Simple cost model
Each variable has cost associated with each value
- c(vi= li) is the cost of assigning value li to variable vi
Cost of a complete assignment is the sum of the costs of the individual variable assignments
- if assignment a is v1=l1,,vn=ln then c(a) = ?i c(vi=li)
Costs of all variable values are non-negative
Each variable has a minimum cost value with cost 0
Generating a least cost assignment is straightforward
- each variable is assigned a value with cost 0