Helwan University Fall Semester

Faculty of Computers and Artificial Intelligence Artificial Intelligence – CS361

Academic Year (2020/2021) Undergraduate Studies – Level 3

Structures & Strategies for State Space Search

Sheet # 2
No. Of Questions: 4 No. Of Pages: 2

Question 1: Define the following terms:

a. State Space Graph: A mathematical representation of the search problem as for every search
problem there is corresponding state space graph that shows each state in the search problem.

b. Exhaustive Search: Searching in the entire state space until finding the best possible match.

c. Heuristics: Is a strategy for selectively exploring the search space.

d. Path: It is the sequence between two edges in a graph.

e. Rooted Graph: It is a graph where one of the vertices is distinguished as a root.

f. Tree:ِ A connected graph with no cycles.

Question 2: Describe using drawing the Kongsberg problem "Euler

Tour."

Question 3: Determine whether goal-driven or data-driven search would be

preferable for solving each of the following problems. Justify your answer.

a. You have met a person who claims to be your distant cousin, with a common ancestor
named John Doe. You would like to verify her claim: Data-driven
b. Another person claims to be your distant cousin. He doesn't know the common ancestor's
name but knows that it was no more than eight generations back. You would like to
either find this ancestor or determine that she didn't exist: Goal-driven
c. A theorem prover for plane geometry:
Goal-driven.

Question 4: Answer the following Questions:

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 a. Discuss briefly the techniques used to reduce the search complexity when solving the Traveling
Salesman Problem : The Nearest neighbor : is one of the best and simplest method for the
Traveling salesman problem the main idea of this method is always visiting the nearest
destination and then going back to the first city after visiting all cities.

b. The following is a problem which can be solved using state-space search techniques: The
Cannibals and Missionaries problem: "Three cannibals and three missionaries come to a
crocodile infested river. There is a boat on their side that can be used by either one
or two persons. If cannibals outnumber the missionaries at any time, the cannibals eat
the missionaries. How can they use the boat to cross the river so that all missionaries survive?"
Formalize the problem in terms of state-space search. You should:

• Suggest a suitable representation for the problem state:

Represent the missionaries by M and the cannibals by C. Let the boat be B. Each state can
be represented by the items on each side, e.g. Side1{M, M, C, C}, Side2{M, C, B}.
• State what the initial and final states are in this representation:
Initial state: Side1{M, M, M, C, C, C, B}, Side2{}
Goal state: Side1{}, Side2{M, M, M, C, C, C, B}

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 • State the available operators/rules for getting from one state to the next, giving
any conditions on when they may be applied:
A set of missionaries and/or cannibals (call them Move) can be moved from Side a to
Side b if: • The boat is on Side a. • The set Move consists of 1 or 2 people that are on
Side a. • The number of missionaries in the set formed by subtracting Move from Side
a is 0 or it is greater than or equal to the number of cannibals. • The number of
missionaries in the set formed by adding Move to Side b is 0 or it is greater than or
equal to the number of cannibals.
• Draw the first two levels of the directed state-space graph for the given
problem.

c. Briefly discuss the advantages and disadvantages of depth and breadth first search.
What sort of problem is each appropriate for?
BFS DFS
Advantages: Used to find the shortest path Advantages: Consumes less memory
between vertices Finds the larger distant element(from
Always finds optimal solutions. source vertex) in less time
There is nothing like useless path in Disadvantages: May not find optimal
BFS,since it searches level by level. solution to the problem.
Finds the closest goal in less time May get trapped in searching useless
Disadvantages: All of the connected path.
vertices must be stored in memory.
So consumes more memory

d. How does the use of a closed node list reduce the amount of search required in graph
search? As the closed list is a collection of all expanded nodes. So, this prevents the search
from visiting nodes again so that we
reduce the amount of search required in graph search.

e. Referencing 4.b, Solve the following problem "A farmer with his dog, rabbit and lettuce
come to the east side of a river they wish to cross. There is a boat at the river’s edge, but of
course only the farmer can row. The boat can only hold two things (including the rower)
at any one time. If the dog is ever left alone with the rabbit, the dog will eat it. Similarly, if the
rabbit is ever left alone with the lettuce, the rabbit will eat it. How can the farmer get across
the river so that all four characters arrive safely on the other side?"

f. The state space of many two-player games (e.g. chess, checkers, and tic-tac-toe) can
conveniently be represented as And/Or trees. Why? Give an example, stating which nodes are
And and which are Or : Because it is increasing the search depth and improves the chance of
picking the best move. In tic-tac-toe, this would be the empty grid with no Xs or Os played yet.
Under root, on the second level, there are the possible states that can
result from the first player's moves, be it X or O. We call these nodes the
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 “children” of the root node.

With our best wishes;

Dr. Hala Abdel-Galil & Dr. Amr S. Ghoneim

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