COMP7021 Knowledge Representation and Reasoning 
 

Western Sydney University acknowledges the peoples of the Darug, Dharawal, Eora and Wiradjuri nations. We also acknowledge that the teaching and learning currently delivered across our campuses is a continuance of the teaching and learning that has occurred on these lands for tens of thousands of years.

Subject Details

Note: Students with any problems, concerns or doubts should discuss those with the Subject Coordinator as early as they can.

Subject Coordinator

Name: Dr. Osamah Albahri

Phone: Via teams

Location: 470 Bourke St, Melbourne VIC 3000 Email: osamah.shihab@atmc.edu.au Consultation Arrangement:

will be published on vuws

Edition: ATMC Spring 2024

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Contents

1. About Knowledge Representation and Reasoning 2
   1. An Introduction to this Subject 2
   2. What is Expected of You 2
   3. Changes to Subject as a Result of Past Student Feedback 3
2. Learning and Teaching Activities 4
3. Assessment Information 6
   1. Subject Learning Outcomes 6
   2. Assessment Summary 6
      1. Quiz 9
      2. 2 X Practical

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1. Report+ Programming+

Presentation 13

1. Readings and Resources 15

   1. Essential Readings 15
   2. Recommended Readings 15
   3. Other Teaching and Learning Resources 16

2. Key Teaching and Learning Policies 17
    

3. About Knowledge Representation and Reasoning

1. An Introduction to this Subject

Knowledge representation and reasoning is one of the fundamental components of Artificial Intelligence. Students will learn the principles and methodologies that are used to represent and reason about human knowledge effectively in formal computational models, and eventually solve complex tasks using computer systems. This subject covers logic foundations of knowledge representation and reasoning, Answer Set Programming approaches for declarative problem solving, intelligent agent modelling, diagnostic and probabilistic reasoning. The subject plays an important part in preparing students for career paths as AI engineers, robotics engineers and intelligent software engineers.

1. What is Expected of You

Study Load

A student is expected to study an hour per credit point a week. For example a 10 credit point subject would require 10 hours of study per week. This time includes the time spent within classes during lectures, tutorials or practicals.

Note for Summer Terms: As Summer subjects deliver the same content and classes over a shorter period of time, the subjects are run in a more intensive mode. Regardless of the delivery mode, the study hours for each subject in Summer will be around 30 hours.

Attendance

It is strongly recommended that students attend all scheduled learning activities to support their learning.

Approach to Learning

Lecture: The lectures present and explore the theoretical aspects of this subject, and allow for discussions of relevant theories, programming, and problem solving tasks.

Tutorial: The tutorial sessions allow students to review and absorb the knowledge they study in lectures, and to communicate directly with the lecturer and other students for enhancing their learning.

Practical: The practical sessions allow students to undertake programming exercises related to the theories studied in lectures, and to receive the lecturer mentoring along with feedback on their progress.

Emails, materials and information on vuws site: Students are required to regularly check their emails and the subject vuws site at least twice a week. New lecture slides, announcement, feedback will be displayed on the vuws site in a regular basis, and sometimes emails will be sent to students directly.

Online Learning Requirements

Subject materials will be made available on the subject’s vUWS (E-Learning) site (https://vuws.westernsydney.edu. au/). You are expected to consult vUWS at least twice a week, as all subject announcements will be made via vUWS. Teaching and learning materials will be regularly updated and posted online by the teaching team.
 

Special Requirements

Essential Equipment:

Not Applicable

Legislative Pre-Requisites:

Not Applicable

1. Changes to Subject as a Result of Past Student Feedback

The University values student feedback in order to improve the quality of its educational programs. The feedback provided helps us improve teaching methods and subjects of study. The survey subjects results inform subject content and design, Subject Outlines, teaching methods, assessment processes and teaching materials.

You are welcome to provide feedback that is related to the teaching of this subject. At the end of the semester you will be given the opportunity to complete a Student Feedback on Subject questionnaire to assess the subject. If requested by your subject coordinator, you may also have the opportunity to complete a Student Feedback on Teaching (SFT) questionnaire to provide feedback for individual teaching staff.

As a result of student feedback, the following changes and improvements to this Subject have recently been made:

• More examples with ASP programs will be demonstrated in the lectures and tutorial/lab classes.
• More detailed reviews will be provided for propositional and first-order logic foundations.
• All assessment tasks will be updated based on previous students’ performance and feedback.
   

1. Learning and Teaching Activities

The above timetable should be used as a guide only, as it is subject to change. Students will be advised of any changes as they become known on the Subject’s vUWS site.
 

1. Assessment Information

1. Subject Learning Outcomes

1. Assessment Summary

The assessment items in this subject are designed to enable you to demonstrate that you have achieved the subject learning outcomes. Completion and submission of all assessment items which have been designated as mandatory or compulsory is essential to receive a passing grade.

To pass this subject you must:

achieve 50% of overall assessment tasks.

Feedback on Assessment

Feedback is an important part of the learning process that can improve your progress towards achieving the learning outcomes. Feedback is any written or spoken response made in relation to academic work such as an assessment task, a performance or product. It can be given to you by a teacher, an external assessor or student peer, and may
 

be given individually or to a group of students. As a Western Sydney University student, it is your responsibility to seek out and act on feedback that is provided to you as a resource to further your learning.

Feedback will be provided to all students after the assessment being marked.

Academic Integrity and Student Misconduct Rule

Western cares about your success as a student and in your future career. Studying with academic integrity safeguards your professional reputation and your degree. All Western students must:

• be familiar with the policies listed below;
• apply principles of academic integrity;
• act honestly and ethically in producing all academic work and assessment tasks; and
• submit work that is their own and acknowledge any sources used in their work.

Each time you submit an assessment, you will declare that you have completed it individually, unless it is a group assignment. In the case of a group assignment, each group member should be ready to document their individual contribution if needed.

The Student Misconduct Rule applies to all students of Western Sydney University including Western Sydney Univer- sity programs taught by other education providers. You must not engage in academic, research or general misconduct as defined in the Rule or you may be subject to sanctions. The University considers submitting falsified documentation in support of requests to redo, resit or extend submissions, including sitting of deferred examinations, as instances of general misconduct.

More information is available in the Academic Integrity Guidelines. It is your responsibility to apply these principles to all work you submit to the University.

Disruption to Studies and Requests for Extensions

Western recognises that there may be times when things outside of your control impact your ability to complete your studies.

You can complete the ”Request an extension or apply for a Disruption to Studies Provision” to request that you are:

• granted an extension,
• excused from a compulsory teaching activity,
• provided an alternate assessment such as a supplementary, or
• awarded another Disruption to Studies Provision.

Before you fill in the form, you should:

• Compile any documentary evidence that you have which demonstrates that you have been impacted by an event outside of your control.
• The Supporting Documentation website outlines the type of documents that you can submit to substantiate

any impact.

Please note that if you don’t have documents, you should still submit the form but you may be asked for documentation at a later stage.

Need help?

If you are having difficulties with understanding or completing an assessment task, contact your Subject Coordinator as soon as possible. Western also has a range of academic support services, including:
 

• Library Study Smart: book a one-to-one Zoom consultation with a literacy expert. You can discuss how to develop your assignment writing and study skills or seek assistance to understand referencing and citation requirements. Check the Library Study Smart website for how-to study guides and tools.
• Studiosity: Upload your assignment draft to Studiosity within vUWS to receive writing feedback within 24

hours.

• Online workshops, programs and resources: From maths and stats help to academic literacy and peer support programs, the University has a range of resources to assist.

Please also remember that there is a range of wellbeing support available - from counselling and disability services to welfare.
 

1. Quiz

Instructions:

Complete a timed quiz consisting of different questions. The quiz will assess your understanding of key concepts and theories discussed in the lectures
 

Marking Criteria:

1. 2 X Practical

Instructions:

Participate in practical scenarios where you will apply knowledge representation techniques to solve real-world problems. Submit your work for evaluation at the end of each assigned session.
 

Marking Criteria:

1. Report+ Programming+ Presentation

Instructions:

Prepare a comprehensive report detailing your approach and findings in a knowledge representation project. Develop an ASP program to demonstrate your solution. Present your project and findings to the class, highlighting key aspects and challenges.
 

Marking Criteria:

1. Readings and Resources

1. Essential Readings Prescribed Textbook

Gelfond, M., & Kahl, Y. (2014). Knowledge representation, reasoning, and the design of intelligent agents. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Essential Reading

Beetz, M. (2022). 21: Knowledge Representation and Reasoning. In A. Cangelosi & M. Asada (Eds.), Cognitive Robotics. The MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/13780.003.0027

Blokdyk, G. (2020 ). Knowledge Representation And Reasoning A Complete Guide. 5STARCooks.

Gelfond, M., & Kahl, Y. (2014). Knowledge representation, reasoning, and the design of intelligent agents : the answer-set programming approach. Cambridge University Press.

Kejriwal, M. (2019). Domain-specific knowledge graph construction. Springer.

1. Recommended Readings Additional Reading

Brachman, R. J., & Levesque, H. J. (2004). Knowledge representation and reasoning. Morgan Kaufmann.

Chowdhary, K. R. (2020). Fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence. Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978- 81-322-3972-7

Diaconescu, R. (Ed.). (2023). Logic and Computation. MDPI - Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute. https://doi.org/10.3390/books978-3-0365-7377-9.

Flach, P., & Sokol, K. (2022). Simply Logical – Intelligent Reasoning by Example (Interactive Online ed.). Cornell University Library. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1156977

Gebser, M., Kaminski, R., Kaufmann, B., & Schaub, T. (2012). Answer Set Solving in Practice (Vol. 6 (3)). https://doi.org/10.2200/S00457ED1V01Y201211AIM019

Genesereth, M. R., & Chaudhri, V. K. (2020). Introduction to logic programming. Morgan & Claypool Publishers.
 

Groza, A. (2021). Modelling puzzles in first order logic. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62547-4

Kumar, A., Sagar, S., Kumar, T. G., & Kumar, K. S. (Eds.). (2022). Prediction and analysis for knowledge representation and machine learning. Chapman & Hall /CRC. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781003126898.

Lifschitz, V. (2019). Answer Set Programming. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3- 030-24658-7

Russell, S., & Norvig, P. (2021). Artificial Intelligence : a Modern Approach (4th Global ed.). Pearson Education, Limited.

1. Other Teaching and Learning Resources
    
2. Key Teaching and Learning Policies

The University has several policies that relate to teaching and learning. Links to important policies affecting students are below. It is your responsibility to ensure you familiarise yourself with these policies so that you are aware of your rights and responsibilities.

• Assessment Policy
• Assessment Policy - Review of Grade Procedures
• Bullying Prevention Policy
• Disruption to Studies Policy
• Enrolment Policy
• Examinations Policy
• Learning and Teaching Policy
• Progression Policy
• Student Code of Conduct
• Student Misconduct Rule