked as either "compile time error" or "run-time error" or "time-limit exceeded" or "wrong answer" or "presentation error" or "contest rule violation".
• Notification of accepted runs can be suspended at the appropriate time to keep final results secret. A general announcement to that effect will be made during the contest. Notification of rejected runs will continue until the end of the contest.
• A contestant may submit a claim of ambiguity or error in a problem statement by submitting a clarification request. If the Judges agree that an ambiguity or an error exists, a clarification will be issued to all contestants by the Chief Judge.
• Contestants are not to converse with anyone except members of their team and personnel designated by the Regional Contest Director (e.g. system support staff). Any conversation between contestants (whether they are from the same or different universities) and the Faculty Advisor or the team Coach (if he is not a contestant himself) is strictly forbidden and concerned as rule violation.
• System support staff may advise contestants on system-related problems such as explaining system error messages.
• The contest will be held in a networked environment. The network may only be used to submit problems and to produce a listing in ways designated by the Chief Judge and system support staff. Remote login, ftp, telnet, mail or other networking activities within the contest environment or with machines outside this environment are strictly forbidden. Every contestant who discovers a security leak must report this leak immediately to a system support staff member.
• While the contest is scheduled to last exactly five hours, the Regional Contest Director has the authority to lengthen the contest in the event of unforeseen difficulties. Should the Contest duration be altered, every attempt will be made to notify contestants in a timely and uniform manner.
• A team may be disqualified by the Regional Contest Director for any activity that jeopardises the regional contest such as dislodging extension cords, unauthorised modification of contest material (soft- or hardware), forbidden network activity, or distractive behaviour. The disqualification may occur immediately upon detection or up to 72 hours after the end of the Contest.
• The Mid Central European Regional Contest Director is solely responsible for ruling on unforeseen situations and interpreting this rules.

Scoring of the Regional Contest

• The Regional Contest Judges are solely responsible for determining the correctness of submitted runs. In consultation with the judges, the Regional Contest Chief Judge is responsible for determining the winners of the regional contest. The judging staff is empowered to adjust for or adjudicate unforeseen events and conditions. Their decisions are final and may not be appealed.
• Teams are ranked according to the most problems solved. Teams who solve the same number of problems are ranked by least total time. The total time is the sum of the time consumed for each problem solved. The time consumed for a solved problem is the time elapsed from the beginning of the contest to the submittal of the accepted run plus 20 minutes for each rejected run. There is no time consumed for a problem that is not solved.
• The Mid Central European Region is granted one initial berth in the Contest Finals. The team on the first rank can advance to the finals. If that team can not or does not want to participate in the Contest Finals, the next team on the ranking list is given the berth.
• Should the overall Contest Director award a second berth in the Contest Finals to the Mid Central European Region, the best two teams can advance to the finals. They must represent different educational institutions.

Mid Central European Regional Programming Contest Steering Committee:

Christian Wetzel, Regional Contest Director (wetzel@informatik.uni-freiburg.de)

Christian Wetzel
ACM Regional Contest Director
Universität Freiburg
Fakultät für Informatik
Am Flughafen 17
79085 Freiburg
GERMANY
Telephone: +49 172 7612155
E-Mail: wetzel@informatik.uni-freiburg.de

 

Christian Wetzel Last updated: July 26, 1999