CS 980: Combinatorial Search and Heuristic Optimization

Professor Wheeler Ruml

How does a robot decide what to do? How does UPS route its trucks? How do telcos configure their networks? Algorithms for problems like these are some of the most fun in computer science and lie at the core of artificial intelligence. By the end of this graduate seminar, not only will you have read some of the current literature in this area, you will have pushed forward the frontier of knowledge.

Official description: General techniques for solving shortest-path, constraint satisfaction, and combinatorial optimization problems, and their application in areas such as planning, robotics, and bioinformatics. Students read the scientific literature and prepare an original research contribution. Prereq: introductory AI or permission of the instructor.

My current plan is that we'll all pursue research on the topic of combining heuristic search and machine learning.

In Fall 2008, meets Mondays and Wednesdays 12:40-2:00pm in Kingsbury N233 (note new time and room!). These class meetings subsume the UNH AI Group weekly meetings, and anyone interested in AI is welcome to attend the seminar.

Schedule

Wed Dec 17: Final papers due
Fri Dec 12?: Paper presentations.
Wed Dec 10: Reviews of drafts due and handed back.
Mon Dec 8: Draft papers due.
Wed Dec 3:
Mon Dec 1:
[ Wed Nov 26 is on a Friday schedule ]
Mon Nov 24:
Wed Nov 19:
Mon Nov 17:
Wed Nov 12:
Mon Nov 10:
Wed Nov 5:
Mon Nov 3:
Wed Oct 29:
Mon Oct 27:
Wed Oct 22:
Mon Oct 20:
Wed Oct 15:
Mon Oct 13:
Wed Oct 8:
Mon Oct 6:
Wed Oct 1:
Mon Sep 29: Written project proposal due.
Wed Sept 24:
Mon Sept 22: Chenoweth and Davis, IJCAI-91 (available in the library: Q335.I57, p198--203. Don't use the poor copy available on-line.). You should have selected your project by now - we'll discuss it in our individual meetings.
Wed Sept 17: No class meeting. You should have completed the `warm up exercise' by now (any search algorithm and a selected test domain in OCaml). Please email me a tarball of your code before Monday.
Mon Sept 15: Fast and loose, STAIR 2008. Jordan's talk slides are here. In class, please say what project you're interested in so that you can form teams if necessary.
Wed Sept 10: ARA*, NIPS 2004
Mon Sept 8: Anytime Heuristic Search, JAIR 2007
Fri Sept 5: You should have installed and played with OCaml by now. See the AI group's OCaml notes. Feel free to update the wiki.
Wed Sept 3: You should already have the Russell and Norvig textbook (2nd edition). You might also want to review How to Read a Paper and The Task of the Referee.

Other resources