CSG120 Artificial Intelligence - Spring 2008 - Futrelle - Syllabus

Syllabus - Schedule - CSG120 Artificial Intelligence

Spring 2008 - Professor Futrelle

Version of 16 March 2008

The information in this document covers class meetings, reading assignments, assignment due dates, exam dates, and dates for project reports. All classes are on Thursdays from 6pm to 9pm in 217 Ryder. A convenient summary of all dates and deadlines is on this page (updated 3/15/08).

Access the various official NU Calendars here. Access a handy non-NU calendar for the year 2008 here.

A convenient summary of the dates and deadlines below can be found on this page.

The material below is correlated with the textbook by Russell and Norvig, "AIMA". The schedule may be adjusted slightly as the course proceeds.

The first two classes are devoted to the Course Overview

Here are the brief summaries of the material and assigned readings for the two weeks of Overview lectures.

Week 1. January 10th: Class 1A: (1) Brief discussion of the course content
(2) Procedures (grading, email, IM)
(3) Resources (Reserves, tools)
(4) Your semester project
(5) Student questionnaires.; Overview of chapters 1 through 6.; Class 1B: Overview of chapters 7 through 12.
Week 2. January 17th: 2A: Overview of chapters 13 through 21.; Class 2B: Overview of chapters 22 through 27.
Week 3. January 24th: Class 3A:
Chaps. 1 & 2 - Agents; Class 3B: Chaps. 1 & 2 - Agents. Begin chap. 3 - Search.; Reading assignment:
The Overview readings:
1.1, 1.2, 1.3 optional, 1.4, 1.5
2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.5; skim 2.4
3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.7 ; skim 3.4
Plus the following:
All of Chap. 1
2.4
3.4, 3.5, 3.6
Week 4. January 31st: Class 4A: Chap 3 - Basic uninformed search. Begin chap. 4 - Informed search.; Class 4B: Chap. 4 - Informed search, local search. Chap. 5 - Constraint satisfaction problems. Chap. 6, briefly, on adversarial search, e.g., board games. Search versus memory. Search in games.; Reading assignment:
The Overview readings:
4.1, 4.2, skim 4.3 and 4.4, 4.6
5.1, 5.5; skim 5.2
6.1, 6.2, 6.8; skim 6.3, 6.6
Plus the following:
4.3 to bottom of pg. 116, 4.4, skim 4.5
5.2, 5.3, skim 5.4
Chap. 6 - no additional readings
Assignment #1 due Monday, Feb 4th: Topic: Search. Details here. Due emailed to me by 9pm, Monday February 4th. Remember, you must begin your email Subject line with csg120sp08.
Week 5. February 7th: Class 5A: Chap. 7 - Propositional logic; the Wumpus world; inference in propositional logic - resolution is sound and refutation-complete. Simpler methods: Forward and backward chaining. Begin Chap. 8 First-Order Logic (FOL).; Class 5B: Chap. 8 First-Order Logic (FOL) Chap. 9 - Inference in FOL.; Reading assignment:
The Overview readings:
7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.8; skim 7.4 and 7.5
8.1, 8.2, 8.5; skim 8.3
9.1, 9.3;, 9.6 skim 9.2 and 9.4
Plus the following:
7.4, 7.5
8.3, 8.4
9.2, 9.4 to bottom of pg. 290, 9.5 to middle of pg. 300
Initial Project Plan, due Friday, Feb 8th: due emailed to me by 9pm Friday, Feb 8th. Initial project details here.
Week 6. February 14th: Class 6A: Chap. 10 - Knowledge representation and ontologies.; Class 6B: Chap. 11 Planning (brief discussion of chap. 12).; Reading assignment:
The Overview readings:
10.1, 10.2, 10.9
11.1, 11.2, 11.7
12.1, 12.3, 12.8; skim 12.2
Plus the following:
skim 10.3 through 10.7
11.6
Skim 12.5 and 12.6 and 12.7
Assignment #2 due Monday, Feb 18th: Topic: Logic. Details here. Due emailed to me by 9pm, Monday February 18th. (School holiday, actually)
Week 7. February 21st
Interim Project Plan due Friday, Feb 22nd: Due emailed to me by 9pm Friday, Feb 22nd. Interim project details here.
Week 8. February 28th - MIDTERM EXAM ON SEARCH AND LOGIC: Midterm exam details here.; Class 8A: Closed-book portion of the exam occupies the first half of the class.; Class 8B: Open-book portion of the exam occupies the last half of the class.
Week 9. March 13th Midterm Exam answers and your Projects.: Class 9A Discussed the answers to the Midterm exam.; Class 9B Each student talked about their project plans and progress to date.
Week 10. March 20th: Class 10A: Chap. 13 Probability.
Chap. 14 Bayesian networks for representation and reasoning of uncertain knowledge. Approximate solutions by sampling.; Class 10B: Chap. 15 Probabilistic reasoning over time. Chap. 16 Decision theory = probability + utility. Chap. 17 Brief discussion of sequential decision problems; game theory and Nash Equilibrium. (John Nash of "A Beautiful Mind")
Week 11. March 27th: Class 11A: Chap. 18 Learning from Observations (induction). Brief discussion of section 19.2 and beyond on knowledge in learning.; Class 11B: Chap. 20 Statistical Learning Methods, e.g., maximum likelihood and and expectation maximization.
Mid-semester project due Friday, March 28th: Due emailed to me by 9pm Friday, March 28th. Mid-semester project submission details here.
Assignment #3 due Monday, March 31st: Topic: Uncertainty (primarily, Bayesian networks). Details here. Due emailed to me by 9pm, Monday, March 31st.
Week 12. April 3rd: Class 12A: Chap. 22 Communication - primarily, the syntax and semantics of natural language; Class 12B: Chap. 23 Probabilistic Language Processing.
Assignment #4 due Monday, April 7th: Topic: Learning. Details here. Due emailed to me by 9pm, Monday April 7th.
Optional draft version of your Final Project - send by Wednesday, April 9th: This gives me a chance to go over your project in almost final form, to assure that it is coming together well. I will give some quick feedback, before you hand in your final project on the 16th. Optional draft details here.
Week 13. April 10th: Class 13A: Chap. 24 Perception - primarily vision.; Class 13B: Chap. 25 Robotics. Cognitive Science issues for sensing and action. Relation of robotics to animal intelligence and games.
Final Project due Wednesday, April 16th: Due emailed to me by 9pm Wednesday, April 16th. Project final submission details here.
Week 14. April 17th .: Interesting topics from AI and cognition.
FINAL EXAM mailed Friday, April, 18th. Due Monday, April 21st: A comprehensive take-home final exam will be emailed to you as an attachment on Friday, April 18th and due sent to me by email by 4pm, Monday, the 21st. (if you need to hand in any hardcopy portions, get them to me in my office by 4pm, the 21st, or fax them to me by then to 617-373-5121, the CCIS office). Final exam details will be posted here.

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