Knowledge Representation and Reasoning 2013-2014

Last year web page

Previous exam papers and answers (Now includes 2013-14)

Feedback for exam 2012-13
Feedback for exam 2013-14

The module describes how knowledge can be represented symbolically and manipulated in an automated way by reasoning programs. It will be based on the following textbook: Ronald Brachman and Hector Levesque. Knowledge Representation and Reasoning. Elsevier, 2004. There are several copies in the Jubilee Library, location Q387 BRA. An a link to eBook edition from the library catalogue.

Hector Levesque's on-line lecture slides based on the book
local copy

Office hour (for questions): Thursday at 17:00 in C57.

Lectures

• Lecture 1 (Introduction, what are knowledge based systems, plan of the module)
• Lecture 2: syntax and semantics of first-order logic. See Levesque's slides 18-27, textbook chapter 2.1 - 2.3.2.
• Lecture 3: semantics of first-order logic, logical entailment. See Levesque's slides 28-34, textbook the rest of chapter 2.
• Lecture 4: expressing knowledge in first-order logic. See Levesque's slides 35-45 , textbook chapter 3.
  Barber exercise
  Alpine Club exercise
• Lecture 5: I think I will just go through the answers to the exercises. So please try to do them first, before the lecture.
  Answer to the barber exercise
  Answer to the Alpine Club exercise
• Lecture 6: propositional resolution, chapter 4.1, slides 46-55.

  Handout with definitions and rules

  Exercise on propositional reduction to CNF
  Answer to the exercise
  Exercise on propositional resolution
  Answer to the exercise

• Lecture 7: Resolution continued. First-order case. Slides 56-61.

  Handout with definitions and rules
  Exercise on first-order resolution.
  Another exercise on first-order resolution: answer Alpine club exercise using resolution
  Solution to both exercises
  Exercise on answer extraction
  Solution to the exercise

• Lecture 8: Unification. Algorithm for computing a most general unifier. Handling equality. Slides 64, 68. Handout about unification and equality
• Lecture 9: Termination and complexity of resolution. Slides 66, 67, 71, 72.
• Lecture 10: Horn clauses. SLD resolution. Backward chaining. Chapter 5, slides 79-90. Exercise: do question 4 in 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 exam.
• Lecture 11: Prolog. Reading: Chapter 6, slides 91-100. If you want to try Prolog, it is installed on clyde, type sicstus at command prompt. User manual is here .
• Lecture 12: Horn clauses continued. Forward chaining. Handout about forward chaining and exercise Rules in production systems. Chapter 7, slides 89, 103-118. Answer to the exercise
• Lecture 13: Life cycle of a knowledge based system. Knowledge acquisition. Decision tables. Java Rules API and Jess.
  For an exercise, you can do exam 2007 (5b), 2008 (4d), 2009 (6b), 2011 (5a).
• Lecture 14: description logic. Handout
  Exercise
  Answer
• Exercises from previous exams, annotated for ALC. and answers