Fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence

Roberto Amadini
Maurizio Gabbrielli

CONTACT INFORMATION

Lead Instructor: Maurizio Gabbrielli

Affiliation: University of Bologna
E-mail Address: Maurizio.gabbrielli@unibo.it
Office Hours: By appointment

Instructor: Roberto Amadini

Affiliation: University of Bologna
E-mail Address: roberto.amadini@unibo.it
Office Hours: By appointment

COURSE OVERVIEW

Teaching Hours: number of teaching hours 20

Course Content: description and purpose of the course (3 to 5 lines)

The course in the first part will give a general overview of the Artificial Intelligence field, introducing the
main techniques and the main application areas, as well as discussing the main economic and ethic
implications. In the second part, the course will focus on Artificial Intelligence for optimization and
decision making. We will give an overview of Decision Support Systems (DSS), by focusing in particular
on constraint-based DSS and the MiniZinc language

Teaching Method(s): description of your teaching method for this course: theoretical background,
cases, laboratories, team work, guest speakers’ lectures, etc.

The main part of the course, consisting of frontal lessons, will provide the necessary theoretical
background. A second, smaller, part will illustrate some constraint programming techniques on real
case studies possibly using also the laboratory.

Suggested reading materials (pre-course): if applicable N/A

Required Readings (for the course): textbook, scientific articles and other material used in class.
Please note that readings should be included in the table below so here you can also refer to that
table if you do not have textbook but just articles that you would like to use in the course.
The slides used in the lessons and some additional notes will be distributed to the students during the
course.
As a reference textbook the students can consult:
• Russell, Norvig. Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, 3rd Edition. Pearson Intl. 2010 (US
edition) and 2016 (global edition).
• M. Wallace. Buliding Decision Support Systems: Using MiniZinc. Springer, 2020.

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INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES (ILOs): description of the knowledge, skills and abilities that
students should possess at the end of the course upon completing the entire learning process (3 to 5
ILOs)

• LO–1: Knowledge about the main current applications of Artificial Intelligence

• LO–2: Knowledge about the main techniques used in Artificial Intelligence
• LO–3: Ability to select specific AI tools appropriate for given problems
• LO–4: Specific abilities about constraint programming and DSS.
• LO–5: Knowledge about the main ethic and economic implications of AI.

Matching with the overall ILOs of the programme: please tick at least two programme ILOs that
your course contributes to reach.

At the end of the course, graduates will be able to:

✔ combine the fundamentals of management with the ability to use the most
recent and advanced technological tools and digital platforms available;

✔ understand the main techniques, tools and economic implications of Artificial

Intelligence in modern businesses;

✔ judge the applicability of a wide range of Artificial Intelligence tools in different

situations;

✔ support the collaboration between IT team and top level management.

Matching with the UN’s SDG (if applicable): please tick at least three SDGs that your course
contribute to reach. See also: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/

 Goal 4: Quality Education

 Goal 5: Gender Equality
 Goal 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
 Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

STUDENT ASSESSMENT

Marks are intended on a numerical grade scale (0 to 30), being 18 to 30 the passing grade range. The
following is an example of a students’ assessment method for a course. Please refer to the official
guide for more information about the student assessment methods and criteria.

WEIGHT ON FINAL
TYPE OF ASSESSMENT DUE DATE
GRADE
Individual participation Throughout the entire course 20%

Final Examination Last session of the course 80%

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CLASS SCHEDULE, LOCATION, AND ASSIGNMENTS

Table containing the following information for each session:

- Dates of class meetings with relevant information on daily activities (detailed

reading/working material for each teaching unites should be listed here)
- Dates of other learning activities (including guest speakers or in-company visits)
- Due dates for assignments, team works, readings, etc.
- Final examination date: (If you haven’t been informed by the programme manager on the final
examination date of your course, please leave this space blank).
- Final examination structure

1st session: Title SETTING THE STAGE: INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE

Date - hours November 10, 2021 ----– 15:30 – 17:30 Italian time
Location Padiglione 34 Bologna Fiere – Bologna
Content • Introduction of the course;
• A definition of AI
• Short digression on (natural) intelligence
• Short history of AI
Required • Course slides
Readings

2nd session: Title AI techniques: Symbolic computation based on logic

Date - hours November 15, 2021 –--- 10:30 – 13:30 Italian time
Location Padiglione 34 Bologna Fiere – Bologna
Content • Logic and AI
• Expert systems
Required • Course slides
Readings

3rd session: Title AI techniques: Symbolic computation based on search

Date - hours November 17, 2021 –-- 15:30 – 17:30 Italian time
Location Padiglione 34 Bologna Fiere – Bologna
Content • Local search
• Minimax and games
Required • Course slides
Readings

4th session: Title Constraint programming

Date - hours November 22, 2021 –--- 14:30 – 17:30 Italian time
Location Padiglione 34 Bologna Fiere – Bologna
Content • Introduction to constraint programming
• Examples
Required • Course slides
Readings

3
5th session: Title Introduction to DSS and knowledge-based DSS
Date - hours November 24, 2021 – 15:30 – 17:30 Italian time
Location Padiglione 34 Bologna Fiere – Bologna
Content • Introduction to decision support systems
• Brief overview on Semantic web and ontologies
Required Course slides
Readings

6th session: Title Rule-based DSS and “Intelligent” decision support systems
Date - hours November 29, 2021 –--- 14:30 – 17:30 Italian time
Location Padiglione 34 Bologna Fiere – Bologna
Content • Rule-based DSS
• “Intelligent” DSS
Required Course slides
Readings
Supplementary M. Wallace. “Building Decision Support Systems using MiniZinc”
readings

7th session: Title Constraint-based DSS and Minizinc

Date - hours December 1, 2021 – 15:30 – 17:30 Italian time
Location Padiglione 34 Bologna Fiere – Bologna
Content • Modeling and choices
• Modeling in Minizinc
Required Course slides
Readings
Supplementary M. Wallace. “Building Decision Support Systems using MiniZinc”
readings

8th session: Title Hands on Minizinc and the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP)
Date - hours December 6, 2021 –-- 14:30 – 17:30 Italian time
Location Padiglione 34 Bologna Fiere – Bologna
Content • Hands on MiniZinc
• The Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) and Minizinc
Required Course slides
Readings
Supplementary M. Wallace. “Building Decision Support Systems using MiniZinc”
readings
Case study The Traveling Salesman Problem

9th session: Title FINAL EXAM

Date - hours December 14, 2021 –-- 10:30 – 12:30 Italian time
Location Padiglione 34 Bologna Fiere – Bologna
Content • The final exam will consist in a written test, with both open and closed questions.
• The duration of the exam will be two hours.

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PLAGIARISM

Plagiarism is an academic fraud consisting of attributing authorship by (partial or total) copying, imitation or misappropriation.
Examples of academic fraud committed by students are the followings:

• Appropriating written or oral work to themselves when they are not the author (in whole or in part) of the work, by
omitting any references or quotations to the author or to the owner of the work;
• Presenting data that has been falsified or invented in any way;
• Appropriate the work of someone else and presenting it as the own;
• Including exerts of texts, images, results from external sources without mentioning the source of the document;
• Citing the original idea of an author by expressing it in their own words but omit quoting the source;
• Cheating in an academic evaluation.

All students completing this course should be aware that in submitting any assignment for this course, you agree to the following
declaration:
“I certify that the coursework that I have submitted is entirely my own unaided work, and that I have read and complied with the
School’s guidelines on plagiarism and referencing as set out in the School handbook.
I understand that the School may make use of plagiarism detection software and that my work may therefore be stored on a
database which is accessible to other users of the same software.” Students should be aware that, where plagiarism is
suspected, a formal investigation may be carried out under the School’s Student Disciplinary Procedure. This may result in
penalties ranging from mark deduction to expulsion from the School.

DISCLAIMER

The information contained in this syllabus may be subject to moderate changes. The course instructor will communicate any
modifications to students.