Extra Handouts have been compiled for the following topics:
RED handouts are compulsory readings/donwloads. GREEN handouts are optional. Newly added papers will be flagged as (NEW).
  1. Petri nets
  2. Neural Networks
  3. Software tutorials
  4. General mathematics and links to free online books, notes, etc.
  5. Topics for the Term Project
  6. Dynamic Programming and Markov Processes
  7. (NEW) Machine Learning and Related Topics

Petri Nets

Required Readings/Downloads/Links
  1. PESIM Software for Petri net modeling and simulation. Download 
  2. Sivaraman, E. "Petri Nets: A Primer," 2003. Download
  3. Agerwala, T. "Putting Petri Nets to Work," IEEE Computer, December 1979, 85-94. Download
  4. Peterson, J.L., "Petri Nets," Computing Surveys, 1977. Download
  5. Database listing of freely available tools for modeling Petri nets: http://www.daimi.au.dk/PetriNets/tools/
Advanced Readings (Optional)
  1. Murata, T. "Petri Nets: Properties, Analysis, and Applications," Proceedings of the IEEE, 1989. Download
  2. David, R. and Alla, H. "Petri Nets for Modeling of Dynamic Systems - A Survey," Automatica, 1994. Download
  3. Johnsonbaugh, R. and Murata, T. "Petri Nets and Marked Graphs - Mathematical Models of Concurrent Computation," American Mathematical Monthly, 1982. Download
  4. Holloway, L.E. et al. "A Survey of Petri Net Methods for Controlled Discrete Event Systems" DEDS: Theory and Applications, 1997. Download
  5. Stremersch, G. and Boel, R.K. "Structuring Acyclic Petri Nets for Reachability Analysis and Control", DEDS: Theory and Applications, 2002. Download
Neural Networks

Required Readings/Downloads
  1. Lecture Slides for Chapters 1 through 11 of the Hagan Text:
  2. Matlab Neural Network Toolbox User's Guide. Download
Advanced Readings (Optional)
  1. M. Hagan, H. Demuth, O. De Jesus, "An Introduction to the Use of Neural Networks in Control Systems," International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control, 2002. Paper Download. Related Software Demos
  2. M. Hagan and H. Demuth, "Neural Networks for Control," Invited Tutorial, 1999 American Control Conference, 1999. Download
  3. (NEW) Nguyen, D. and Widrow (1990), "Improving the Learning Speed of 2-layer Networks by Choosing Initial Values of the Adaptive Weights." Download
Software Tutorials
  1. Tutorial on MAPLE - Download Tutorial 1, Tutorial 2
  2. Tutorial on MATLAB Download Tutorial 1
  3. An excelent repository of useful links and information on MATLAB. http://www.glue.umd.edu/~nsw/ench250/matlab.htm
General Mathematics and Links to Free Online Books, Notes
  1. Some basic tricks on how to manipulate recurrence relations, series, etc. (download). This handout has been excerpted from the OUTSTANDING book Algorithms and Complexity by Herbert Wilf (1994). The entire book is available for donwload at the author's web-page. Click here.
  2. If you like playing with mathematics and enjoyed the tricks given in the previous excerpt, you will enjoy Herbert Wilf's book Generatingfunctionology, especially Chapter 1 - it is also available for download from the author's web-page. Click here.
  3. Several other books on general mathematics are available at Link #1, Link #2, Link #3, Link #4,
Term Project - Some Ideas
  1. Here is a MS-WORD template that you can follow for your term-report. Download
  2. Here are some examples of term-reports that you can review for style. Sample #1, Sample #2
  3. Here are some examples of very well-written term-reports that students submitted in Spring 2004 and Fall 2003. Sample #1, Sample #2, Sample #3
  4. A short report on the verification issues in the design of business processes. DesignVerification, two papers that explore the use of Petri Nets for Business Process Modeling - Paper 1, Paper 2
  5. Michie, D., Spiegelhalter, D.J., and Taylor, C.C. (1994) Machine Learning, Neural and Statistical Classification, Ellis Horwood. Download
  6. Link to an online repository of data-sets that you can choose from for your term-project: ftp://ftp.ics.uci.edu/pub/machine-learning-databases/
  7. (NEW) Excellent repository of information in Neural networks. Section 3.12 is particularly recommeded as additional reading to supplement your understanding and practice on how to train a neural network.
  8. (NEW) Some excellent repositories of data-sets that you can use to select problems and applications for a term-paper:
    1. http://cs.nju.edu.cn/people/zhouzh/zhouzh.files/ai_resource/dataset.htm
    2. http://www.iiass.it/school2002/ensemble-labs.html (scroll down to sub-section titled "data-sets")
    3. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/ai-faq/neural-nets/part4/section-7.html
    4. http://neural.cs.nthu.edu.tw/jang/benchmark/
  9. (NEW) An excellent compilation of resources and information pertaining to the use and practice of neural networks: http://neuralnetworks.ai-depot.com/
Dynamic Programming and Markov Processes (NEW)
  1. Notes on Discrete-time Markov Chains - Part 1, Part 2, Review Problems
  2. Notes on Dynamic Programming - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Value Iteration Flowchart, Z-Transforms Table
Machine Learning and Related Topics (NEW)
  1. Michie, D. (1968) "Trial and Error," Science Science Survey, Part 2, pp. 129-145. Download - High-res PDF, Low-res PDF
  2. Sutton, R.S. (1988) "Learning to Predict by the Method of Temporal Differences," Machine Learning, Vol. 3, pp. 9-44. Download.
  3. A short report written by me that will help clarify Sutton's TD-Lambda technique. Download
  4. Matlab Programs written to illustrate Sutton's TD-Lambda technique. Download Zipped File
  5. Barnard, E. (1993) "Temporal-Difference Methods and Markov Models," IEEE Trans. on Sys. Man & Cyb., Vol. 23, pp. 357-365. Download
  6. Tesauro, G. (1995) "Temporal Difference Learning and TD-Gammon", Comm. of the ACM, Vol. 38(3), pp. 58-68. Download (to be added later)