Background Information

Level	Intermediate
Pre-requisites	52 220	Imperative Programming
	52 221	Object Oriented Programming
Recommended	52 344	F.S.D 1 or basic knowledge of formal logic
Availability	As an option or an elective
Examination	Written [2hr 00]
Credits	1
Timetable

Aim

To help the student to a theoretical and practical knowledge of the logic programming paradigm, using the language Prolog.

Objectives

On completion of the class, a student should be able:

• to explain the fundamentals of simple predicate logic and its use for knowledge representation and deduction

• to appreciate the elements required to construct a mechanised reasoning system

• to understand the fundamentals of logic programming, in particular the sources of non-determinism, the significance of displays of computational spaces and the significance of language semantics

• to demonstrate familiarity with the language Prolog and its practical use

• to apply Prolog, especially in the context of databases and of natural language programming.

Syllabus

Formal Logic: revision of Propositional and First Order Predicate Logic, conjunctive normal form, clausal form, knowledge representation by clausal form.

Logic Programming: basic concepts, the resolution rule of inference, application strategies, pattern matching, backtracking, computational space - total and standard, non-determinism, procedural and declarative semantics.

Prolog: Horn Clauses, terms and terminology, built-in predicates, non-determinism and input/output, the cut, negation, list processing, abstract data types.

Applications: practical work, databases, natural language processing.