Department of Computer Science
CS 681 Designing Expert Systems
Meeting
time: Thursday 4:30 pm – 7:10 pm
Meeting location: Innovation Hall 336
Instructor: Dr. Gheorghe Tecuci,
Professor of Computer Science
Office
hours: Thursday 7:15 pm – 8:05 pm
Office: The Engineering Building, Learning Agents Center, Room 4613
Phone: 703 993 1722
E-mail: tecuci
at gmu dot edu
Course Description
Prerequisite: CS 580 or permission of instructor
This course presents the theory and
practice of designing and developing systems that rely on expert knowledge and
reasoning to solve complex problems in a specific (scientific, engineering,
medical, military, etc.) domain. Such an expert system or knowledge-based agent
may assist a human expert in complex problem solving and decision-making, may
be used by a non-expert user, or may teach problem solving and decision-making
to a student. Capturing, using, preserving, transferring, and sharing knowledge
is of critical importance to any organization as society evolves from an information
society to a knowledge society. Therefore, the ability to design and develop
such expert agents for a wide variety of domains is a highly valuable
expertise. The course covers both the basics of expert agents and knowledge
engineering as well as advanced research topics, and involves the students in
expert agent research. Basic topics include modeling expert reasoning, ontology
design and development, logic and probabilistic reasoning, knowledge
acquisition and learning, knowledge base verification, validation and
integration. Advanced topics include mixed-initiative reasoning, agent teaching
and multistrategy learning, and collaborative problem
solving.
The students will learn about all
the phases of building an expert agent and will experience them first-hand by
using the Disciple development environment. Disciple has been developed in the Learning Agents Center (http://lac.gmu.edu)
of George Mason University and has been successfully used to build expert
agents for a variety of domains, including: intelligence analysis, military
center of gravity determination, medical diagnosis, website
evaluation, course of action critiquing, emergency response planning, teaching
critical thinking, and PhD advisor selection.
The classes will consist of three
parts: theory, tools and project. In the theoretical part, the instructor will
present and discuss the various phases and methods of building an expert agent.
In the second part the students will experience the use of advanced artificial
intelligence tools for building expert agents. In the project part the students
will design and develop an expert agent in a domain of their choice.
Students will have
accounts on Blackboard and can download the PDF slide files by going to
courses.gmu.edu and logging in using their Mason ID and passwords.
Grading Policy
Exam – 50%
Project assignments and class participation (Expert System Development) – 50%
Readings
Tecuci G., Lecture Notes on Designing Expert Systems, Fall
2010 (required).
Tecuci G., Building Intelligent Agents: An Apprenticeship Multistrategy
Learning Theory, Methodology, Tool and Case Studies, Academic Press, 1998
(recommended).
Additional papers required or
recommended by the instructor.
Lecture Notes on Designing Expert
Systems
Introduction
Classical Approaches to the Design and Development of Expert Systems
Ontology Design and Development
Learning-Oriented Knowledge Representation
Problem Reduction and Solution Synthesis
Modeling Expert’s Reasoning
Agent Teaching and Multistrategy Rule Learning
Mixed-Initiative Problem Solving and Knowledge Base Refinement
Design Principles for Expert Systems
Frontier Research Problems
Email
Communication
1. Please include CS681 in the subject of any
message you are emailing to Dr. Tecuci.
2. Please try to limit the size of the files you are
emailing.
GMU
Email Accounts
Students must activate their GMU email accounts to
receive important University information, including messages related to this class.
Office
of Disability Services
If you are a student with a disability and you need
academic accommodations, please see me and contact the Office of Disability
Services (ODS) at 993-2474. All academic accommodations must be arranged
through the ODS. http://ods.gmu.edu.
Other
Useful Campus Resources
Writing Center: A114 Robinson Hall; (703) 993-1200; http://writingcenter.gmu.edu
University Libraries “Ask a Librarian” http://library.gmu.edu/mudge/IM/IMRef.html
Counseling And Psychological Services (CAPS): (703)
993-2380; http://caps.gmu.edu
University
Policies
The University Catalog, http://catalog.gmu.edu, is the central
resource for university policies affecting student, faculty, and staff conduct
in university affairs.
Honor
Code
You
are expected to abide by the GMU honor code. Information on the university
honor code can be found at http://academicintegrity.gmu.edu/honorcode/.
Additional departmental CS information: http://cs.gmu.edu/wiki/pmwiki.php/HonorCode/CSHonorCodePolicies