15.1 Introduction
In this chapter, we give brief descriptions a few additional types of
Logic Programming: Logic Production Systems, Constraint Logic Programming, Disjunctive Logic Programming, Existential Logic Programming, Answer Set Programming, and Inductive Logic Programming.
15.2 Logic Production Systems
Production systems are a programming language paradigm that has
been widely used both for computer applications such as expert systems
and for representing the processes involved in human thinking. Rules
in a production system have the form: conditions
→ actions . The rules are executed in a cycle:
facts in a working memory are matched with the conditions to
derive the actions to be executed. A working memory is similar to a
dataset considered in this volume. If more than one rule matches the
conditions, a selection is performed to choose which rule should be
executed. The execution of a rule involves adding and removing facts
from the working memory. An example rule selection strategy is to
associate priorities with the rules, and choose a higher priority rule
over a lower priority rule. The repeated execution of the rules
generates the successive states of the working memory, and this
behavior provides an operational semantics to the rules.
Production rules have been used to model three kinds of situations:
stimulus-response associations; forward chaining; and
goal-reduction. We saw an example of a stimulus-response
association in Section 14.2 in the system with three lights:
whenever the user pushes a button, which is a stimulus, the response
is for the system to toggle the corresponding light.
push_button :: p ==> ~p |
push_button :: ~p ==> p |
The following rule which we saw in Section 4.5 is an example of
forward chaining, as any time we add a parent fact,
new grandparent facts are derived and added to the
dataset. Such rules can also be generalized as operations for
updating materialized views as shown in Section 15.3.
parent(X,Y) & parent(Y,Z) ==> grandparent(X,Z) |
As an example of goal reduction, and in the context of the planning
problem considered in Section 11.4, consider the following rule in
which we state that if our goal state can be achieved by performing an
action a in state s, and it is possible for us to
perform the action a in state s, then that goal can be
reduced to the goal of achieving state s.
goal(do(a,s)) & possible(a,s) ==> goal(s) |
From the above examples, we can see that a natural analog exists
between production rules and dynamic rules and operations considered
in this volume. In the Logic Production Systems (LPS) framework, the
production rules of the first kind are represented as dynamic rules,
and the production rules of the second and third kind are represented
as view definitions. In addition to giving dynamic rules an
operational semantics similar to that of production systems, LPS also
gives dynamic rules a logical semantics. It interprets dynamic rules
as declarative sentences that need to be made true in a model that
contains a sequence of time-stamped relation values, external events
and actions.
15.3 Constraint Logic Programming
Consider the Peano Arithmetic from Section 10.2, and the following
query:
number(L) & number(M) & add(L,M,N) & add(L,M,s(N)) |
As the above query is equivalent to proving N = N + 1, it is
trivially false, but when posed to a logic programming system, it will
run indefinitely. This is because the evaluation algorithm considered
in Chapter 8 does not check satisfaction of constraints across
subgoals. In a constraint logic program (CLP), the set of all constraints
are tested for satisfiability at each step in the evaluation, and
therefore, it is able to answer that the above query is false.
In addition to checking global satisfaction of constraints, a CLP
system allows constraints to be stated directly as equations; it allows
constraints to appear in queries; and during the evaluation of the
queries, it can generate new constraints. To illustrate these
features, consider the following program that computes the
sum S of integers from 0 to N:
sumto(0,0) |
sumto(N,S) :- N ≥ 1 & N ≤ S & sumto(N-1,S-1) |
In the second rule above, constraints are stated directly using
equation terms, and arithmetic expressions appear as arguments to a
subgoal. Furthermore, the second rule is unsafe because
both N and S are used in its body before they are
bound. A CLP system is able to handle such unsafe rules. It can also
generate new constraints during the evaluation. For example, during
the evaluation of the query, S ≤ 1, the second rule above will lead to the
following expanded version of its body:
N = N1 & S = S1 &
N1 ≥ 1 & N1 ≤ S1 &
sumto(N1-1,S1-1) |
The above examples illustrated the simplest form of constraints
handled by the CLP systems: arithmetic equality and inequality. Such
arithmetic constraints can appear in view definitions considered in
this volume. We saw an example use of such arithmetic inequality
constraints in the Cryptarithmetic problem in Section 6.5 even
though the solution of that problem did not require checking
constraints across subgoals. In a constraint logic programming
framework, the unification procedure of Chapter 8 is
generalized to invoke the constraint solver whenever the expressions
to be matched contain constraints. At each step of the evaluation,
we must find a unifier between the selected subgoal and the goal to
be proven, and generate any new constraints. In addition, we must
check the consistency of the current set of constraints with the
constraints in the body of the view definition. Thus, two solvers
are involved: unification, and the specific constraint solver for
the constraints in use.
Numerous extensions to the basic framework of CLP exist for
problems that go beyond simple arithmetic equality and inequality
constraints. In some CLP systems, it is possible to allow
constraints in which values are floating point numbers or are
defined using polynomial equations. CLP has also been used for
combinatorial search problems, for example, the Map Coloring problem
from Chapter 3. In some combinatorial problems, the goal is to not
just find one solution, but finding optimal solutions according to
one or more optimization criteria; finding all solutions; replacing
(some or all) constraints with preferences; and considering a
distributed setting where constraints are distributed among several
agents.
15.4 Disjunctive Logic Programming
In chapter 2, we defined a dataset as a collection of simple facts
that characterize the state of an application area. Facts in a dataset
are assumed to be true; facts that are not included in the dataset are assumed to be false. There are situations when our knowledge of the application
domain is incomplete in that given a set of facts we know that one or more them
must be true but we do not know which of them is true. For example, given
a person object joe, we know that either of male(joe) or
female(joe) must be true, but we may not know which of these is
true.
To understand the difficulty posed by incomplete information,
consider a world in which we have two objects a
and b, a unary relation p, and a disjunctive
sentence (p(a) | p(b) (where | is the or operator). Recall from Chapter 7 that a factoid
is logically entailed by a closed logic program if and only
if it is true in every model of the program. In this example, a set containing
p(a), a set containing p(b), and a set containing
both p(a) and p(b) are models of the program,
but their intersection is empty, and therefore, the only model is
the empty set. This allows us to conclude both ~p(a)
and ~p(b) which contradicts our disjunctive sentence. There has been
extensive research on disjunctive logic programming to investigate
different techniques that allow us to reason effectively with such
incompleteness. We consider one such technique next.
We compute a set of definite facts as those ground atomic facts
that occur in all the minimal models or in none of the
minimal models. if we need to determine whether (p(a) | p(b)) is
true, it suffices to check if
p(a) is true or if p(b) is true in every minimal model. If
that is true, we can conclude that (p(a) | p(b)) is true. To better appreciate this technique, let us consider a more involved disjunctive logic program shown below.
The above program has two minimal models: one containing q(a)
and p(a), and the other containing q(a)
and p(b). Here, the set of definite facts
includes q(a) as it appears in both the minimal models,
and it includes q(b) as it does not appear in any of the minimal models.
We can establish the truth of p(a) | p(b) by verifying that
each minimal model contains either p(a) or p(b).
15.5 Existential Logic Programming
An existential rule is a rule that has an atom with a functional term
in its head. Such rules are also known as tuple generating
dependencies in database systems. For our purposes, a logic program
that contains existential rules is referred to as an existential
logic program. Consider the following existential rules.
owns(X,house(X)) :- instance_of(X,person) |
has_parent(X,f(X)) :- instance_of(X,person) |
has_parent(X,g(X)) :- instance_of(X,male) |
instance_of(f(X),person) :- instance_of(X,person) |
instance_of(g(X),person) :- instance_of(X,person) |
The first rule asserts that if X is a person,
then X owns house(X). The second rule asserts that
if X is a person, then f(X) is the parent
of that person. The third rule asserts that if X is
a male, then g(X) is the parent of X. The
fourth and fifth rules assert that for
every person, f(X) and g(X) are also
instances of a person. Each of these five rules has a
functional term in its head, and is therefore, an existential rule.
Existential rules can be written in Basic Logic Programming, but their effective usage present two new challenges: termination of
reasoning and reasoning with incomplete knowledge.
The first existential rule shown above is the simplest form of an existential
rule; and, by itself, it does not present any problem with termination
of reasoning. But, the fourth existential rule leads to a
non-terminating behavior, because it can be recursively applied to
itself, leading to infinitely many conclusions.
Let us next consider an example of incomplete
knowledge. From the second rule, we conclude has_parent(X,f(john)), and from the third rule, we
conclude has_parent(X,g(john)), but the relationship
between f(john) and g(john) is
under-specified. Logically, f(john) and g(john) are
two separate objects, but there are situations when it may be
desirable to conclude that they refer to the same person.
15.6 Answer Set Programming
While defining the semantics of logic programs in Section 7.3, we said
that an interpretation D satisfies a ground atom p if
and only if p is in D. We further said that D
satisfies a ground negation ~p if and only if p
is not in D. This approach to defining
the semantics is also known as negation as failure, because
we assume a negated atom to be satisfied because of its absence
in D. For a safe and stratified logic program, negation as
failure semantics ensures that there is a unique model.
Answer Set Programming (ASP) is an approach for defining the semantics
of logic programs that may not be stratified. For example, consider
the following rules.
p(1) | p(2) | p(3) |
q(3) :- ~r(3) | r(X) :- p(X) & ~q(X) |
The above rules are not stratified. In ASP, the
above rules lead to two answer sets shown below.
Answer Set 1:
p(1) | p(2) | p(3) |
q(3) | r(1) | r(2) |
Answer Set 2:
p(1) | p(2) | p(3) |
r(3) | r(1) | r(2) |
An answer set solver is a program that takes an answer set
program as an input and outputs all the answer sets of that
program. A typical answer set solver does not require an input query.
In this section, we consider the semantics of answer set logic
programs, and some of their important extensions.
The first step in defining answer set semantics is to compute the
set of all instances of our rules. For
example, for the program considered above, the
grounded program is shown below.
p(1) | p(2) | p(3) |
q(3) :- ~r(3) | r(1) :- p(1) & ~q(1) |
r(2) :- p(2) & ~q(2) | r(3) :- p(3) & ~q(3) |
For a program that does not contain any negated atoms, or if it
contains negated atoms but is safe and stratified, it will have
exactly one answer set. The answer set of such a program is identical
to its extension as defined in Section 7.3.
We next consider the
programs that contain negated atoms which are not stratified. To decide whether a set S of ground atoms is an answer set, we form
the reduct of the grounded program with respect to S, as follows.
For every rule of the grounded program such that S does not contain any
of the negated items in the body of the rule, we drop the negated atoms from that
rule and only retain its positive atoms in the reduct. All other rules
are dropped from the grounded program altogether. The reduct does not contain
any negated atoms, and we compute its extension as defined in Section 7.3. If the extension
coincides with S, then S is an answer set of the given program.
As an example, suppose we wish to test if S = {p(1), p(2), p(3)} is an answer set of the grounded program shown above. The reduct of the program with respect to S is shown below.
p(1) | p(2) | p(3) |
q(3) | r(1) :- p(1) |
r(2) :- p(2) | r(3) :- p(3) |
The extension of the reduct is {p(1), p(2), p(3), r(1), r(2),
r(3), q(3)} which is different from S. Hence, S = {p(1), p(2), p(3)} is
not an answer set of this program.
Now, suppose S = {p(1), p(2), p(3),
q(3), r(1), r(2)}. The reduct of the program with respect to this new
answer set is shown below.
p(1) | p(2) | p(3) |
q(3) | r(1) :- p(1) |
r(2) :- p(2) |
The extension of this program is {p(1), p(2), p(3), q(3), r(1), r(2)} which is identical to S. Hence S = {p(1), p(2), p(3), q(3), r(1), r(2)} is an answer set of this program.
Answer set semantics provides an elegant way to define the meaning of
unstratified logic programs. ASP has been found to be a useful
approach for declarative specification for a broad range of
combinatorial problems especially the ones that involve specifying complex
constraints. In addition, the ASP framework lends itself to easy generalization to deal with
arithmetic and disjunction. Public domain and commercial ASP solvers
are now available that have impressive run time performance on small problems.
15.7 Inductive Logic Programming
Induction is reasoning from the specific to the general. For example,
consider the following dataset on kinship that is similar to what we
have considered in the earlier chapters.
parent(a,b) | parent(a,c) | parent(d,b) |
father(a,b) | father(a,c) | mother(d,b) |
male(a) | female(c) | female(d) |
Given the above dataset, we can use inductive reasoning to infer the following rules (or view definitions):
father(X,Y) :- parent(X,Y) & male(X) |
mother(X,Y) :- parent(X,Y) & female(X) |
In Inductive Logic Programming, given a dataset, a set of starting view definitions, and a target predicate, we can infer a view definition for the target
predicate. In the example above, we are given a dataset, no starting
view definitions, and we can infer the view definition
of father and mother.
In the context of the Inductive Logic Programming, the dataset is also referred to as a set
of positive examples. Some inductive reasoning algorithms also take as input a
set of negative examples. If negative examples are not provided, they
can be computed as the set of ground atoms in the Herbrand base that
are not present in the dataset. The combined set of positive and negative examples
taken together is also known as training data.
There are two broad classes of Inductive Logic Programming
algorithms: top down, and inverse deduction. In a top down approach to
learning, we start with a general view definition, and we restrict
it until it satisfies all the positive and negative examples. In the
inverse deduction approach, we start from the known facts, and we
search for view definitions that would have been necessary to derive
those facts.
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