CSCE 580 Fall 2011: Syllabus

The textbook is:

  • David Poole and Alan Mackworth. Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents. Cambridge University Press, 2010 (ISBN 978-0-521-51900).
  • A very good alternative text is: Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig. Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (Third Edition). Prentice-Hall, 2010 (referred to as [R] or, [AIMA] or, when distinguishing editions, [AIMA-1], [AIMA-2], or [AIMA-3]). Supplementary materials from the authors, including an errata list, are available. This text is not required.

    • The main (approximately 80% of the time) instructional delivery strategy for this course is lectures. Discussions based on graduate student presentations, videos, quizzes or in-class exercises, and a possible invited talk will make up the remaining 20% of time. The first day of classes is Thursday, August 18, 2011. The last day to withdraw without failure is Thursday, October 13, 2011. The last day of classes is Thursday, December 11, 2011. The final exam for the course is Wednesday, December 7, 2011, at 1400 in the classroom (SWGR 2A24). This is the regularly scheduled time for courses taught from 1400 to 1515 on Tuesdays, and Thursdays. (See the university exam schedule.)

    Please see elsewhere in the web pages for the course for additional administrative information.

    WeekLecture Topics
    1: August 18 (Thursday only)Introduction (Ch.1 [P])
    2: August 23, 25Introduction; Intelligent Agents (Chs.1-2[P])
    3: August 30; September 1The State-Space Approach to Problem Solving and Blind Search (Ch.3 [P])
    4: September 6, 8Heuristic Search (Ch.3 [P])
    5: September 13, 15Heuristic Search (Ch.3 [P])
    6: September 20, 22 Constraint Satisfaction Problems (Ch.4 [P])
    7: September 27, 29Constraint Satisfaction Problems and Midterm (Ch.4 [P])
    8: October 4, 6 The Propositional Calculus, Inference, and Abduction (Ch.5 [P])
    9: October 11, 13 The Propositional Calculus, Inference, and Abduction (Ch.5 [P])
    10: October 18 (Tuesday only) Reasoning Under Uncertainty (Ch.6 [P]); Fall Break
    11: October 25, 27 Individuals, Relations, and First-Order Logic (Ch.12 [P])
    12: November 1, 3 Individuals, Relations, and First-Order Logic (Ch.12 [P])
    13: November 8, 10 Ontologies and Knowledge-Based Systems (Ch.13 [P])
    14: November 15, 17 Supervised Learning (Ch.7 [P])
    15: November 22 (Tuesday only) Planning (Ch.8 [P])
    16: November 29; December 1 Relational Planning, Learning, and Probabilistic Reasoning (Ch.14 [P]