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CS 4611 and CS 7611
AI Problem Solving
Spring 2005

Project 3: Learning Discrimination Trees

Assigned: April 8, 2005
Due: April 27, 2005 (in class)

Note: No extensions will be granted but incomplete projects will be
graded for partial credit. So please, PLEASE start early.

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Introduction:

As we discussed in the class, the three projects in this class pertain
to diagrammatic knowledge and reasoning. The first project
investigated diagram representation and retrieval; the second project
explored issues in analogical transfer; and the third addresses in
learning and memory organization. Thus, succeeding projects
directly build on preceding ones.


Goals:

The main task in the third project is to learn a discrimintaion tree
to organize the emoticons stored in the computer memory. A
discrimination is like a decision tree except that the former is
updated incrementally as new cases arrive in memory. Use the algorithm
we we discussed in class (or design a similar algorithm of your own)
to learn a discimination tree for the stored emoticons.  Once you have
the tree, run your programs from Project 1 and Project 2 to make sure
that the new memory organization still supports retrieval and
transfer. Make sure that the tree can grow incrementally to store new
cases.

Note that you now have two retrieval algorithms: tree traversal using
the decision tree and graph matching using the semantic
networks. Which one works better?


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Languages and Environments:

We encourage you to use Lisp for this project. However, you may use C++
or Java if you wish.

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Deliverables:

You want to deliver (a) the computer program and the test results, and
(b) a brief design critique that documents the design of your program
and critiques based on the experimental results.

*Please* submit the design critique in hardcopy, in class.  Please try to take
this requirement seriously -- some points will have to be deducted this time
for not submitting a hardcopy, quite a few people did not do this last time.

Please submit your software, along with the inputs you used for
testing and the inputs used for seeding your library in a single
tar file emailed to the TA (jkj@cc).  The tar file should also
contain a readme describing how to build/run your code.

For the email portion of the submission, please use a subject of
'CS4611 Project 3 Submission'.  Please put your full name in the body
of the email somewhere (some email addresses do not reflect your name,
such as prism addresses).

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