Intelligent Systems
Search Methods
Copyright 2010 Dieter Fensel and Federico Facca
Where are we?
# 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Title Introduction Propositional Logic Predicate Logic Reasoning Search Methods CommonKADS Problem-Solving Methods Planning Software Agents Rule Learning Inductive Logic Programming Formal Concept Analysis Neural Networks Semantic Web and Services
Outline
Motivation Technical Solution
Uninformed Search
Depth-First Search Breadth-First Search Best-First Search Hill Climbing A*
Informed Search
Illustration by a Larger Example Extensions Summary
Problem Solving as Search
MOTIVATION
Motivation
One of the major goals of AI is to help humans in solving complex tasks
How can I fill my container with pallets? Which is the shortest way from Milan to Innsbruck? Which is the fastest way from Milan to Innsbruck? How can I optimize the load of my freight to maximize my revenue? How can I solve my Sudoku game? What is the sequence of actions I should apply to win a game?
Sometimes finding a solution is not enough, you want the optimal solution according to some cost criteria All the example presented above involve looking for a plan A plan that can be defined as the set of operations to be performed of an initial state, to reach a final state that is considered the goal state Thus we need efficient techniques to search for paths, or sequences of actions, that can enable us to reach the goal state, i.e. to find a plan Such techniques are commonly called Search Methods
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Examples of Problems: Towers of Hanoi
3 pegs A, B, C 3 discs represented as natural numbers (1, 2, 3) which correspond to the size of the discs The three discs can be arbitrarily distributed over the three pegs, such that the following constraint holds: di is on top of dj di < dj Initial status: ((123)()()) Goal status: (()()(123))
1 2 3 A B C
Operators: Move disk to peg Applying: Move 1 to C (1 C)
to the initial state ((123)()()) a new state is reached ((23)()(1))
Cycles may appear in the solution!
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Examples of Problems: Blocksworld
D C
E C A
B D
Initial State
Goal State
Objects: blocks Attributes (1-ary relations): cleartop(x), ontable(x) Relations: on(x,y) Operators: puttable(x) where x must be cleartop; put(x,y), where x and y must be cleartop
Initial state:
ontable(E), cleartop(E) ontable(A), cleartop(A) ontable(B), cleartop(B) ontable(C) on(D,C), cleartop (D) on(E,A), cleartop(E) ontable(A) ontable(B), cleartop(B) ontable(C) on(D,C), cleartop (D)
Applying the move put(E,A):
Search Methods
TECHNICAL SOLUTION
Search Space Representation
Representing the search space is the first step to enable the problem resolution Search space is mostly represented through graphs A graph is a finite set of nodes that are connected by arcs A loop may exist in a graph, where an arc lead back to the original node In general, such a graph is not explicitly given Search space is constructed during search
Node
Loop
Arc
Search Space Representation
undirect
direct
A graph is undirected if arcs do not imply a direction, direct otherwise A graph is connected if every pair of nodes is connected by a path A connected graph with no loop is called tree A weighted graph, is a graph for which a value is associated to each arc
2
connected
disconnected
tree
weighted
1 4 2 1 1 1 5 6
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Example: Towers of Hanoi*
These nodes are equals 1 2 3 A 2 3 A 1 B
C 2 3 A
1 B
1 B 1 C C 2 3 A
2 C 3 A 2 B
3 A
1 B
1 3 A B 2 C 3 A B 1 2 C 3 A 1 2 B 1 2 B C 1 3 A 2 B C
A 3 C
* A partial tree search space representation
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Example: Towers of Hanoi*
* A complete direct graph representation [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Hanoi]
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Search Methods
A search method is defined by picking the order of node expansion Strategies are evaluated along the following dimensions:
completeness: does it always find a solution if one exists? time complexity: number of nodes generated space complexity: maximum number of nodes in memory optimality: does it always find the shortest path solution?
Time and space complexity are measured in terms of
b: maximum branching factor of the search tree d: depth of the shortest path solution m: maximum depth of the state space (may be )
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Search Methods
Uninformed techniques
Systematically search complete graph, unguided Also known as brute force, nave, or blind
Informed methods
Use problem specific information to guide search in promising directions
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Brute force approach to explore search space
UNINFORMED SEARCH
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Uninformed Search
A class of general purpose algorithms that operates in a brute force way
The search space is explored without leveraging on any information on the problem
Also called blind search, or nave search Since the methods are generic they are intrinsically inefficient E.g. Random Search
This method selects randomly a new state from the current one If the goal state is reached, the search terminates Otherwise the methods randomly select an other operator to move to the next state
Prominent methods:
Depth-First Search Breadth-First Search Uniform-Cost Search
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Depth-First Search
Depth-First Search (DFS) begins at the root node and exhaustively search each branch to it maximum depth till a solution is found
The successor node is selected going in depth using from right to left (w.r.t. graph representing the search space)
If greatest depth is reach with not solution, we backtrack till we find an unexplored branch to follow
DFS is not complete
If cycles are presented in the graph, DFS will follow these cycles indefinitively If there are no cycles, the algorithm is complete Cycles effects can be limited by imposing a maximal depth of search (still the algorithm is incomplete) The first solution is found and not the shortest path to a solution
DFS is not optimal
The algorithm can be implemented with a Last In First Out (LIFO) stack or recursion
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Depth-First Search: Algorithm
List open, closed, successors={}; Node root_node, current_node; insert-first(root_node,open) while not-empty(open); current_node= remove-first(open); insert-first (current_node,closed); if (goal(current_node)) return current_node; else successors=successorsOf(current_node); for(x in successors) if(not-in(x,closed)) insert-first(x,open); endIf endWhile
N.B.= this version is not saving the path for simplicity
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Depth-First Search: Example
S
A
2 3
S
4 5
B
6
open={S} closed ={} F D
0. Visit S: open={A,B}, closed={S} 1.Visit A: open={S,B,F,B}, closed={A,S}
2.Visit S: open={B,F,B}, closed={S,A,S} 3.Visit B: open={S,A,F,D,F,B}, closed={B,S,A,S} 4.Visit S: open={A,F,D,F,B}, closed={S,B,S,A,S}
5.Visit A: open={F,D,F,B}, closed={A,S,B,S,A,S}
6.Visit F: GOAL Reached!
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Depth-First Search: Example
Result is: S->A->B->F
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Depth-First Search: Complexity
Time Complexity
assume (worst case) that there is 1 goal leaf at the RHS so DFS will expand all nodes =1 + b + b2+ ......... + bm = O (bm) where m is the max depth of the tree
d=0
d=1
m=d=2 G
Space Complexity
how many nodes can be in the queue (worst-case)? at each depth l < d we have b-1 nodes at depth m we have b nodes total = (d-1)*(b-1) + b = O(bm)
d=0
d=1 d=2 d=3 m=d=4
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Breadth-First Search
Breadth-First Search (BFS) begins at the root node and explore levelwise al the branches BFS is complete
If there is a solution, BFS will found it
BFS is optimal
The solution found is guaranteed to be the shortest path possible
The algorithm can be implemented with a First In First Out (FIFO) stack
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Breadth-First Search: Algorithm
List open, closed, successors={}; Node root_node, current_node; insert-last(root_node,open) while not-empty(open); current_node=remove-first(open); insert-last(current_node,closed); if (goal(current_node)) return current_node; else successors=successorsOf(current_node); for(x in successors) if(not-in(x,closed)) insert-last(x,open); endIf endWhile N.B.= this version is not saving the path for simplicity
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Breadth-First Search: Example
S
2
A
3
open = {S}, closed={} 0. Visit S: open = {A,B}, closed={S} 1. Visit A: open={B,S,B,F}, closed={S,A} 2. Visit B: open={S,B,F,F,A,C,D}, closed={S,A,B} 3. Visit S: open={B,F,F,A,C,D}, closed={S,A,B,S} 4. Visit B: open={F,F,A,C,D,S,A,C,D}, closed={S,A,B,S,B} 5. Visit F: Goal Found!
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Breadth-First Search: Example
Result is: S->A->F
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Breadth-First Search: Complexity
Time complexity is the same magnitude as DFS
O (bm) where m is the depth of the solution
Space Complexity
how many nodes can be in the queue (worst-case)? assume (worst case) that there is 1 goal leaf at the RHS so BFS will store all nodes =1 + b + b2+ = O (bm) ......... + bm
1
d=0 d=1
d=2
4 5 6 7
d=3
8 9 10 11 12 13 14
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d=4
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Further Uninformed Search Strategies
Depth-limited search (DLS): Impose a cut-off (e.g. n for searching a path of length n-1), expand nodes with max. depth first until cut-off depth is reached (LIFO strategy, since it is a variation of depth-first search). Bidirectional search (BIDI): forward search from initial state & backward search from goal state, stop when the two searches meet. Average effort O(bd/2) if testing whether the search fronts intersect has constant effort In AI, the problem graph is typically not known. If the graph is known, to find all optimal paths in a graph with labelled arcs, standard graph algorithms can be used
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Using knowledge on the search space to reduce search costs
INFORMED SEARCH
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Informed Search
Blind search methods take O(bm) in the worst case
May make blind search algorithms prohibitively slow where d is large How can we reduce the running time?
Use problem-specific knowledge to pick which states are better candidates
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Informed Search
Also called heuristic search
In a heuristic search each state is assigned a heuristic value (h-value) that the search uses in selecting the best next step A heuristic is an operationally-effective nugget of information on how to direct search in a problem space Heuristics are only approximately correct
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Informed Search: Prominent methods
Best-First Search
A*
Hill Climbing
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Cost and Cost Estimation
f(n)=g(n)+h(n)
g(n) the cost (so far) to reach the node n h(n) estimated cost to get from the node to the goal f(n) estimated total cost of path through n to goal
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Informed Search: Best-First Search
Special case of breadth-first search Uses h(n) = heuristic function as its evaluation function Ignores cost so far to get to that node (g(n)) Expand the node that appears closest to goal Best First Search is complete Best First Search is not optimal
A solution can be found in a longer path (higher h(n) with a lower g(n) value)
Special cases:
uniform cost search: f(n) = g(n) = path to n A* search
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Best-First Search: Algorithm
List open, closed, successors={}; Node root_node, current_node; insert-last(root_node,open)
returns the list of direct while not-empty(open); descendants of the current current_node=remove-first (open); node in shortest cost order insert-last(current_node,closed); if (goal(current_node)) return current_node; else successors=estimationOrderedSuccessorsOf(current_node); for(x in successors) if(not-in(x,closed)) insert-last(x,open); endIf endWhile N.B.= this version is not saving the path for simplicity
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Best-First Search: Example
S
h=1 h=1
2
A
h=2 h=2 h=2
B
3
h=2
h=2
h=2
h=2
0. 1. 2. 3.
open = {S}, closed={} Visit S: open = {A,B}, closed={S} Visit A: open={B,F,B,S}, closed={S,A} Visit B: open={F,B,S,F,A,C,D}, closed={S,A,B} Visit F: Goal Found!
In this case we estimate the cost as the distance from the root node (in term of nodes)
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Best-First Search: Example
S
h=1, w=2 h=1, w=1
A
h=2, w=7 h=2 h=2 h=2, w=4
B
h=2 h=2 h=2
Result is: S->A->F! If we consider real costs, optimal solution is: S->B->F
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A*
Derived from Best-First Search Uses both g(n) and h(n) A* is optimal A* is complete
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A* : Algorithm
List open, closed, successors={}; Node root_node, current_node, goal; insert-back(root_node,open)
while not-empty(open); current_node=remove-front(open); insert-back(current_node,closed); if (current_node==goal) return current_node; else successors=totalEstOrderedSuccessorsOf(current_node); for(x in successors) if(not-in(x,closed)) insert-back(x,open); endIf endWhile N.B.= this version is not saving the path for simplicity
returns the list of direct descendants of the current node in shortest total estimation order
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A* : Example
S
h=1, w=2, g=2
2
h=1, w=1, g=1
A
h=2, w=2, g=4 h=2, w=7, g=9 h=2, w=1 g=3
B
h=2, w=4, g=5
3
h=2 w=3 g=4
4
h=2, w=4, g=5
h=2, w=1 g=2
0. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
open = {S}, closed={} Visit S: open = {B,A}, closed={S} Visit B: open={A,C,A,F,D}, closed={S,B} Visit A: open={C,A,F,D,B,S,F}, closed={S,B,A} Visit C: open={A,F,D,B,S,F}, closed={S,B,A,C} Visit A: open={F,D,B,S,F}, closed={S,B,A,C,A} Visit F: Goal Found!
In this case we estimate the cost as the distance from the root node (in term of nodes)
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A* : Example
S
h=1, w=2, g=2 h=1, w=1, g=1
A
h=2, w=2, g=4 h=2, w=7, g=9 h=2, w=1 g=3 h=2, w=4, g=5
B
h=2 w=3 g=4 h=2, w=4, g=5
h=2, w=1 g=2
Result is: S->B->F!
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Hill Climbing
Special case of depth-first search Uses h(n) = heuristic function as its evaluation function Ignores cost so far to get to that node (g(n)) Expand the node that appears closest to goal Hill Climbing is not complete
Unless we introduce backtracking
Hill Climbing is not optimal
Solution found is a local optimum
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Hill Climbing: Algorithm
List successors={}; Node root_node, current_node, nextNode; current_node=root_node while (current_node!=null) if (goal(current_node)) return current_node; else successors=successorsOf(current_node); nextEval = -; nextNode=null; for(x in successors) if(eval(x)> nextEval) nexEval=eval(x); nextNode=x; current_node=nextNode, endIf endWhile N.B.= this version is not using backtracking
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Hill Climbing: Example
S
h=1 h=1
A
h=2 h=3
2
B
h=2
h=2 h=2 h=2 h=2
B
3
F
h=1
F 0. 1. 2. 3.
current_node=S, successors (A=1,B=1) current_node=A, successors (B=2,F=2,S=2) current_node=B, successors (F=1,.) current_node=F: Goal Found!
In this case we estimate the cost as the distance from the root node (in term of nodes)
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Hill Climbing: Example
S
h=1 h=1
A
h=2 h=3 h=2
B
h=2
h=2 h=2 h=2
B
h=1
Result is: S->A->B->F! Not optimal, more if at step 1 h(S)=2 we would have completed without funding a solution
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Informed Search Algorithm Comparison
Algorithm Best First Search Hill Climbing A*
Time O(bm) O() O(2N)
Space O(bm) O(b) O(bd)
Optimal No No Yes
Complete Yes No Yes
Derivative BFS
Best First Search
b, branching factor d, tree depth of the solution m, maximum tree depth
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ILLUSTRATION BY A LARGER EXAMPLE
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Route Search
Start point: Milan End point: Innsbruck Search space: Cities
Nodes: Cities Arcs: Roads
Lets find a possible route!
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Graph Representation
Feldkirck Landeck
Innsbruck (Goal)
We start from the root node, and pick the leaves The same apply to each leaves
But we do not reconsider already used arcs
Merano
Bolzano Chiavenna Sondrio Lugano
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Trento
Como
Lecco Bergamo
Verona
Milan (Root)
Brescia
The first node picked is the first node on the right
Piacenza
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Depth-First Search
Milan
1
Piacenza
2
Bergamo Brescia Verona Trento Bolzano Trento Bolzano Merano Innsbruck Landeck
Lecco
Como
Brescia Verona
3
Trento Bolzano
4
Trento Bolzano
Merano Innsbruck Landeck
Merano Innsbruck Landeck
Merano Innsbruck Landeck
According to Google Maps: 464 km 4 hours 37 mins
Innsbruck Innsbruck Innsbruck
Innsbruck
N.B.: by building the tree, we are exploring the search space!
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Breadth-First search
Milan
1 4 3
Piacenza
5
Bergamo
6
Lecco
7 8 9 Lugano 17 18
Como
10
Brescia
11
12
Brescia
13 14
Chiavenna
15
Sondrio Merano
Lecco
19 20 21
Verona
22
Trento
23
Verona
24
Trento
25
Landeck
16 Lugano
Chi.
Feld.
Chi.
Sondrio
Trento Bolzano
Bolzano
Trento Bolzano
Bolzano
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Innsbruck
Innsbruck Merano Innsbruck Landeck
Innsbruck Merano
Innsbruck
Landeck
According to Google Maps: 358 km 5 hours 18 mins
Innsbruck
Innsbruck
N.B.: by building the tree, we are exploring the search space!
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Depth-First Search vs Breadth-First search
Distance
DFS: 464 km BFS: 358 km Q1: Can we use an algorithm to optimize according to distance? DFS: 4 hours 37 mins BFS: 5 hours 18 mins Q2: Can we use an algorithm to optimize according to time? DFS: 5 expansions BFS: 26 expansions Not very relevant depends a lot on how you pick the order of node expansion, never the less BFS is usually more expensive
Time
Search space:
To solve Q1 and Q2 we can apply for example and Best-First Search
Q1: the heuristic maybe the air distance between cities Q2: the heuristic maybe the air distance between cities x average speed (e.g. 90km/h)
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Graph Representation with approximate distance
Feldkirck
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Landeck
63
Innsbruck (Goal)
100 90 180 140
Merano
25 135 55
Bolzano
Chiavenna
40
Sondrio
60 42
Lugano
20
Trento
90
Como
45
25 50 55
Lecco Bergamo
45
80
Milan (Root)
60 70
60
Brescia
Verona
Piacenza
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Best-First search
Milan
Piacenza 4 H=60 Brescia 11 H=130
Bergamo 3 H=55 Brescia 8
Lecco
H=50
Como 1
H=45
H=100
H=92 H=110 Lugano 5 H=65 Lecco 6 H=70 Chiavenna 10 Sondrio 7
H=190 Verona 16 H=270 Trento
Bolzano
H=220
Trento 18 Bolzano
H=160 Verona 15
Trento 20
H=227 H=105 H=245 H=130 H=142 H=190 H=150 H=250 Trento 17 Landeck 22 Lugano 14 Merano 19 Chi. 9 Feld. 21 Chi. 12 Sondrio 13
H=275
H=245 H=240 Bolzano 21 H=313
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According to Google Maps: 358 km 5 hours 18 mins And this is really the shortest way!
Bolzano Innsbruck Innsbruck Merano
Innsbruck
Merano Innsbruck Landeck
Innsbruck
Landeck
Innsbruck
Innsbruck
N.B.: by building the tree, we are exploring the search space!
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EXTENSIONS
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Variants to presented algorithms
Combine Depth First Search and Breadth First Search, by performing Depth Limited Search with increased depths until a goal is found Enrich Hill Climbing with random restart to hinder the local maximum and foothill problems Stochastic Beam Search: select w nodes randomly; nodes with higher values have a higher probability of selection Genetic Algorithms: generate nodes like in stochastic beam search, but from two parents rather than from one
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SUMMARY
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Summary
Uninformed Search
If the branching factor is small, BFS is the best solution If the tree is depth IDS is a good choice
Informed Search
Heuristic function selection determines the efficiency of the algorithm If actual cost is very expensive to be computed, then Best First Search is a good solution Hill climbing tends to stack in local optimal solutions
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REFERENCES
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References
Mandatory reading:
Chap. 4: Grz et. al. (eds.): Handbuch der Knstlichen Intelligenz, 2000
Further reading and references:
Chap. 3: Russell, Stuart J.; Norvig, Peter: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (2nd ed.), 2003 Chap.2-3: M. Tim Jones: Artificial Intelligence: A Systems Approach
Wikipedia links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth-first_search http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breadth-first_search http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best-first_search http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A*_search_algorithm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_climbing
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Next Lecture
# 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Title Introduction Propositional Logic Predicate Logic Reasoning Search Methods CommonKADS Problem-Solving Methods Planning Software Agents Rule Learning Inductive Logic Programming
12
13 14
Formal Concept Analysis
Neural Networks Semantic Web and Services
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Questions?
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