CSCE 580 Spring 2017: Syllabus

The textbooks are:

  • David Poole and Alan Mackworth. Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents. Cambridge University Press, 2010 (recommended text, referred to as [P]; ISBN 978-0-521-51900). A free HTML version of this textbook is available from the authors; click on the link above.
  • Hector J. Levesque. Thinking as Computation. The MIT Press, 2012 (required text, referred to as [L]; ISBN 978-0-262-01699-5). Supplementary materials from the author are available.
  • 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 instructional delivery strategy for this course is lectures. The first day of classes is Tuesday, January 10, 2017. The last day to drop the course without a grade of "W" being recorded is Tuesday, January 17, 2017. The last day to withdraw without failure is Thursday, March 2, 2017. Spring break is from March 5 through March 12, 2017 (Sunday-Sunday). The last day of classes is Monday, April 24, 2017. The final exam for the course is Tuesday, May 2, 2017, from 1600-1830 in the classroom (300 Main B213). This is the regularly scheduled time for courses taught from 1315 to 1430 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:January 10, 12 Introduction; Thinking as Computation (Ch.1[P]; Chs.1,12[L])
    2: January 17, 19Prolog (Chs.2-4[L])
    3: January 24, 26Basics of: Constraints, Understanding Natural Language (Chs.5,6,7,8[L])
    4: January 31, February 2Basics of: Planning, Understanding Natural Language. Game Playing (Chs.9,10[L])
    5: February 7, 9 The State-Space Approach to Problem Solving and Blind Search (Ch.3 [P])
    6: February 14, 16Heuristic Search (Ch.3 [P])
    7: February 21, 23Heuristic Search and Midterm (Ch.3 [P])
    8: February 28, March 2Constraint Satisfaction Problems (Ch.4[P])
    9: March 8, 10 Spring Break
    10: March 14, 16Constraint Satisfaction Problems (Ch.4 [P])
    11: March 21, 23The Propositional Calculus, Inference, and Abduction (Ch.5 [P])
    12: March 28, 30 The Propositional Calculus, Inference, and Abduction (Ch.5 [P])
    13: April 4, 6 Reasoning Under Uncertainty (Ch.6 [P])
    14: April 11, 13 Reasoning Under Uncertainty (Ch.6 [P])
    15: April 18, 20 Graduate and Honors Student Presentations