Logic & Formal Reasoning
Vicious Circle Principle and Logic Programs with Aggregates
Gelfond, Michael, Zhang, Yuanlin
The paper presents a knowledge representation language $\mathcal{A}log$ which extends ASP with aggregates. The goal is to have a language based on simple syntax and clear intuitive and mathematical semantics. We give some properties of $\mathcal{A}log$, an algorithm for computing its answer sets, and comparison with other approaches.
Stream Reasoning on Expressive Logics
Data streams occur widely in various real world applications. The research on streaming data mainly focuses on the data management, query evaluation and optimization on these data, however the work on reasoning procedures for streaming knowledge bases on both the assertional and terminological levels is very limited. Typically reasoning services on large knowledge bases are very expensive, and need to be applied continuously when the data is received as a stream. Hence new techniques for optimizing this continuous process is needed for developing efficient reasoners on streaming data. In this paper, we survey the related research on reasoning on expressive logics that can be applied to this setting, and point to further research directions in this area.
Weight Learning in a Probabilistic Extension of Answer Set Programs
LPMLN is a probabilistic extension of answer set programs with the weight scheme derived from that of Markov Logic. Previous work has shown how inference in LPMLN can be achieved. In this paper, we present the concept of weight learning in LPMLN and learning algorithms for LPMLN derived from those for Markov Logic. We also present a prototype implementation that uses answer set solvers for learning as well as some example domains that illustrate distinct features of LPMLN learning. Learning in LPMLN is in accordance with the stable model semantics, thereby it learns parameters for probabilistic extensions of knowledge-rich domains where answer set programming has shown to be useful but limited to the deterministic case, such as reachability analysis and reasoning about actions in dynamic domains. We also apply the method to learn the parameters for probabilistic abductive reasoning about actions.
Hunting for Tractable Languages for Judgment Aggregation
Judgment aggregation is a general framework for collective decision making that can be used to model many different settings. Due to its general nature, the worst case complexity of essentially all relevant problems in this framework is very high. However, these intractability results are mainly due to the fact that the language to represent the aggregation domain is overly expressive. We initiate an investigation of representation languages for judgment aggregation that strike a balance between (1) being limited enough to yield computational tractability results and (2) being expressive enough to model relevant applications. In particular, we consider the languages of Krom formulas, (definite) Horn formulas, and Boolean circuits in decomposable negation normal form (DNNF). We illustrate the use of the positive complexity results that we obtain for these languages with a concrete application: voting on how to spend a budget (i.e., participatory budgeting).
The Window Validity Problem in Rule-Based Stream Reasoning
Ronca, Alessandro, Kaminski, Mark, Grau, Bernardo Cuenca, Horrocks, Ian
Rule-based temporal query languages provide the expressive power and flexibility required to capture in a natural way complex analysis tasks over streaming data. Stream processing applications, however, typically require near real-time response using limited resources. In particular, it becomes essential that the underpinning query language has favourable computational properties and that stream processing algorithms are able to keep only a small number of previously received facts in memory at any point in time without sacrificing correctness. In this paper, we propose a recursive fragment of temporal Datalog with tractable data complexity and study the properties of a generic stream reasoning algorithm for this fragment. We focus on the window validity problem as a way to minimise the number of time points for which the stream reasoning algorithm needs to keep data in memory at any point in time.
Inlining External Sources in Answer Set Programs
HEX-programs are an extension of answer set programs (ASP) with external sources. To this end, external atoms provide a bidirectional interface between the program and an external source. The traditional evaluation algorithm for HEX-programs is based on guessing truth values of external atoms and verifying them by explicit calls of the external source. The approach was optimized by techniques that reduce the number of necessary verification calls or speed them up, but the remaining external calls are still expensive. In this paper we present an alternative evaluation approach based on inlining of external atoms, motivated by existing but less general approaches for specialized formalisms such as DL-programs. External atoms are then compiled away such that no verification calls are necessary. The approach is implemented in the dlvhex reasoner. Experiments show a significant performance gain. Besides performance improvements, we further exploit inlining for extending previous (semantic) characterizations of program equivalence from ASP to HEX-programs, including those of strong equivalence, uniform equivalence and H, B -equivalence. Finally, based on these equivalence criteria, we characterize also inconsistency of programs wrt. extensions. Since well-known ASP extensions (such as constraint ASP) are special cases of HEX, the results are interesting beyond the particular formalism. Under consideration in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP).
Induction of Non-Monotonic Logic Programs to Explain Boosted Tree Models Using LIME
Shakerin, Farhad, Gupta, Gopal
We present a heuristic based algorithm to induce non-monotonic logic programs that would explain the behavior of XGBoost trained classifiers. We use the LIME technique to locally select the most important features contributing to the classification decision. Then, in order to explain the model's global behavior, we propose the UFOLD algorithm ---a heuristic-based ILP algorithm capable of learning non-monotonic logic programs--- that we apply to a transformed dataset produced by LIME. Our experiments with UCI standard benchmarks suggest a significant improvement in terms of the classification evaluation metrics. Meanwhile, the number of induced rules dramatically decreases compared ALEPH, a state-of-the-art ILP system. While the proposed approach is agnostic to the choice of ILP algorithm, our experiments suggest that the UFOLD algorithm almost always outperforms ALEPH once incorporated in this approach.
Debugging Non-Ground ASP Programs: Technique and Graphical Tools
Dodaro, Carmine, Gasteiger, Philip, Reale, Kristian, Ricca, Francesco, Schekotihin, Konstantin
Answer Set Programming (ASP) is one of the major declarative programming paradigms in the area of logic programming and non-monotonic reasoning. Despite that ASP features a simple syntax and an intuitive semantics, errors are common during the development of ASP programs. In this paper we propose a novel debugging approach allowing for interactive localization of bugs in non-ground programs. The new approach points the user directly to a set of non-ground rules involved in the bug, which might be refined (up to the point in which the bug is easily identified) by asking the programmer a sequence of questions on an expected answer set. The approach has been implemented on top of the ASP solver WASP. The resulting debugger has been complemented by a user-friendly graphical interface, and integrated in ASPIDE, a rich IDE for answer set programs. In addition, an empirical analysis shows that the new debugger is not affected by the grounding blowup limiting the application of previous approaches based on meta-programming. Under consideration in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP).
Semantic DMN: Formalizing and Reasoning About Decisions in the Presence of Background Knowledge
Calvanese, Diego, Dumas, Marlon, Maggi, Fabrizio Maria, Montali, Marco
The Decision Model and Notation (DMN) is a recent OMG standard for the elicitation and representation of decision models, and for managing their interconnection with business processes. DMN builds on the notion of decision table, and their combination into more complex decision requirements graphs (DRGs), which bridge between business process models and decision logic models. DRGs may rely on additional, external business knowledge models, whose functioning is not part of the standard. In this work, we consider one of the most important types of business knowledge, namely background knowledge that conceptually accounts for the structural aspects of the domain of interest, and propose decision requirement knowledge bases (DKBs), where DRGs are modeled in DMN, and domain knowledge is captured by means of first-order logic with datatypes. We provide a logic-based semantics for such an integration, and formalize different DMN reasoning tasks for DKBs. We then consider background knowledge formulated as a description logic ontology with datatypes, and show how the main verification tasks for DMN in this enriched setting, can be formalized as standard DL reasoning services, and actually carried out in ExpTime. We discuss the effectiveness of our framework on a case study in maritime security. This work is under consideration for publication in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP).
Exploiting Partial Assignments for Efficient Evaluation of Answer Set Programs with External Source Access
Eiter, Thomas, Kaminski, Tobias, Redl, Christoph, Weinzierl, Antonius
Answer Set Programming (ASP) is a well-known declarative problem solving approach based on nonmonotonic logic programs, which has been successfully applied to a wide range of applications in artificial intelligence and beyond. To address the needs of modern applications, HEX-programs were introduced as an extension of ASP with external atoms for accessing information outside programs via an API style bi-directional interface mechanism. To evaluate such programs, conflict-driving learning algorithms for SAT and ASP solving have been extended in order to capture the semantics of external atoms. However, a drawback of the state-of-the-art approach is that external atoms are only evaluated under complete assignments (i.e., input to the external source) while in practice, their values often can be determined already based on partial assignments alone (i.e., from incomplete input to the external source). This prevents early backtracking in case of conflicts, and hinders more efficient evaluation of HEX-programs. We thus extend the notion of external atoms to allow for three-valued evaluation under partial assignments, while the two-valued semantics of the overall HEX-formalism remains unchanged. This paves the way for three enhancements: first, to evaluate external sources at any point during model search, which can trigger learning knowledge about the source behavior and/or early backtracking in the spirit of theory propagation in SAT modulo theories (SMT). Second, to optimize the knowledge learned in terms of so-called nogoods, which roughly speaking are impossible input-output configurations. Shrinking nogoods to their relevant input part leads to more effective search space pruning. And third, to make a necessary minimality check of candidate answer sets more efficient by exploiting early external evaluation calls. As this check usually accounts for a large share of the total runtime, optimization is here particularly important. We further present an experimental evaluation of an implementation of a novel HEX-algorithm that incorporates these enhancements using a benchmark suite. Our results demonstrate a clear efficiency gain over the state-of-the-art HEX-solver for the benchmarks, and provide insights regarding the most effective combinations of solver configurations.