Second Writing Assignment
Report Topic To Instructor: 8:00 am Monday, September 29
Due: Tuesday, October 7
Much of the reading and class discussion for the first part of the course
has focused upon some general themes and approaches of artificial
intelligence. This assignment asks you to investigate a specific expert
system in somewhat more detail. More specifically, you should follow these
steps.
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Explore sources in the library to find information on an expert
system or an artificial intelligence program. For example, you might focus
on an application, such as
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a chess-playing program, such as Deep Blue,
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a medical-diagnosis program, such as MYCIN,
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a geological-formation program, such as PROSPECTOR,
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a chemical-analysis program, such as DENDRAL,
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a computer-configuration program, such as XCON,
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a speech-recognition program,
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a language-translation program, or
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a robot-control program.
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Write a 2-3 page paper that describes your specific example program. Your
discussion should include:
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an identification of the problem the program attempts to address,
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a high-level view of how the program works (e.g., rule-based expert system,
frame-based searching program, neural network, etc.)
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a review of how successfully the program solves the targeted problem.
In order to encourage an early start on this paper, you should report your
topic to the instructor by 8:00 am on Monday, September 29. This report
should indicate both the expert system that you will discuss and the
source(s) you have found that describes that system. (If, despite
considerable effort, you have been unable to identify a topic by this
deadline, you should report what work you have done, and you should make an
appointment to see the instructor on Monday or Tuesday, September 29 or
30.)
You should write this paper at a level appropriate for others in the class.
Thus, you can assume your reader has understood material discussed in class
and in readings, but you should not assume any ideas specific to your
selected program.
As in all papers, the paper's introduction should indicate how your material
is organized, as well as identify the main topic of the paper. Also,
following normal practice, you must cite other people's ideas in footnotes,
and you must include a bibliography.
You must use word processing software to prepare your paper, you must
turn in 3 copies of your paper, and your paper must be printed on a
laser-quality printer.
This document is available on the World Wide Web as
http://www.math.grin.edu/~walker/courses/tutorial/writing/paper2.html
created August 23, 1997
last revised September 23, 1997