Study-Unit Description

Study-Unit Description


CODE ICS1015

 
TITLE Logic Programming

 
UM LEVEL 01 - Year 1 in Modular Undergraduate Course

 
MQF LEVEL 5

 
ECTS CREDITS 5

 
DEPARTMENT Artificial Intelligence

 
DESCRIPTION This study-unit aims to teach (i) the theoretical principles that underlie logic programming in general, (ii) the details of Prolog and (iii) how to use Prolog to solve practical problems.

The theoretical part will explain how LP works by looking at the underlying principles of logic and will include a discussion of first order logic, resolution and unification.

The practical part of this study-unit offers a comprehensive introduction to the syntax, semantics and features of Prolog, a well-known logic programming language that has been used extensively in a wide variety of application areas.

The practical part of the study-unit will be organized around a series of carefully chosen lab exercises and will explore the use of Prolog to solve problems reasoning, search and knowledge representation.

Study-Unit Aims:
The unit aims to expose students to:

1. Theory:
- first-order logic, semantics of LP;
- unification, resolution proof search.

2. Programming using the Prolog language:
- basic LP techniques in Prolog;
- facilities of WinProlog.

3. Problem solving and Applications of LP:
- knowledge representation and inference;
- search, symbolic processing.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Knowledge & Understanding:
By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to:

- acquire the syntactical knowledge of a novel programming language called Prolog;
- understand and apply numerous logic programming techniques including pattern-matching and back tracking.

2. Skills:
By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to:

- learn to write Prolog programs to solve a variety of logic problems;
- learn to develop logic programming techniques including lists and recursive functions.

Textbooks:

- Blackburn, Patrick, Johan Bos and Kristina Striegnitz, Learn Prolog Now, College Publications, and ISBN 1-904987- 17-62006, 2006.
- Ulf Nilsson and Jan Maluszýski, Logic, Programming and Prolog, Second Edition, ISBN: 0-471- 95996-0, John Wiley, 2000. Also available online.
- Clocksin, W. and Mellish, C. Programming in Prolog: Using the ISO Standard, Springer, (5th edition 2003).
- Hector J. Levesque, Thinking as Computation, Boston: MIT Press, 2012.

 
STUDY-UNIT TYPE Lecture, Laboratory Session and Tutorial

 
METHOD OF ASSESSMENT
Assessment Component/s Sept. Asst Session Weighting
Project Yes 100%

 
LECTURER/S Peter Albert Xuereb

 

 
The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints.
Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice.
It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2023/4. It may be subject to change in subsequent years.

https://www.um.edu.mt/course/studyunit