A decidable subclass of finitary programs

Answer set programming - the most popular problem solving paradigm based on logic programs - has been recently extended to support uninterpreted function symbols. All of these approaches have some limitation. In this paper we propose a class of programs called FP2 that enjoys a different trade-off between expressiveness and complexity. FP2 programs enjoy the following unique combination of properties: (i) the ability of expressing predicates with infinite extensions; (ii) full support for predicates with arbitrary arity; (iii) decidability of FP2 membership checking; (iv) decidability of skeptical and credulous stable model reasoning for call-safe queries. Odd cycles are supported by composing FP2 programs with argument restricted programs

Aggregated fuzzy answer set programming

Fuzzy Answer Set programming (FASP) is an extension of answer set programming (ASP), based on fuzzy logic. It allows to encode continuous optimization problems in the same concise manner as ASP allows to model combinatorial problems. As a result of its inherent continuity, rules in FASP may be satisfied or violated to certain degrees. Rather than insisting that all rules are fully satisfied, we may only require that they are satisfied partially, to the best extent possible. However, most approaches that feature partial rule satisfaction limit themselves to attaching predefined weights to rules, which is not sufficiently flexible for most real-life applications. In this paper, we develop an alternative, based on aggregator functions that specify which (combination of) rules are most important to satisfy. We extend upon previous work by allowing aggregator expressions to define partially ordered preferences, and by the use of a fixpoint semantics

Complexity of fuzzy answer set programming under Łukasiewicz semantics

Fuzzy answer set programming (FASP) is a generalization of answer set programming (ASP) in which propositions are allowed to be graded. Little is known about the computational complexity of FASP and almost no techniques are available to compute the answer sets of a FASP program. In this paper, we analyze the computational complexity of FASP under Łukasiewicz semantics. In particular we show that the complexity of the main reasoning tasks is located at the first level of the polynomial hierarchy, even for disjunctive FASP programs for which reasoning is classically located at the second level. Moreover, we show a reduction from reasoning with such FASP programs to bilevel linear programming, thus opening the door to practical applications. For definite FASP programs we can show P-membership. Surprisingly, when allowing disjunctions to occur in the body of rules – a syntactic generalization which does not affect the expressivity of ASP in the classical case – the picture changes drastically. In particular, reasoning tasks are then located at the second level of the polynomial hierarchy, while for simple FASP programs, we can only show that the unique answer set can be found in pseudo-polynomial time. Moreover, the connection to an existing open problem about integer equations suggests that the problem of fully characterizing the complexity of FASP in this more general setting is not likely to have an easy solution

A general approach to reasoning with probabilities

We propose a general scheme for adding probabilistic reasoning capabilities to a wide variety of knowledge representation formalisms and we study its properties. Syntactically, we consider adding probabilities to the formulas of a given base logic. Semantically, we define a probability distribution over the subsets of a knowledge base by taking the probabilities of the formulas into account accordingly. This gives rise to a probabilistic entailment relation that can be used for uncertain reasoning. Our approach is a generalisation of many concrete probabilistic enrichments of existing approaches, such as ProbLog (an approach to probabilistic logic programming) and the constellation approach to abstract argumentation. We analyse general properties of our approach and provide some insights into novel instantiations that have not been investigated yet

Kiel Declarative Programming Days 2013

This report contains the papers presented at the Kiel Declarative Programming Days 2013, held in Kiel (Germany) during September 11-13, 2013. The Kiel Declarative Programming Days 2013 unified the following events: * 20th International Conference on Applications of Declarative Programming and Knowledge Management (INAP 2013) * 22nd International Workshop on Functional and (Constraint) Logic Programming (WFLP 2013) * 27th Workshop on Logic Programming (WLP 2013) All these events are centered around declarative programming, an advanced paradigm for the modeling and solving of complex problems. These specification and implementation methods attracted increasing attention over the last decades, e.g., in the domains of databases and natural language processing, for modeling and processing combinatorial problems, and for high-level programming of complex, in particular, knowledge-based systems

Foundations of fuzzy answer set programming

Answer set programming (ASP) is a declarative language that is tailored towards combinatorial search problems. Although ASP has been applied to many problems, such as planning, configuration and verification of software, and database repair, it is less suitable for describing continuous problems. In this thesis we therefore studied fuzzy answer set programming (FASP). FASP is a language that combines ASP with ideas from fuzzy logic -- a class of many-valued logics that are able to describe continuous problems. We study the following topics: 1. An important issue when modeling continuous optimization problems is how to cope with overconstrained problems. In many cases we can opt to allow imperfect solutions, i.e. solutions that do not satisfy all constraints, but are sufficiently acceptable. However, the question which one of these imperfect solutions is most suitable then arises. Current approaches to fuzzy answer set programming solve this problem by attaching weights to the rules of the program. However, it is often not clear how these weights should be chosen and moreover weights do not allow to order different solutions. We improve upon this technique by using aggregators, which eliminate the aforementioned problems. This allows a richer modeling language and bridges the gap between FASP and other techniques such as valued constraint satisfaction problems. 2. The wishes of users and implementers of a programming language are often in direct conflict with each other. Users prefer a rich language that is easy to model in, whereas implementers prefer a small language that is easy to implement. We reconcile these differences by identifying a core language for FASP, called core FASP (CFASP), that only consists of non-constraint rules with monotonically increasing functions and negators in the body. We show that CFASP is capable of simulating constraint rules, monotonically decreasing functions, aggregators, S-implicators and classical negation. Moreover we remark that the simulations of constraints and classical negation bear a great resemblance to their simulations in classical ASP, which provides further insight into the relationship between ASP and FASP. 3. As a first step towards the creation of an implementation method for FASP we research whether it is possible to translate a FASP program to a fuzzy SAT problem. We introduce the concept of the completion of a FASP program and show that for programs without loops the models of the completion coincide with the answer sets. Furthermore we show that if a program has loops, we can translate the program to a fuzzy SAT problem by generalizing the concept of loop formulas. We illustrate this on a continuous version of the k-center problem. Such a translation is important because it allows us to solve FASP programs by means of solvers for fuzzy SAT. Under the appropriate conditions it is for example possible to solve FASP programs by means of off-the-shelf solvers for mixed integer programming (MIP)

Modelling causal reasoning

PhDAlthough human causal reasoning is widely acknowledged as an object of scientific enquiry, there is little consensus on an appropriate measure of progress. Up-to-date evidence of the standard method of research in the field shows that this method has been rejected at the birth of modern science. We describe an instance of the standard scientific method for modelling causal reasoning (causal calculators). The method allows for uniform proofs of three relevant computational properties: correctness of the model with respect to the intended model, full abstraction of the model (function) with respect to the equivalence of reasoning scenarios (input), and formal relations of equivalence and subsumption between models. The method extends and exploits the systematic paradigm [Handbook of Logic in Artificial Intelligence and Logic Programming, volume IV, p. 439-498, Oxford 1995] to fit with our interpretation of it. Using the described method, we present results for some major models, with an updated summary spanning seventy-two years of research in the field

Description Logic for Scene Understanding at the Example of Urban Road Intersections

Understanding a natural scene on the basis of external sensors is a task yet to be solved by computer algorithms. The present thesis investigates the suitability of a particular family of explicit, formal representation and reasoning formalisms for this task, which are subsumed under the term Description Logic