The book is unique for its diversity in contents, clarity and precision of presentation and the overall completeness of its chapters. It requires no mathematical prerequisites beyond the high school algebra and elementary differential calculus; however, a mathematical maturity is required to follow the logical concepts presented therein. An elementary background of data structure and a high level programming language like Pascal or C is helpful to understand the book. The book, thus, though meant for two semester courses of computer science, will be equally useful to readers of other engineering disciplines and psychology as well as for its diverse contents, clear presentation and minimum prerequisite requirements.
In order to make the students aware of the applied side of the subject, the book includes a few homework problems, selected from a wide range of topics. The problems supplied, in general, are of three types: i) numerical, ii) reflexive and iii) provocative. The numerical problems test the students’ understanding of the subject. The reflexive type requires a formulation of the problem from its statement before finding its solution. The provocative type includes the well-known problems of modern AI research, the solution to some of which are known, and some are open ended. With adequate hints supplied with the problems, the students will be able to solve most of the numerical and reflexive type problems themselves. The provocative type, however, requires some guidance from the teacher in charge. The last type of problems is included in the text to give the research-oriented readers an idea of the current trend in AI research. Graduate students of AI will also find these problems useful for their dissertation work.
The book includes a large number of computer simulations to illustrate the concepts presented in logic programming, fuzzy Petri nets, imaging and robotics. Most of the simulation programs are coded in C and Pascal, so that students without any background of PROLOG and LISP may understand them easily. These programs will enhance the students’ confidence in the subject and enable them to design the simulation programs, assigned in the exercise as homework problems. The professionals will find these simulations interesting as it requires understanding of the end results only, rather than the formal proofs of the theorems presented in the text.
i) Unified theme of presentation: Most of the existing texts on AI cover a set of chapters of diverse thoughts, without demonstrating their inter-relationship. The readers, therefore, are misled with the belief that AI is merely a collection of intelligent algorithms, which precisely is not correct. The proposed book is developed from the perspective of cognitive science, which provides the readers with the view that the psychological model of cognition can be visualized as a cycle of 5 mental states: sensing, acquisition, perception, planning and action, and there exists a strong interdependence between each two sequential states. The significance of search in the state of perception, reasoning in the state of planning, and learning as an intermediate process between sensing and action thus makes sense. The unified theme of the book, therefore, is to realize the behavioral perspective of cognition on an intelligent machine, so as to enable it act and think like a human being. Readers will enjoy the book especially for its totality with an ultimate aim to build intelligent machines.
ii) Comprehensive coverage of the mathematical models: This probably is the first book that provides a comprehensive coverage of the mathematical models on AI and Soft Computing. The existing texts on “mathematical modeling in AI” are beyond the scope of undergraduate students. Consequently, while taking courses at graduate level, the students face much difficulty in studying from monographs and journals. The book, however, bridges the potential gap between the textbooks and advanced monographs in the subject by presenting the mathematical models from a layman’s understanding of the problems.
iii) Case studies: This is the only book that demonstrates the realization of the proposed tools and techniques of AI and Soft Computing through case studies. The readers, through these case studies, will understand the significance of the joint usage of the AI and Soft Computing tools and techniques in interesting problems of the real world. Case studies for two distinct problems with special emphasis to their realization have been covered in the book in two separate chapters. The case study I is concerned with a problem of criminal investigation, where the readers will learn to use the soft computing tools in facial image matching, fingerprint classification, speaker identification and incidental description based reasoning. The readers can build up their own systems by adding new fuzzy production rules and facts and deleting the unwanted rules and facts from the system. The book thus will serve the readership from both the academic and the professional world. Electronic and computer hobbyists will find the case study II on mobile robots very exciting. The algorithms of navigational planning (in case study II), though tested with reference to “Nomad Super Scout II robot,” have been presented in generic form, so that the interested readers can code them for other wheel-based mobile robots.
iv) Line Diagrams: The book includes around 190 line diagrams to give the readers a better insight to the subject. Readers will enjoy the book for they directly get a deeper view of the subject through diagrams with a minimal reading of the text.
The book is an outgrowth of the lecture materials prepared by the author for a one semester course on “Artificial Intelligence,” offered to the graduate students in the department of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering, Jadavpur University, Calcutta. An early version of the text was also used in a summer-school on “AI and Neural Nets,” offered to the faculty members of various engineering colleges for their academic development and training. The training program included theories followed by a laboratory course, where the attendees developed programs in PROLOG, Pascal and C with the help of sample programs/toolkit. The toolkit is included in the book on a CD and the procedure to use it is presented in Appendix A
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