kNoorul Islam College of Engineering, kumarakoil

M. Sc.Software Engineering (5 yrs)-Sixth Semester

XCS 363- Artificial Intelligence
Part-A
UNIT I

1. Define AI.
Artificial Intelligence is the study of how to make computers do things, which at the
moment people do better.
2. What is production system?
Production system provides structure for performing search process. This structure
consists of
A set of rules containing of a left side that determines the applicability of the rule
and right side that describes the action to be performed if the rule is applied.
One or more knowledge data base
A control strategy to decide which rule to apply
A rule applier.
3. What is breadth first search?
A search which proceeds from higher levels to lower levels, checking all the nodes across
all the possible alternatives at each level.
4. What is depth first search?
A search that first picks up one of the possible branches of the search tree, proceeds along
the chosen branch until the goal or some depth level is reached. If the goal has not been reached
goes back to the start point and picks up another branch. This search is called depth first search.
5. What is heuristic search?
A method of solving problems, which consist of a sequence of trials. Heuristic search
applies the heuristic technique which improves the efficiency of search process. But
completeness is not guaranteed here. Eg- Nearest neighbor heuristic.
6. What is local maximum?
Local maximum is a state that is better than all its neighbors but is not better than some
other states farther away.

7. What are Initial and Goal states?

The starting state of the problem solving process is called initial state.
The state which is accepted as the solution to the problem is called goal state.
8. What does heuristic function do?
A heuristic function efficiently guides each search process towards a solution. It shows
the most profitable direction by suggesting which path to follow.
9. Name some heuristic search strategies.
1. Generate and test 2.. Hill climbing 3. Constraint satisfaction 4. Best first search
10. What is plateau?
A plateau in hill climbing is a flat area of the search space in which a whole set of
neighboring state have the same value.
11. What is state space search?
State space is a process used in AI in which successive states of an instance are
considered with the aim of finding the goal state. State space representation forms the basis for
most of the AI problems.
12. List down the issues related to knowledge representation?
Representational adequacy
Inferential adequacy
Inferential efficiency
Acquisitional efficiency.
13. Give the drawbacks of hill climbing algorithm.
Hill climbing may fail to find a solution.
These algorithm may get trapped into state from which no better state can be
generated. This happens if the program reaches local maximum, plateau or ridge.
14. What are the advantages of Breadth first search?
BFS will not get trapped into the blind alley or dead ends.
If there is a solution BFS is guaranteed to get it.
If there is a multiple solution BFS finds the minimum solution.
15. List any two programming languages suitable for AI programming.
LISP
- List processing
PROLOG
-Programming Logic

16. Give the applications of AI

Robotics
Game playing
Expert systems
17. Define knowledge based systems.
Systems that depend on a rich base of knowledge to perform difficult task.
Eg- Expert systems like MYCIN, DENDRAL
18. Define Ridge.
Ridge is a special kind of local maximum. It is an area of the search space that is higher
than surrounding areas and that itself has a slope.
19. Give the types of knowledge
Simple relational knowledge
Inheritable knowledge
Inferential knowledge
Procedural knowledge.
20. Give the importance of plausible move generator.
Plausible move generator is used in Game playing. Unlike legal move generators,
plausible move generator generates only small number of promising moves which reduces
wastage of time and helps to produce more reliable result.
21. What is the need to have control strategy?
Control strategy helps to decide which rule to apply next during the process of searching
for a solution to a problem. It specifies the order in which the rules will be compared to the
database. Also resolves conflict if more than one rule matches at the same time.

UNIT-II
22. What is Script?
Script is a structure that describes sequence of events in a particular context. Script
consists of set of slots. Every slot is associated with some information.
23. Write the important components of a script.
Entry conditions
Result
Props
Roles
Track
Scenes
24. What is conceptual dependency?
Conceptual dependency (CD) is a way of representing knowledge about events. CD
provides both a structure and a specific set of primitives to represent any information.
Ex: I Gave the man a book
I ATRANS

book

<
25. What is semantic net?
Semantic nets is a type of knowledge representation where objects and values are represented
nodes connected with labeled arcs that indicate the relationships between the various nodes.
26. What is frame?
Frame is a collection of attributes and associated values that describe some entity in the world.
These attributes are called slots. Frame systems can be formed by connecting frames to each
other.
27. What is resolution?
Resolution is a proof procedure that operates on statements that have been converted to standard
form. Resolution proves by refutation.
28. Define prepositional logic.
A means for making inferences from prepositions. Given the sequence of propositions,
prepositional logic attempts to infer further prepositions based on the propositions and the rules.

29. Define predicate logic.

A inference logic that reasons from sentences that are composed of terms (eg. Nouns) and
predicates(verbs). It is a modern descendent of classical Aristotelian logic.
30. Why predicate logic is more preferred than prepositional logic?

Prepositional logic fails to capture relation between variables and

quantification.
Eg: MORTALMAN , MARCUSMAN

Predicate logic provides good way of reasoning knowledge compared to

prepositional logic.
Eg. MAN(MARCUS).
31. List different ways of representing knowledge.
Semantic nets
Frames
Scripts
Conceptual dependency

32. List down strong slot filler structure

Scripts, Conceptual dependency, CYC
33. List down weak slot filler structure
Semantic nets, Frames
34. Define refutation (or) How resolution works?
Refutation is the process of proving a statement by proving that negation of that statement
produces contradiction with the known statements. Resolution produces proofs by this refutation.
35. What is unification? Give an example.
Unification is a matching procedure that compares two literals and discovers whether there
exists a set of substitutions that make them identical.
36. State the four primitive conceptual categories.
ACTs - Actions
PPs
Objects
AAs
- modifiers of actions
Pas
- Modifiers of PPs

37. Define Unifier.

Any substitution that makes two or more expressions equal is called unifier for the expressions.
38. What are the three parts of rule based production system?
Knowledge base
Working memory
Rule interpreter

39. What is declarative knowledge?

Declarative knowledge is one in which the knowledge is specified.
40. What is procedural knowledge?
It is one in which the control information that is necessary to use is the knowledge is considered
to be embedded in the knowledge itself.
41. List any two properties of Well formed formulae.
Should have less embedding of components
Must be quantifier free.

UNIT III
42. What is default reasoning?
Default reasoning is the ability of the reasoning system to reach conclusions that are not
strict consequences of the current state. A default reasoning ability allows a system to continue to
operate on partial data.
43. What is default reasoning?
Default reasoning is another form of non-monotonic reasoning which eliminates the need to
explicitly store all facts regarding a situation.
It is expressed as a(x):Mb1(x),.mb(x)
------------------------------C(x)
44. What is Bayesian network?
It is a graphical model that is used to represent probabilistic relationship among a set of
attributes. The node represents the state of attributes. The arcs in the network represents
probability models connecting the attributes.
45. What is rule based system?
An IF-THEN rule in an expert system describes a problem situation and the action an expert
would take in that situation.
46. What is closed word assumption?
The assumption made with regard to incomplete knowledge is more global in nature. It is
reasonable to assume if a proposition cannot be proven it is false. This is known as closed world
assumption.
47. What is Dependent Directed Backtracking?
In Truth maintenance system when contradiction is discovered, statement responsible for
contradiction is identified by backtracking directly to the node causing contradiction. This
process is known as Dependency directed backtracking. This is an efficient search strategy.
48. Define Bayes theorem.
Bayes theorem is a statistical theory of evidence which helps to modify the behavior of the
system on the basis of evidence. The notion of bayes theorem is
P(H/E)
Probability of hypothesis H given that evidence E is observed.

49. Define fuzzy logic.

A logic system based on manipulation of fuzzy sets. Some of the basic rules include definition
for intersection, union and complements.
50. Define the logics for non-monotonic reasoning.
Abduction
Inheritance
Modal logic, Temporal logic
51. What are the disadvantages of closed world assumption?
It operates on individual predicates without considering the interactions among them.
It assumes that all predicates have all their instances listed. But actually it is not
done in many knowledge based systems.
52. What is temporal logic?
Temporal logics are a type of modal logics which uses modal operators in relation to concept of
time such as past, present, sometimes, always, precedes, succeeds etc.,
53. What is non-monotonic reasoning?
Reasoning with incomplete information with the help of extended axioms and rules of
inferences. Non-monotonic reasoning has the property that at any given moment , a statement is
either true or false or either.
54. What is statistical reasoning?
Reasoning with the knowledge ,that is represented with statistical measures describing levels of
evidence and belief is called statistical reasoning.
55. How to set membership values for fuzzy system?
(or)
56. Distinguish between conventional logic and fuzzy logic.
Fuzzy set allows to set membership as a possibility distribution.
Conventional logic sets membership as Boolean predicate, while fuzzy set represents
membership as possibility distribution.
1
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -1 ---------_________tall
_______very tall
0

0
Height
Fuzzy membership

height
Conventional membership

57. What is dempster shafer theory?

Demspter shafer theory considers sets of propositions and assigns to each of them an interval
[belief, plausibility] in which the degree of belief must lie.
Belief measures strength of evidence and range from 0 to 1. Plausibility also ranges from 0 to 1
58. Give some classification of modal logic.
Alethic logic, deontic logic, Epistemic logic, temporal logic are some kinds of modal logic.
59. What is partitioned semantic nets?
To express simple quantified expressions in semantic nets the net is partitioned into hierarchical
set of spaces, each of which corresponds to the scope of one or more variables is called
partitioned semantic nets.
60. Give the components of rule based system
Inference Engine
TMS
Knowledgebase.

UNIT IV
61. Define Alphabet.
The finite set of symbols of the languages is called the alphabet or vocabulary.
62. Define Chomsky hierarchy of generative grammars.

Type 0 making simple restriction that y cannot be empty string

Type 1 Context sensitive grammar
Type 2 Finite set of regular grammar
Type 3 context free grammar.

63. What are the levels of natural language.

Phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, and world.
64. What is transformational grammar?
The extended grammar which provides mechanism to produce single representations for
sentences having the same meaning through a series of transformations.
65. What are systemic grammars?
Systemic grammars emphasize function and purpose in the analysis of language.
66. Define lexion.
A Lexicon is a dictionary of words where each word contains some syntactic , semantic and
possibly some pragmatic information.
67. What is the use of transition networks?
Transition networks are methods used to represent formal and natural language structures. They
are based on the applications of graphs.
68. What is RTN?
RTN stands for recursive transition network which permits arc labels to refer to another
networks, and they in turn may refer back to the referring network.
69. What is ATN?
ATN stands for Augmented transition networks. They are basically RTN with additional features
like performing tests and store immediate results as a sentence is being parsed.
70. Define realization.
Realization is the process of mapping the organized content to actual text.

71. What are the three functions of system grammars?

The ideational function
The interpersonal function
The texual function.
72. Give an example for top down parsing .
Top down parse of the sentence Kathy jumped the horse is
s-> NP VP
->NAME VP
->Kathy VP
->Kathy V NP
->Kathy jumped NP
->Kathy jumped ART N
->Kathy jumped the N
->Kathy jumped the horse
73. Give an expel for bottom up parsing.
Write the above example in reverse order.
74. What is Intelligent agents? What are its characteristics?
In artificial intelligence, an intelligent agent (IA) is an autonomous entity which observes and
acts upon an environment (i.e. it is an agent) and directs its activity towards achieving goals (i.e.
it is rational Intelligent agents may also learn or use knowledge to achieve their goals. They may
be very simple or very complex: a reflex machine such as a thermostat is an intelligent agent
75. Write the approaches to be considered while creating a semantic representation of a
sentence?
Sentences are analysed and words are matched to metasymbols in lexicon entries
Encode semantic information into syntactic grammar.
76. Name some natural language understanding systems
LUNAR, LIFER, SHRDLU
77. Write down basic parsing techniques.
Topdown parsing, bottom up parsing, deterministic parsing,non-deterministic parsing.
78. Define parsing.
Parsing is the process of analyzing a sentence by taking it apart word-by-word and determining
its structure from its constituent parts and sub parts.

79. What are the three functions that classify language?

The ideal function
The interpersonal function
The textual function.

80. List the three major components of LUNAR system.

A general purpose grammar and an ATN parser
A rule driven semantic interpreter
A database retrieval and inference component.

UNIT V
81. Define Expert system.
An expert system is a set of programs that manipulates encoded knowledge to solve problem in
a specialized domain that normally requires human expertise.
82. Give the sources of knowledge for expert system.
Journals, texts, technical papers, database, reports , the environment, knowledge from experts
etc .they are encoded in form suitable for the system.
83. List the components involved in expert system
Explanation module, I/O interface, editor, inference engine, knowledge base, learning module,
case history file, working memory.
84. Define knowledge acquisition.
Knowledge acquisition is a process of adding new knowledge to a knowledge base and refining
or otherwise improving knowledge that was preciously acquired.
85. List the different types of learning methods.
Memorization
Direct instruction
Analogy
Induction
Deduction
86. What is rote learning?
Learning by memorization is called rote learning. This is simple storing of computed
information. This is the simplest form of learning.
87. What is Inductive learning? (or) what is learning by examples?
Inductive learning or learning by example is a process of acquiring knowledge from examples
or instances of some class. This form of learning is accomplished through inductive inference.
Eg: concluding all swans are white by observing group of white swans.
88. Give some advantages of expert system?
It uses knowledge rather than data
They are capable of explaining how particular conclusion has reached.
Use symbolic representation for knowledge.
89. What are the components involved in black board system?
Knowledge sources

Black board
Control information.

90. Define neural network.

They are large network of simple processing elements or nodes which process information
dynamically in response to external inputs. The nodes are simplified models of biological
neuron.
91. What is EBL?
EBL stands for explanation based learning. This is a form of deductive generalization. An EBL
system attempts to learn from a single example x by explaining why x is an example of the target
concept.
92. What are the information that must be known in advance in EBL?
A training example, A goal concept, Criteria for operationality and a Domain theory.
93. What is knowledge engineering?
It is a branch of computer science. It is the design and development of the expert system. It is
one of the building tools for the large scale system.
94. What is the difference between production and non-production system?
Production systems are based on rules such as rule based database and rule based interpreter.
Major of the expert system is based on this.
Non production systems are based on the structured representation sches like semantic nets,
decision trees frames etc.
95. What is Intelligent agents? What are its characteristics?
In artificial intelligence, an intelligent agent (IA) is an autonomous entity which observes and
acts upon an environment (i.e. it is an agent) and directs its activity towards achieving goals (i.e.
it is rational Intelligent agents may also learn or use knowledge to achieve their goals. They may
be very simple or very complex: a reflex machine such as a thermostat is an intelligent agent
96. Define induction.
Induction is the process of class formation. These classes are goal oriented.
97. List the steps for selective generalization.
Changing constants to variables
Dropping condition
Adding an alternative
Climbing generalization tree
Closing an interval

98. Name some knowledge system building tools.

Personal consultant plus,
Radian rule master, KEE, OPS5 system
99. Give some areas of applications of expert system.
Medical diagnosis, forecasting crop damage, Stock selection and management, Space planning
and exploration, teaching, electronic, biology, chemistry geology etc.
100.

List some disadvantages or limitations of expert system.

Lacks common sense needed in some decision making
Cannot make creative responses as human expert would in unusual circumstances
Domain experts not always able to explain their logic and reasoning
Errors may occur in the knowledge base, and lead to wrong decisions
Cannot adapt to changing environments, unless knowledge base is changed.

101.
Name some early expert systems.
DENDRAL, MYCIN, THEIRSIUS, GUIDON, EMYCIN, PROSPECTOR, RI XCON etc.,