University of Technology, Jamaica

School of Computing & Information Technology

PROGRAMME: All Bachelor Degrees in the School of Computing

COURSE TITLE: Artificial Intelligence (AI)

DURATION: 45 hours Lectures & Tutorials + 45 hours lab

CREDIT VALUE: 4

PREREQUISITIES: Data Structures, Discrete Mathematics, Theory of

Computation

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This course is designed to introduce students to the introductory concepts of Artificial

Intelligence. It will introduce students to areas that will provide them with the necessary
framework for further research in the field. It will also introduce them to two of the most
commonly used Artificial Intelligence programming languages.

GENERAL OBJECTIVES:

Students should
1. Understand the concepts of intelligent agents
2. Appreciate the importance of different search techniques
3. Recommend the appropriate programming languages for different AI
problems
4. Apply the use of backtracking, and back propagation to solve given AI
problems
5. Appreciate the usefulness of Expert Systems and other categories of AT
programmes

UNIT 1 Introduction ( 2 Lectures)

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
At the end of this unit students should be able to:
1. Define the term “Artificial Intelligence”
2. Describe the four approaches to AI
3. State the foundations of AI
4. Describe the History of AI
5. Define an intelligent agent
6. Describe the four structures of intelligent agents
7. Choose appropriate environments for different agents

Content
• Definition of Artificial Intelligence
• Approaches to Artificial Intelligence
 Turing Test
 Cognitive Model
 Laws of Thought
 Rational Agent
• Foundations of Artificial Intelligence
• History of Artificial Intelligence
• Intelligent Agents
 Structure
 Environment
 Autonomy

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Unit Outcome: Students should be able to state the appropriate environment and
corresponding intelligent agent for a given situation

Unit 2 Problem Solving (2 Lectures)

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
At the end of this unit students should be able to:
1. Use different search techniques to solve problems
2. Compare searches based on completeness and optimality
3. Describe the characteristics of a problem
4. Define a problem

Content
• Problem Description
• Search Strategies
 Uniformed Searches
 Breadth First
 Uniform-Cost
 Depth First
 Depth Limited
 Iterative Deepening
 Bi-directional
 Informed (Heuristic) Searches
 Best First
 Hill Climbing
 Constraint Satisfaction
 Simulated Annealing
 Mean-Ends Analysis

Unit Outcome: Students should be able to recommend appropriate search

techniques for different problems.

Unit 3 Knowledge and Reasoning (3 Lectures)

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
At the end of this unit students should be able to:
1. Determine solutions using the “binding” approach
2. Write facts in first order logics
3. Prove conclusions using first order logics
4. Explain the difference between predicate and prepositional logics

Content
• Knowledge based agents
• Knowledge Representation
 Scripts
 Semantics
 Semantic Nets
 Frames
• First Order Predicate Logics
 Syntax and semantics
 Quantifiers
 Inference in First Order
 Binding
 Forward and Backward Chaining

Unit Outcome: Students should be able to prove whether a conclusion is possible

based on using inference in first order logics.

2
Unit 4 Uncertainty (2 Lectures)

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
At the end of this unit students should be able to:
1. Define uncertainty
2. State the axioms of probability
3. Calculate uncertainty using Bayes’ Rule.

Content
• Types of Probability
• The Axioms of Probability
• The Importance of Uncertainty
• Bayes’ Rule
• Bayesian Networks

Unit Outcome: Students should be able to calculate the uncertainty of any given
solution for a problem

Unit 5 Expert Systems (2 Lectures)

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
At the end this unit students should be able to:
1. Define an expert system
2. Describe the process of building a knowledge base
3. Describe the different problems facing expert systems
4. State the importance of explanations.

Content
• Structure of an Expert System
 Knowledge Acquisition
 Knowledge Representation
 Explanation
• Expert System Problems

Unit Outcome: Students should be able to build a simple expert system.

Unit 6 Learning and Communication (4 Lectures)

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
At the end of this unit students should be able to:
1. Define the term “machine learning”
2. Compare a neural network to a human brain
3. Discuss the process of learning in neural networks
4. List the types of communication agents
5. Construct parse trees and sentences from context free grammar

Content
• Learning
 Supervised Learning
 Reinforcement Learning, Sequential Decision making
 Observation
 Neural Networks
 Perceptrons
 Back propagation learning
 Applications
• Communication
 Natural Language

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  Types of Communication agents
 Context Free Grammar

UNIT Outcome: Students should be able to show how a computer learning using
neural networks and how it can communicate using language

Unit 7 AI: the Future (1 Lecture)

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
At the end of this unit students should be able to:
1. State what Artificial Intelligence has already achieved for humanity
2. Discuss difference possibilities for the future

Content
• AI at Present
• The Possible Futures

UNIT Outcome: Students should be able to speculate possible outcome of the filed of
Artificial Intelligence.

INSTRUCTIONAL APPROACHES

Lectures and Tutorial

Notes
Lab sessions
Practical Assignment

ASSESSMENT PROCEDURES

2 Tutorial Tests 20%

2 Practical Tests 20%
Final Practical Examination 20%
Final Theory Examination 40%

BREAKDOWN OF HOURS

Lecture 30 hours
Tutorial 15 hours
Lab 45 hours

TEXT BOOKS

Recommended: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach by Stuart Russell and

Peter Norvig

Supplementary: Artificial Intelligence: Structures and Strategies for Complex

Problem Solving by George F. Luger and Williams A Stubblefield

Artificial Intelligence by Elaine Rich and Kevin Knight

Artificial Intelligence in Business: Expert Systems by Paul Haron

and David King

Artificial Intelligence: Theory and Practice by Dean, Thomas,

Allen, James & Aloimonos, Yiannis

4
 PROLOG: Programming for Artificial Intelligence by Ivan Bratko

SYLLABUS WRITERS
Felix Oluwole Akinladejo
Revised by Janett Williams

DATE OF LAST REVISION

May 22, 2006