CSC2542 is a seminar course that will explore recent advances in knowledge representation and reasoning. The course will draw predominantly on research readings. The format of the course will be a mix of class lectures, seminars and student paper presentations.
In Winter 2006, the topic being covered is "Automated Reasoning." This course will explore recent advances in automated reasoning for artificial intelligence (AI). We will discuss formal principles and algorithmic techniques, with a focus on their application to AI query answering, planning, diagnosis and decision making. Topics may include: propositional satisfiability, QBFs, theorem proving, answer set programming, and model checking. Particular emphasis will be placed on techniques for exploiting structure in logical theories. The term 'structure' is somewhat vague, but generally refers to some recognizable patterns which are often exposed or exploited by the use of different representation schemes, graphical techniques, compilation methods and/or heuristics. It has long been argued that we need to exploit problem structure if we want to solve problems efficiently.
This course will provide you with a reasonable overview of the state-the-art in propositional and first-order automated reasoning, while enabling you to tailor the course project to an area of personal interest within AI problem-solving.