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CPE/CSC 480 Artificial Intelligence Fall 2009

CPE/CSC 480-F09 Artificial Intelligence Fall 2009 Project Topics

This document provides more details on possible topics for team projects.

Collaboration with Others

I'm in contact with other people who are currently involved in projects related to our course topics. Some of these projects may also present opportunities for paid work on related topics.

Ontology Learning (CAD-RC)

In connection with computers, ontologies are used to capture specifications of entities and their relationships, often in order formalize the concepts and terms used in a domain. Since the development of such ontologies can be very time-consuming and tedious, research is being done into learning ontologies from sources like document collections, data sets, or software specifications and implementations.

The Collaborative Agent Design Research Center (CAD-RC) at Cal Poly is exploring the use of ontology learning methods for some of their projects in areas like logistics and the categorization of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). The goal of this project is to explore and evaluate methods and tools for ontology learning.

Sensemaking

In complex and evolving situations, it can become difficult for individuals, groups or organizations to understand "what is going on", and to form mental models for the situation that may allow decisions about possible actions and their potential outcomes.

The goal of this project is an exploration of computer-supported methods for sensemaking, especially in the context of large organizations and business decision making.

I'm in contact with a large software organization, and there may be opportunities for on-going research projects.

Personal Knowledge Organizer

While search engines and the use of related technologies on personal computers (such as Apple's Spotlight, or Google Desktop Search) allow users to find information based on keywords relatively easily, the task of organizing knowledge contained in documents still relies heavily on work done by humans. People frequently use ad-hoc solutions like directories and symbolic links for this purpose, resulting in very brittle and individualistic solutions.

The goal of this project is to examine methods for the automatic categorization and labeling of documents in combination with personalized ontologies in order to create a system that enables a more systematic and less tedious way of organizing documents based on their contents.

Netflix Prize

While Netflix has one of the most prominent recommendation systems for the selection of movies, many of you have probably had experiences with less than convincing suggestions for movies. Such recommendation systems take the preferences of many users, and try to predict what movies a particular user might like based on what the merchant knows about the user. Netflix has an ongoing contest to improve the accuracy of predictions: If you can beat their system, Cinematch, by 10%, you can win one million dollars. The 10% improvement in performance was surpassed by two teams in July 2009, but it looks like the final winner has not been announced yet. Check the leaderboard for the latest results.

Paypal Programming Contest

PayPal has a programming contest, the>Paypal College Challenge. In this contest, student teams have the opportunity to compete for an opportunity to present their product at PayPal headquarters in San Jose, and to receive summer internships with PayPal. There is no specific mention of AI in the contest, but if you're interested in doing a project that combines AI and PayPal's eCommerce and ePayment systems, let me know. The deadline to register for this contest is September 30, and the deadline to submit the final demo is November 21. For more details, see the PayPal College Challenge Website.

Collaborations at Cal Poly

We may also have presentations by some of my colleagues on the following topics:

Further Project Ideas

And here are a few more ideas for project topics:

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