CS 686 Assignment 3

The point of this exercise is to set up a baby decision system. You should define a decision domain, choose a decision-making algorithm, and implement it. Your implementation may use any computational form, including your choice of programming/scripting language, or software package such as a spreadsheet system, MatLab, or the like.

The necessary features of your system:

• a domain;
• a set of features of the instances in that domain;
• a preference or utility function;
• a decision procedure;
• actual instances among which to decide.

I expect at least 10 instances. For example, if your decision is which laptop to buy, you will need 10 descriptions of laptops, with all feature values (e.g., the laptop's weight, price, RAM, etc.) specified. If your decision is based on voting, you should have 10 sets of votes, with 10 corresponding election winners.

To hand in:

• A description of the domain;
• a list of features;
• your preference or utility function;
• a description of your decision procedure;
• the instances;
• a description of your computation environment and software;
• the output of your system;
• what you learned.

I encourage you, once you have programmed your example, to tweak the computation: vary the utility or preferences; throw in new examples or change the current ones. Make sure this actually works.

Never leave a Goldsmith homework until the night before it's due.