Declarative Programming | Artificial Intelligence Lab Brussels

Professor

Geraint A. Wiggins

Theoretical background: syntax, semantics and proof theory of clausal logic
From logic programming to Prolog: SLD-resolution, steering the search process, negation as failure
Applications: knowledge representation, search algorithms, meta-programming
Evaluation variants: co-routining evaluation
Advanced reasoning techniques: definite clause grammars in natural language processing, constraint logic programming

To offer students insight into the theoretical background that underlies the declarative programming paradigm
To familiarize students with specific programming languages in this paradigm
To acquaint students with applications in the domain of artificial intelligence and automated reasoning for which declarative programming is well-suited

Knowledge and Understanding:
Students have to be able to describe and motivate the underlying principles of declarative programming and logic programming in particular. Based on this theoretical background, students have to be capable of deriving the declarative as well as the procedural interpretation of a concrete logic program.
Application of Knowledge and Understanding:
Students have to be able to apply their newly gained knowledge to typical problems in artificial intelligence.
To this end, the students will develop modest logic programs during the exercise sessions.
Students also have to be able to design a more elaborate knowledge-based system and implement this using logic programming techniques. To this end, students will complete an individual programming project.
Making Judgements:
Students have to be capable of determining whether a given problem lends itself to an implementation that is based on logic programming.
Communication:
Students have to be able to motivate the decisions they make with respect to the aforementioned project, demonstrating that they can communicate clearly on the above topics.
Learning Skills:
Referencing the concepts taught in this course, students will be able to acquaint themselves independently with programming languages from the declarative paradigm and recognize opportunities for applying such languages in practice.