CS361 Artificial Intelligence

Software Engineering Programme Computer Science Dept.

Helwan University

Lecture 0
Course Introduction
& Plan
▪ Course Details & Course Instructor (Short Bio)
▪ Tentative Topics & Learning Objectives
▪ Course Logistics & Grading Policy
▪ Classroom Code of Conduct
▪ Be an Effective Learner ..? Faculty of
▪ Academic Agenda Computers &
Artificial Intelligence

FALL 2020
Course Details

Course Code CS361

Course Name Artificial Intelligence

Coordinating Unit Department of Computer Science,

Faculty of Computers & Artificial ..
.. Intelligence, Helwan University

Term Semester 1 (Fall)

Level Undergraduate - Level 3

2
Course Staff : Instructor (Short Bio)
Dr. Amr S. Ghoneim
He received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. (by research) degrees in Computer Science from Helwan University
(the Faculty of Computers and Artificial Intelligence), Cairo - Egypt. His M.Sc. work was on employing
AI & Machine Learning techniques for detecting the effects of diabetes on human vision (from
images of the retina) won him the 1st Place Winning Postgraduate [Best MSc/PhD Thesis] in the MIE
“Made -In-Egypt” Competition (Organized by the IEEE-Egypt Gold Section) and the 1st Place Winning
Postgraduate [Best MSc/PhD Thesis] in the MIA “Made-In-the-Arab world” Competition (Organized
by the Arab League) competing against researchers from 13 MENA countries.

He completed his Ph.D. in 2012 from the School of Engineering and Information Technology (SEIT),
the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy (UNSW@ADFA),
Canberra - Australia, where he was a member of the Artificial Life and Adaptive Robotics Laboratory
(ALAR). His thesis was about developing a computational approach for competency awareness in
strategic decision making (for Go players).

He is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science at Helwan University,

Cairo - Egypt. Since 2015, he's also the Vice-Director of the International Students Office (for Study
Programs and Research Communication) at Helwan University, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor of
Computer Science at the Faculty of Informatics and Computer Science (ICS) - The British University in
Egypt. His research interests include the areas of artificial/computational intelligence, machine
learning, ensemble learning, image processing (mostly medical), pattern recognition, statistical
analysis, computational psychology, and evolutionary computation. 3
Tentative Topics
& Learning Objectives
.. of this course

4
Learning Objectives of this Course

What you'll learn?

 This course gives a basic introduction to Artificial Intelligence

(AI) and Machine Learning (ML).
 Students receive an introduction to philosophical fundamental
problems and ethical questions related to ML/AI, as well as the
field's history.
 Then, We will study the core topics of knowledge
representation, reasoning, and learning.
 Later topics will include and introduction to machine learning,
& probabilistic reasoning, in addition to applications such as
robotics, computer vision, and natural language processing.
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Learning Objectives of this Course
.. Continued..

What you'll learn?

 The course covers basic supervised classification (e.g.,

Artificial Neural Networks), as well as unsupervised learning
(Clustering), optimization (Evolutionary Algorithms and other
search methods), and tentatively regression and
reinforcement learning.
 Through an algorithmic approach, the students are given a
practical understanding of the methods being taught, in
particular through making their own implementations of
several of the methods.

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Topics Covered [ Tentative ]
The main contents of the course are:
▪ Main approaches to AI & Learning
▪ Task environment
▪ Performance measures
▪ Intelligent Agents
▪ Knowledge Representation
▪ Problem solving by searching
▪ Uninformed search
▪ Informed search
▪ Beyond classical search: Evolutionary Algorithms
▪ Machine learning
▪ Supervised learning versus Unsupervised learning
▪ Decision trees
▪ Neural networks
▪ Support vector machines
▪ Cross validation

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Recommended background

o The only formal prerequisites for this course are an Introduction to

Computer Science, Introduction to programming languages 1 &
2, and Algorithms ..

o We recommend that students have experience with Python /

Matlab, ideally some background in probability and statistics,
and linear algebra,

o If you don’t have background in these areas, you may still sign up, but
be aware that you will probably need to learn some of these items as
the class goes on (we will be providing pointers to references).
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Course Logistics
• Announcements & Course Materials
• Additional Resources (per section)
• Assessment Summary (Grading Policy)
• Exercises .. What have we learned?
• Be an Effective Learner ..?
• Classroom Code of Conduct
• Academic Integrity & Plagiarism

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Announcements & Course Materials

Video Lessons:
All recorded lectures are on the following:

Amr S. Ghoneim YouTube Channel :

https://www.youtube.com/AmrSGhoneim/

CS361 Introduction to Artificial Intelligence YouTube Playlist :

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsnvpvHuTUbAZr0n65TgytB
K6bHdT33A7

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Announcements & Course Materials

Downloads, Homework, & Announcements:

All course material (lecture notes “slides", announcements, assignments, any
supplemental notes or documentation), will be made available “posted” online
on weekly basis, on:

Amr S. Ghoneim Facebook Page : https://www.facebook.com/amr.s.ghoneim/

CS361 Introduction to Artificial Intelligence Microsoft Teams : TBA by the

Faculty

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Announcements & Course Materials

Required Resources:
The prescribed textbooks for the course are:
- Stuart J. Russell and Peter Norvig, "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern
Approach," 3rd Edition (2010), by Pearson Education Inc.
- George F. Luger, "Artificial Intelligence: Structures and strategies for
complex problem solving, " 5th Edition (2005), Pearson Education Limited.

Additional Textbooks:
- Wolfgang Ertel, "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence," 2nd Edition (2017)
- Miroslav Kubat, "An Introduction to Machine Learning," 2nd Edition (2017)
- Y. Abu-Mostafa, M. Magdon-Ismail, & H-T. Lin, "Learning from Data - A
Short Course," (2012)
- Max Bramer, "Principles of Data Mining," 3rd Edition (2016)

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Announcements & Course Materials

Course & Lectures are based on their counterparts in the

following:
- Intelligent Systems, University of British Columbia (Dept. of
Computer Science)
- Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, University of Wisconsin-
Madison
- Artificial Intelligence, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Artificial Intelligence, University of California, Berkeley
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 Additional
Resources
▪ At the end of each section, there will be a
short list of additional resources.
▪ The list will include articles, YouTube videos,
online courses, books, .. etc. (in both Arabic
and English).
▪ These resources will provide more details on
some of the topics discussed during the
lectures.
Assessment Summary (Grading Policy)

The Assessment for this subject consists of six components with the
following weightings (grading breakdown):

1) Final Written Exam: 50%

2) Group Project: 25%
3) Midterm Written Exam: 15%
4) Lab. (Practical) Assignments: 10%
5) Attendance and Participation during the Labs. (Sections) are
obligatory.
6) Take-home Assignments/Sheets (about 5 Sheets): 0% to -10%
(Students will lose 2 marks for every sheet not delivered on time
or found out to be copied).

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Class Project

o A major component of the class: goal is to take a real-world domain that

you are interested in and apply the taught methodologies to gain insight
into the domain.

o Work to be done in groups of 4-5 students, more details will be

announced later.

o Final report will include the analysis of your data, including code and
visual results.

o The students will be required to perform a ~15 mins demo of their project.

o Class projects must be focused on some real data problem.

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 Exercises
What have we learned?
At the end of each section, there will be a set
review activities (exercises), that would help
you see the progress you've made in this
lesson.
The exercises would help you:
▪ Highlight what you have learned today &
emphasize key information.
▪ Correct misunderstandings.
▪ Summarize, review, & demonstrate your
understanding of major points.
▪ Transfer ideas to new situations.
Be an Effective Learner ..
o Have the desire to seek knowledge and acquire new skills (be
inquisitive / curious)
o Ask questions.
o Be an avid (keen & passionate) reader.
o Be an attentive / focused listener.
o Find your preferred learning style .. & .. Learn in multiple ways.
o Do NOT memorize.
o Embrace Discomfort.
o Practice, practice, practice (you must gain practical experience).
o Teach what you’ve learned to another person.
o Use testing to boost / improve learning.
o Avoid multitasking.
o Make use of Memory Improvement Basics.
o Draw up a schedule.
o Examine your lifestyle.
o Create a study station. 18
Classroom Code of Conduct
Be punctual & prepared to study:
- Attend all classes including online and face-to-face classes.
- Arrive to all classes on time.
- Keep all handouts & work in a folder and make sure they are well organised.
- Prepare yourself for your classes.
Participate in the classroom:
- Participate in class.
- Respect yourself, your teachers, and your classmates.
- Turn mobile phones off or put them on silent mode before entering the classroom.
- Adopt a professional attitude - no eating, side-talk, etc.
Study independently:
- Study outside the classroom as part of your student effort (about 6 to 8 hours per week).
- Complete all homework assignments and hand them in on time.
- Use the University/Faculty facilities (e.g., the library) and online resources.
Respect University regulations:
- Follow (University, Faculty, Department, and Programme) regulations.
- Know the due date of all assessments, submit them by that date & in the required format.
- Understand what you need to successfully progress.
- Maintain academic honesty (academic integrity & plagiarism). 19
Academic Integrity & Plagiarism

o You can discuss ideas and methodology for the homework or the
project with other students in the course, but you must write your
solutions completely independently.

o We will be code-checking to assess similar submissions or

submissions that use code from other sources.

o You may use snippets of code from other sources, as long as you cite
these properly (put a comment above and below whatever portion of
code is copied); but be reasonable.

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Academic
Agenda

21
Week: Starts: Tentative Academic Agenda (Topics)
Wk. 1 Oct. 17 Course Introduction & Plan
Wk. 2 Oct. 24 an introduction to Artificial Intelligence [AI]
Wk. 3 Oct. 31 Intelligent Agents, & AI Related Disciplines
Wk. 4 Nov. 07 Solving Problems by Searching, & State Space Search Strategies & Structures
Wk. 5 Nov. 14 Knowledge Representation via Propositional & Predicate Calculi
Wk. 6 Nov. 21 Problem Solving as Search (Blind/Uninformed vs. Heuristic/Informed Strategies)
Wk. 7 Nov. 28 Midterm Written Exams (15%) – Schedule TBA by the Faculty
Wk. 8 Dec. 05 Problem Solving as Search (More on Heuristic Search + Adversarial Search)
Wk. 9 Dec. 12 Beyond Classical Search (Evolutionary/Genetic Algorithms)
Wk. 10 Dec. 19 Supervised Machine Learning: Decision Trees via the ID3 Algo. + BI app. via Weka
Wk. 11 Dec. 26 The Learning Problem, the Perceptron, & the Perceptron Learning Algo. [PLA]
Wk. 12 Jan. 2 Multilayer Perceptron [MLP], & an intro. to Artificial Neural Networks [ANNs]
Wk. 13 Jan. 9 Loss Functions, Weights Optimization, & Support Vector Machines [SVMs]
Wk. 14 Jan. 16 Heuristic Optimization, Hill Climbing, Gradient Descent, & Simulated Annealing
Quizzes (Practical & Written), Assignments & Sheets (10%) – Deadlines TBA online
Final Practical Exams – Group Project (25%) – Schedule TBA by the Faculty
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Final Written Exams (50%) – Schedule TBA by the Faculty
 Up Next ..
Welcome to Lecture 1
CS361

an Introduction to
Artificial Intelligence

Thank you!