The state of each component is determined by a Boolean function of the state of (a subset of) the components of the network. This paper addresses the synthesis of these Boolean functions from constraints on their domain and emerging dynamical properties of the resulting network. The dynamical properties relate to the existence and absence of trajectories between partially observed configurations, and to the stable behaviours (fixpoints and cyclic attractors). The synthesis is expressed as a Boolean satisfiability problem relying on Answer-Set Programming with a parametrized complexity, and leads to a complete non-redundant characterization of the set of solutions. Considered constraints are particularly suited to address the synthesis of models of cellular differentiation processes, as illustrated on a case study. The scalability of the approach is demonstrated on random networks with scale-free structures up to 100 to 1,000 nodes depending on the type of constraints.

Probabilistic programming is a powerful abstraction for statistical machine learning. Applying static analysis methods to probabilistic programs could serve to optimize the learning process, automatically verify properties of models, and improve the programming interface for users. This field of static analysis for probabilistic programming (SAPP) is young and unorganized, consisting of a constellation of techniques with various goals and limitations. The primary aim of this work is to synthesize the major contributions of the SAPP field within an organizing structure and context. We provide technical background for static analysis and probabilistic programming, suggest a functional taxonomy for probabilistic programming languages, and analyze the applicability of major ideas in the SAPP field. We conclude that, while current static analysis techniques for probabilistic programs have practical limitations, there are a number of future directions with high potential to improve the state of statistical machine learning.

Transfer of Temporal Logic Formulas in Reinforcement Learning Zhe Xu and Ufuk Topcu Abstract Transferring high-level knowledge from a source task to a target task is an effective way to expedite reinforcement learning (RL). For example, propositional logic and first-order logic have been used as representations of such knowledge. We study the transfer of knowledge between tasks in which the timing of the events matters. We call such tasks temporal tasks . We concretize similarity between temporal tasks through a notion of logical transferability, and develop a transfer learning approach between different yet similar temporal tasks. We first propose an inference technique to extract metric interval temporal logic (MITL) formulas in sequential disjunctive normal form from labeled trajectories collected in RL of the two tasks. If logical transferability is identified through this inference, we construct a timed automaton for each sequential conjunctive subformula of the inferred MITL formulas from both tasks. We perform RL on the extended state which includes the locations and clock valuations of the timed automata for the source task. We then establish mappings between the corresponding components (clocks, locations, etc.) of the timed automata from the two tasks, and transfer the extended Q-functions based on the established mappings. Finally, we perform RL on the extended state for the target task, starting with the transferred extended Q-functions. Our results in two case studies show, depending on how similar the source task and the target task are, that the sampling efficiency for the target task can be improved by up to one order of magnitude by performing RL in the extended state space, and further improved by up to another order of magnitude using the transferred extended Q-functions. 1 Introduction Reinforcement learning (RL) has been successful in numerous applications.

We study classification problems over relational background structures for hypotheses that are defined using logics with counting. The aim of this paper is to find learning algorithms running in time sublinear in the size of the background structure. We show that hypotheses defined by FOCN(P)-formulas over structures of polylogarithmic degree can be learned in sublinear time. Furthermore, we prove that for structures of unbounded degree there is no sublinear learning algorithm for first-order formulas.

The explication and the generation of explanations are prominent topics in artificial intelligence and data science, in order to make methods and systems more transparent and understandable for humans. This paper investigates the problem of link analysis, specifically link prediction and anomalous link discovery in social networks using the declarative method of Answer set programming (ASP). Applying ASP for link prediction provides a powerful declarative approach, e. g., for incorporating domain knowledge for explicative prediction. In this context, we propose a novel method for generating explanations - as offline justifications - using declarative program transformations. The method itself is purely based on syntactic transformations of declarative programs, e. g., in an ASP formalism, using rule instrumentation. We demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approach, exemplifying it in an application on link analysis in social networks, also including domain knowledge.

Answer Set Programming (ASP) has become, the paradigm of choice in the field of logic programming and non-monotonic reasoning. Thanks to the availability of efficient solvers, ASP has been successfully employed in a large number of application domains. The term GPU-computing indicates a recent programming paradigm aimed at enabling the use of modern parallel Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) for general purpose computing. In this paper we describe an approach to ASP-solving that exploits GPU parallelism. The design of a GPU-based solver poses various challenges due to the peculiarities of GPUs' software and hardware architectures and to the intrinsic nature of the satisfiability problem.

We present a comprehensive case study in the automated synth esis of list sorting algorithms: two main proofs produce the most popular sorting algorithms (min-so rt, quick-sort, insert-sort, merge-sort) and trigger all the proofs necessary for producing the needed au xiliary functions for inserting, splitting, and merging. This is a continuation of our work on exploring in pa rallel the theories of multisets, lists, and binary trees, for the purpose of developing proof method s for the synthesis of algorithms on these domains. In one related paper [12] we already investigated a lgorithms for deletion from lists and binary trees using multisets. We follow the proof-based approach to automated synthesis: first one proves automatically a synthesis conjecture which is based on the specification (input and output conditions) of the desired function, then the algorithm is extracted automatically from the proo f, in form of conditional rewrite rules. The theoretical basis and the correctness of this scheme is well -known [6] and we used earlier in [11, 15].

We present improvements in maximum a-posteriori inference for Markov Logic, a widely used SRL formalism. Inferring the most probable world for Markov Logic is NP-hard in general. Several approaches, including Cutting Plane Aggregation (CPA), perform inference through translation to Integer Linear Programs. Aggregation exploits context-specific symmetries independently of evidence and reduces the size of the program. We illustrate much more symmetries occurring in long ground clauses that are ignored by CPA and can be exploited by higher-order aggregations. We propose Full-Constraint-Aggregation, a superior algorithm to CPA which exploits the ignored symmetries via a lifted translation method and some constraint relaxations. RDBMS and heuristic techniques are involved to improve the overall performance. We introduce Xeggora as an evolutionary extension of RockIt, the query engine that uses CPA. Xeggora evaluation on real-world benchmarks shows progress in efficiency compared to RockIt especially for models with long formulas.

Allen's Interval Algebra constitutes a framework for reasoning about temporal information in a qualitative manner. In particular, it uses intervals, i.e., pairs of endpoints, on the timeline to represent entities corresponding to actions, events, or tasks, and binary relations such as precedes and overlaps to encode the possible configurations between those entities. Allen's calculus has found its way in many academic and industrial applications that involve, most commonly, planning and scheduling, temporal databases, and healthcare. In this paper, we present a novel encoding of Interval Algebra using answer-set programming (ASP) extended by difference constraints, i.e., the fragment abbreviated as ASP(DL), and demonstrate its performance via a preliminary experimental evaluation. Although our ASP encoding is presented in the case of Allen's calculus for the sake of clarity, we suggest that analogous encodings can be devised for other point-based calculi, too.

Within AI, several sub-fields are particularly relevant to - and benefit from - studies of argumentation. These include decision support, knowledge representation, nonmonotonic reasoning, and multiagent systems. Moreover, computational argumentation provides a formal investigation of problems that have been studied informally only by philosophers, and which consequently allow for the development of computational tools for argumentation, see (Atkinson et al., 2017). Since its invention by Dung (1995), abstract argumentation based on argumentation frameworks (AFs) has become a key concept for the field. In AFs, argumentation scenarios are modeled as simple directed graphs, where the vertices represent arguments and each edge corresponds to an attack between two arguments. Besides its simplicity, there are several reasons for the success story of this concept: First, a multitude of semantics (Baroni et al., 2011, 2018) allows for tight coupling of argumentation with existing formalisms from the areas of knowledge representation and logic programming; indeed, one of the main motivations of Dung's work (Dung, 1995) was to give a uniform representation of several nonmonotonic formalisms including Reiter's Default Logic, Pollock's Defeasible Logic, and Logic Programming (LP) with default negation; the latter lead to a series of works that investigated the relationship between different LP semantics and different AF semantics, see e.g.