20,559 research outputs found
Probabilistic Programming Concepts
A multitude of different probabilistic programming languages exists today,
all extending a traditional programming language with primitives to support
modeling of complex, structured probability distributions. Each of these
languages employs its own probabilistic primitives, and comes with a particular
syntax, semantics and inference procedure. This makes it hard to understand the
underlying programming concepts and appreciate the differences between the
different languages. To obtain a better understanding of probabilistic
programming, we identify a number of core programming concepts underlying the
primitives used by various probabilistic languages, discuss the execution
mechanisms that they require and use these to position state-of-the-art
probabilistic languages and their implementation. While doing so, we focus on
probabilistic extensions of logic programming languages such as Prolog, which
have been developed since more than 20 years
Nonmonotonic Probabilistic Logics between Model-Theoretic Probabilistic Logic and Probabilistic Logic under Coherence
Recently, it has been shown that probabilistic entailment under coherence is
weaker than model-theoretic probabilistic entailment. Moreover, probabilistic
entailment under coherence is a generalization of default entailment in System
P. In this paper, we continue this line of research by presenting probabilistic
generalizations of more sophisticated notions of classical default entailment
that lie between model-theoretic probabilistic entailment and probabilistic
entailment under coherence. That is, the new formalisms properly generalize
their counterparts in classical default reasoning, they are weaker than
model-theoretic probabilistic entailment, and they are stronger than
probabilistic entailment under coherence. The new formalisms are useful
especially for handling probabilistic inconsistencies related to conditioning
on zero events. They can also be applied for probabilistic belief revision.
More generally, in the same spirit as a similar previous paper, this paper
sheds light on exciting new formalisms for probabilistic reasoning beyond the
well-known standard ones.Comment: 10 pages; in Proceedings of the 9th International Workshop on
Non-Monotonic Reasoning (NMR-2002), Special Session on Uncertainty Frameworks
in Nonmonotonic Reasoning, pages 265-274, Toulouse, France, April 200
Lifted Variable Elimination for Probabilistic Logic Programming
Lifted inference has been proposed for various probabilistic logical
frameworks in order to compute the probability of queries in a time that
depends on the size of the domains of the random variables rather than the
number of instances. Even if various authors have underlined its importance for
probabilistic logic programming (PLP), lifted inference has been applied up to
now only to relational languages outside of logic programming. In this paper we
adapt Generalized Counting First Order Variable Elimination (GC-FOVE) to the
problem of computing the probability of queries to probabilistic logic programs
under the distribution semantics. In particular, we extend the Prolog Factor
Language (PFL) to include two new types of factors that are needed for
representing ProbLog programs. These factors take into account the existing
causal independence relationships among random variables and are managed by the
extension to variable elimination proposed by Zhang and Poole for dealing with
convergent variables and heterogeneous factors. Two new operators are added to
GC-FOVE for treating heterogeneous factors. The resulting algorithm, called
LP for Lifted Probabilistic Logic Programming, has been implemented by
modifying the PFL implementation of GC-FOVE and tested on three benchmarks for
lifted inference. A comparison with PITA and ProbLog2 shows the potential of
the approach.Comment: To appear in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP). arXiv
admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1402.0565 by other author
Bayesian Logic Programs
Bayesian networks provide an elegant formalism for representing and reasoning
about uncertainty using probability theory. Theyare a probabilistic extension
of propositional logic and, hence, inherit some of the limitations of
propositional logic, such as the difficulties to represent objects and
relations. We introduce a generalization of Bayesian networks, called Bayesian
logic programs, to overcome these limitations. In order to represent objects
and relations it combines Bayesian networks with definite clause logic by
establishing a one-to-one mapping between ground atoms and random variables. We
show that Bayesian logic programs combine the advantages of both definite
clause logic and Bayesian networks. This includes the separation of
quantitative and qualitative aspects of the model. Furthermore, Bayesian logic
programs generalize both Bayesian networks as well as logic programs. So, many
ideas developedComment: 52 page
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