CSG120 Artificial Intelligence - Spring 2007 - Futrelle - Syllabus

Syllabus - Schedule - CSG120 Artificial Intelligence

Spring 2007 - Professor Futrelle

Version of 8 April 2007

The information in this document covers class meetings, reading assignments, assignment due dates, exam dates, and dates for project reports.

Access the various official NU Calendars here. Access a handy non-NU calendar for the year 2007 here.

The material below is correlated with the textbook by Russell and Norvig, "AIMA". The schedule will be refined as the course proceeds. Initially, links to the later assignments, projects, and tests will be empty.

The first two classes are devoted to the Course Overview

Here are the assigned readings for the two weeks of Overview lectures and the sample questions for the quiz on the Overview, January 25th.

Week 1. January 11th: 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 18th: 2A: Overview of chapters 13 through 21.; Class 2B: Overview of chapters 22 through 27.
Week 3. January 25th - Quiz on the Overview: Class 3A: 25 minute quiz on the Overview, closed book, closed notes. Quiz notes here, as well as sample questions.
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. February 1st: Class 4A: Chap 3 - Basic uniformed 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 5th: Topic: Search. Details here. Due emailed to me by 11:59pm, Monday February 5th. Remember, you must begin your email Subject line with csg120sp07.
Week 5. February 8th: 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 9th: due emailed to me by 11:59pm Friday, Feb 9th. Initial project details here.
Week 6. February 15th: 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 19th: Topic: Logic. Details here. Due emailed to me by 11:59pm, Monday February 19th.
Week 7. February 22nd: This class was taken up with going over the answers to Assignments 1 and 2, for their own sake, and to help with preparation for the Midterm Exam on March 1st.
Interim Project Plan due Friday, Feb 23rd: Due emailed to me by 11:59pm Friday, Feb 23rd. Interim project details here. You will be making a short presentation about your interim project in class on March 1st.
Week 8. March 1st - Your short presentation and MIDTERM EXAM: Class 8A: During the first half hour of the class you are to make a short presentation describing your interim project - only two minutes, no slides - to allow time for Midterm. Then the closed-book portion begins, 1h 15min.; Class 8B: MIDTERM EXAM ON SEARCH AND LOGIC continues in last 1h 15min with the open book portion. Midterm exam details here.
Week 9. March 15th: Class 9A: Chap. 13 Probability. Chap. 14 Bayesian networks for representation and reasoning of uncertain knowledge. Approximate solutions by sampling.; Class 9B: 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"); Reading assignment:
The Overview readings:
13.1, 13.2, 13.3, skim 13.4, 13.6, 13.8
14.1, 14.2 to end of pg. 498, 14.5 to pg. 512, 14.7
15.1, 15.2 to the bottom of pg. 542, 15.6 (pgs. 568 and 569 only), 15.7
16.1, 16.2, 16.3, 16.5, 16.8
Skim 17.1, 17.7, 17.8
Plus the following:
13.4, 13.5, 13.6
14.2, 14.5
Chap. 15 - no additional readings
Skim 16.4
Week 10. March 22nd: Class 10A: Chap. 18 Learning from Observations (induction). Brief discussion of section 19.2 and beyond on knowledge in learning.; Class 10B: Chap. 20 Statistical Learning Methods, e.g., maximum likelihood and and expectation maximization.
Assignment #3 due Monday, March 26th: Topic: Uncertainty (primarily, Bayesian networks). Details here. Due emailed to me by 11:59pm, Monday, March 26th.
Week 11. March 29th: Class 11A: Chap. 22 Communication - primarily, the syntax and semantics of natural language; Class 11B: Chap. 23 Probabilistic Language Processing.
Assignment #4 NOW DUE Wednesday, April 4th: Topic: Learning. Details here. Due emailed to me by 11:59pm, Wednesday April 4th.
Week 12. April 5th: Class 12A: Quiz #2 CANCELLED
Assignment #5 CANCELLED: Class 12B: Chap. 25 Robotics. Cognitive Science issues for sensing and action. Relation of robotics to animal intelligence and games.
Week 13. April 12th: Class 13 A and B: Course wrap-up, additional topics, review, etc.
Draft version of your Final Project due Tuesday, April 17th: Due emailed to me by 11:59pm Tuesday, April 17th. This gives us a chance for me to go over your project in almost final form, to assure that it is coming together well. I will give some quick feedback, in time for your presentation on the 19th and before you hand in your final project on the 20th. Project final draft details here.
Week 14. April 19th Your final project presentations.: Class 14A: Final Project presentations. You are to make a class presentation in class this evening (max: 8 minutes, 6 slides).; Class 14B: Continuing with the remainder of your final project presentations.
Final Project, Proj 3, due Friday, April 20th: Due emailed to me by 11:59pm Friday, April 20th. Project final submission details here.
FINAL EXAM mailed Tuesday, April, 17th. Due Tuesday, April 24th: A comprehensive take-home final exam will be emailed to you as an attachment on Tuesday, April 17th and due sent to me by email by 11:59pm, Tuesday, the 24th. (if you need to hand in any hardcopy portions, get them to me in my office by 4pm, the 24th, or fax them to me by then to 617-373-5121, the CCIS office). You must meet these deadlines, because I will be en route to/from or in Illinois from Wednesday through Sunday evening, the 25th through the 29th, to attend and present at a linguistics conference.
Final exam details here.

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