Logic Programming

• We now examine a radically different paradigm for

programming: declarative programming
– rather than writing control constructs (loops, selection
statements, subroutines)
– you specify knowledge and how that knowledge is to be
applied through a series of rules
– the programming language environment uses one or more
built-in methods to reason over the knowledge and prove
things (or answer questions)
• in logic programming, the common approach is to apply the methods
of resolution and unification
• While these languages have numerous flaws, they can
build powerful problem solving systems with little
programming expertise
– they have been used extensively in AI research
 Terminology
• Logic Programming is a specific type of a more general
class: production systems (also called rule-based
systems)
– a production system is a collection of facts (knowledge), rules
(which are another form of knowledge) and control strategies
– we often refer to the collection of facts (what we know) as
working memory
– the rules are simple if-then statements where the condition
tests values stored in working memory and the action (then
clause) manipulates working memory (adds new facts, deletes
old facts, modifies facts)
– the control strategies help select among a set of rules that
match – that is, if multiple rules have matching conditions, the
control strategies can help decide which rule we select this
time through
– there are other control strategies as well – whether we work
from conditions to conclusions or from conclusions to
conditions (forward, backward chaining respectively)
 Logic Programming
• Also known as declarative programming
• Mostly synonymous with the Prolog language because it
is the only widely used language for logic programming
• A declarative program does not have code, instead it
defines two pieces of knowledge
– facts – statements that are true
– rules – if-then statements that are truth preserving
• We use the program to prove if a statement is true and/or
answer questions
• The reason this works is that Prolog has built-in problem
solving processes called resolution and unification
– in fact Prolog is not so much a programming language as it is a
tool, but it does have some programming language features that
make it mildly programmable
 Background for Logic
• A proposition is a logical statement that is only made if it is true
– Today is Tuesday
– The Earth is round
• Symbolic logic uses propositions to express ideas, relationships
between ideas and to generate new ideas based on the given
propositions
• Two forms of propositions are
– Atomic propositions
– Compound terms (multiple propositions connected through the logical
operators of and, or, not, and implies)
• Propositions will either be true (if stated) or something to prove or
disprove (determine if it is true) – we do not include statements
which are false
• For symbolic logic, we use 1st order predicate calculus
– statements include predicates like round(x) where this is true if we can find
an x that makes it true such as round(Earth) or round(x) when x = Earth
– you might think of a predicate as a Boolean function except that rather than
returning T or F, it finds an x that makes it true
 – Equivalence means that
Logic Operators both expressions have
identical truth tables
Name Symbol Example Meaning – Implication is like an if-
negation  a not a then statement
• if a is true then b is true
conjunction  ab a and b • note that this does not
disjunction  ab a or b necessarily mean that if
a is false that b must also
equivalence  ab a is equivalent be false
to b – Universal quantifier says
that this is true no matter
implication  ab a implies b what x is
 ab b implies a – Existential quantifier says
 X.P that there is an X that
universal For all X, P is fulfills the statement
true
existential X.P There exists a X.(woman(X)  human(X))
value of X – if X is a woman, then X is a human
such that P is
true X.(mother(mary, X)  male(X))
– Mary has a son (X)
 Clausal Form
• To use resolution, all statements must be in clausal form
– B1  B2  …  Bn  A1  A2  …  Am
• B1 or B2 or … or Bn is true if A1and A2 and … and Am are all true
– the left hand side is the consequent (what we are trying to prove) and the
right hand side is the antecedent (what conditions must hold true)
– notice we have turned the if-then statement around,
– We must modify our knowledge so that:
• existential quantifiers are not required (eliminate all of them)
• universal quantifiers are implied (by replacing each with a specific
variable)
• no negations (all negations must be removed)
– We break down our statements to have a single item on the left
• the above statement is broken into multiple statements such as
– B1  A1  A2  …  Am
– B2  A1  A2  …  Am …
– Bn  A1  A2  …  Am
• note that propositions and predicates by themselves are already in
clausal form, such as round(Earth) and Sunny
 Example Statements
Consider the following knowledge:
Bob is Fred’s father  father(Bob, Fred)
Sue is Fred’s mother  mother(Sue, Fred)
Barbara is Fred’s sister  sister(Barbara, Fred)
Jerry is Bob’s father  father(Jerry, Bob)

And the following rules:

A person’s father’s father is the person’s grandfather
A person’s father or mother is that person’s parent
A person’s sister or bother is that person’s sibling
If a person has a parent and a sibling, then the sibling has the same parent
These might be captured in first-order predicate calculus as:
 x, y, z : if father(x, y) and father(y, z) then grandfather(x, z)
 x, y : if father(x, y) or mother(x, y) then parent(x, y)
 x, y : if sister(x, y) or brother(x, y) then sibling(x, y) and sibling(y, x)
 x, y, z : if parent(x, y) and sibling(y, z) then parent(x, z)
We would rewrite these as
grandfather(x, z)  father(x, y) and father(y, z)
parent(x, y)  father(x, y)
parent(x, y)  mother(x, y) etc
 Resolution and Unification
• Given a collection of knowledge
– we will want to prove certain statements are true or answer questions
• For instance, from the previous example, we might ask
– who is Bob’s grandfather?
– is Sue Barbara’s parent?
• How can this be done? Through backward chaining through
rules
• Here is how backward chaining works
– we want to prove that A is true
– find a rule with A on its LHS and whatever is on the rule’s RHS must
now be proven to be true, so we add the items on the RHS to a list of
things we are trying to prove
– repeat until
• we match something that we know is true to our list, then remove the item
• we run out of items on our list, then we are done, we have proven A is true
• To complicate matters, predicates (e.g., round(X)) need to be
unified, that is, to prove round(X) is true, we have to find some
X where we know it is true, for instance, round(Earth)
 Complete Logic Example
If we want to find out what would
Assume that we know the following about pets:
make a good indoor pet, we ask
poodle(COCOA) indoorpet(?)
setter(BIG)
terrier(SCOTTY) This requires finding pet(X) and small(X)
(find an X to make both predicates true)
dog(X)  poodle(X) (poodles are dogs) pet(X) is implied by dog(X),
dog(X)  setter(X) (setters are dogs) dog(X) is implied by terrier(X),
SCOTTY is a terrier so SCOTTY
dog(X)  terrier(X) (terriers are dogs) is a dog so SCOTTY is a pet
small(X)  poodle(X) (poodles are small)
small(X)  terrier(X) (terriers are small) Can we find if SCOTTY is small?
small(SCOTTY) is implied
big(X)  setter(X) (setters are big)
by terrier(SCOTTY) which we
pet(X)  dog(X) (dogs are pets) already know is true, therefore,
indoorpet(X)  pet(X) and small(X) since terrier(SCOTTY) is true, small(SCOTTY)
(small pets are indoor pets) and pet(SCOTTY)
outdoorpet(X)  pet(X) and big(X) are true, so indoorpet(SCOTTY) is
True
(big pets are outdoor pets)
Continuing with this process
will also prove that indoorpet(COCOA)
is true.
 PROLOG
• PROLOG is a programming language that allows the
programmer to specify declarative statements only
– declarative statements (things you are declaring) fall into 2
categories
• predicates/propositions that are true
• clauses (truth preserving rules in clausal form)
– once specified, the programmer then introduces questions to be
answered
• PROLOG uses resolution (backward chaining) and unification to
perform the problem solving automatically
• PROLOG was developed in France and England in the
late 70s
– the intent was to provide a language that could accommodate
logic statements and has largely been used in AI but also to a
lesser extent as a database language or to solve database
related problems
 Elements of Prolog
• Terms – constant, variable, structure
– constants are atoms or integers (atoms are like those symbols found
in Lisp)
– variables are not bound to types, but are bound to values when
instantiated (via unification)
– an instantiation will last as long as it takes to complete a goal
• proving something is true, or reaching a dead end with the current
instantiation
– structures are predicates and are represented as
• functor(parameter list) where functor is the name of the predicate
• All statements in Prolog consist of clauses
– headed clauses are rules
– headless clauses are statements that are always true
• in reality, a headless clause is a rule whose condition is always true
– all clauses must end with a period
 Rules
• All rules are stated in Horn clause form
– the consequence comes first
• the symbol :- is used to separate the consequence from the antecedent
– And is denoted by , and Or is denoted by ; or separating the rule
into two separately rules
– variables in rules are indicated with upper-case letters
– rules end with a .
– examples:
• parent(X, Y) :- mother(X, Y).
• parent(X, Y) :- father(X, Y).
• grandparent(X, Z) :- parent(X, Y), parent(Y, Z).
• sibling(X, Y) :- mother(M, X), mother(M, Y), father(F, X), father(F, Y).
– we can use _ as a wildcard meaning this is true if we can find
any clause that fits
• father(X) :- father(X, _), male(X).
– X is a father if X is male and is someone’s father
 Other Language Features
• Assignment statements are available using the is operator
– A is B / 17 + C.
• this works if B and C are instantiated and A is not
• however, is does not work like a true assignment statement
– you can not do x is x + y – this can never be true!
– we might use the assignment operator in a rule such as
• distance(X,Y) :- speed(X,Speed), time(X,Time), Y is Speed * Time
• List structures are also available using [ ] marks
– as in new_list([apple, prune, grape, kumquat]).
– this is not a binding of new_list to the values, but instead
new_list is a predicate with a true instance of the predicate being
the parameter [apple, prune, grape, kumquat]
• lists can also be represented as a head and tail using | to separate the two
parts similar to how Lisp uses CAR and CDR
 More Prolog Examples
predecessor(X,Y) :- parent(X,Y); parent(X,Z), predecessor(Z,Y).
// X is a predecessor of Y if X is Y’s parent or
// if X is parent of someone else who is a predecessor of Y

Using Not: Notice the use of “not”

dog(X) :- poodle(X). here – in Prolog, x != y is
dog(X) :- terrier(X). available but ~foo(x) is not
likes(X,Y) :- dog(X), dog(Y), not (X=Y).
That is, we only declare
// can also be written as X =\= Y statements that are true, we
cannot declare the negation
of statements that are false
Database example: imagine we have a collection of terms:
record(name, yearborn, salary)
Successful person is someone who either makes > $50000 in salary
or was born after 1980 and is making more than $40000.
success(X) :- record(X, Y, Z), Z > 50000;
record(X, Y, Z), Y > 1980, Z > 40000.
 Additional Prolog Examples
Defining Max:
max(X,Y,M) :- X > Y, M is X.
max(X,Y,M) :- Y >= X, M is Y.

Defining GCD:
gcd(X,Y,D) :- X=Y, D is X.
gcd(X,Y,D) :- X<Y, Y1 is Y - X, gcd(X, Y1, D).
gcd(X,Y,D) :- X>Y, gcd(Y, X, D).

Two List examples

Defining Length:
length([ ], 0). // empty list has a length of 0
length([ _ | Tail, N) :- length(Tail, N1), N is 1 + N1. // a list that has an
// item _ and a Tail is length N if the length of Tail is N1 where N = 1 + N1

Sum of the items in a list:

sum([ ], 0). // sum of an empty list is 0
sum([X | Tail], S) :- sum(Tail, S1), S is X + S1.
 Advantages of Prolog
• There are several advantages to using Prolog
– ability to create automated problem solvers merely by listing knowledge
– a shortcut way to build and query a database
– solving significantly difficult problems with minimal code:
Deriving the permutations of a list List:
perm(List,[H|Perm]):-delete(H,List,Rest),perm(Rest,Perm).
perm([ ],[ ]).
delete(X,[X|T],T).
delete(X,[H|T],[H|NT]):-delete(X,T,NT).
Sorting a list of values stored in List:
insert_sort(List,Sorted):-i_sort(List,[],Sorted).
i_sort([ ],Acc,Acc).
i_sort([H|T],Acc,Sorted):-insert(H,Acc,NAcc),i_sort(T,NAcc,Sorted).
insert(X,[Y|T],[Y|NT]):-X>Y,insert(X,T,NT).
insert(X,[Y|T],[X,Y|T]):-X=<Y.
insert(X,[],[X]).
A naïve sort (inefficient, but simple):
naive_sort(List,Sorted):-perm(List,Sorted),is_sorted(Sorted).
is_sorted([ ]).
is_sorted([ _ ]).
is_sorted([X,Y|T]):-X=<Y,is_sorted([Y|T]).
 Deficiencies of Prolog
• Lack of control structures
– Prolog offers built-in control of resolution and unification
• you often have to force a problem into the resolution mold to solve it with Prolog
(most problems cannot or should not be solved in this way)
• Inefficiencies of resolution
– resolution, as a process, is intractable (O(2n) for n clauses)
• useful heuristics could be applied to reduce the complexity, but there is no way to
apply heuristics in Prolog
– they would just be additional rules that increases the size of n!
• Closed world assumption
– in any form of logic reasoning, if something is not known, it is assumed to
be false and everything is either true or false
• Negation is difficult to represent
– since there is no NOT in Prolog, how do we represent NOT?
• recall that anything explicitly stated must be true so we cannot specify NOT
something as something would then be false
• we can represent A != B, but we cannot represent ~dog(X).
 Rule-based Approaches
• Three of Prolog’s deficiencies can be eliminated (or lessened)
– heuristics can be applied to improve efficiency
• not necessarily reduce the complexity below O(2 n) but improve it
– uncertainty can be expressed by adding certainty factors or probabilities to
data, rules and conclusions
– use both forward and backward chaining
• Rule-based systems are less restrictive than the strictly logic-based
approach in Prolog
– by moving away from the formal logic approach however, doubts can arise
from any results generated by such a system
• that is, we can not be sure of the truth of something proven when the system
contains non-truth-preserving rules and uncertain data
– is it useful to move away from the strict logic-based approach given this
uncertainty?
• since nearly everything in the world has uncertainty, my answer is YES
• The rule-based approach is largely the same as in Prolog:
– declare knowledge, provide rules, and ask questions to be answered, but
most rule-based languages provide mechanisms for control strategies
 Working Memory
• Rule-based systems divide memory into two sections
– production memory – the collection of rules available
– working memory –partial results and tentative conclusions
• The rule-based system works like this
– compare the LHS conditions of every rule to working memory
– select a rule whose left side matches (is found to be true or applicable)
• this requires conflict resolution to pick a matching rule to select when
multiple rules match
– fire the rule (execute its RHS)
– repeat until
• a halt is performed (which means a conclusion has been reached)
• the cycle count has been reached (max number of iterations), a breakpoint has
been reached, or there are no matching rules (these are all failures)
• Rules are written in an if-then sort of format
– if(square(E, 2) = whitepawn && square(E, 3) = empty && square(E, 4) =
empty)  (square(E, 2) = empty && square(E, 4) = whitepawn)
– if(context = “gram positive” && morphology = “coccus” &&
conformation = “clumps”)  (assert identity = “staphylococcus” certainty
= 0.7)
 The Ops 5 Language
• Official Production System
– other versions are Ops4 and Ops83
• Formally, a production system language
– called rule-based language later
• Forward chaining system (or data driven)
– starts with data, uses rules to infer conclusions (that is, maps LHS to RHS)
– conclusions are often only partial or intermediate conclusions, other rules
are applied to work towards final conclusions
• this provides an ability to reason abstractly and then concretely
• Originally implemented in Lisp, later in BLISS
– followed by a number of other production languages, notably SOAR
which combined the rule-based approach with another method called
“chunking”
– used to implement numerous expert systems, most notably R1 (later called
XCON) to design VAX computer configurations
• Data defined as tuples in a Lisp-like way:
– (make student ^name Fox ^major CS ^gpa 1.931)
– (make student ^name Zappa ^major MUS)
– (make student ^name Bulger ^activity football)
 Ops 5 LHS Conditions
• Conditions are specified by stating what is expected in working
memory
– does this item exist? (student ^major CS ^activity football)
• is there a student whose major is CS and activity is football?
– variables are available by enclosing the name of the variable in < > symbols
– (student ^name <name> ^major CS ^gpa 4.0)
• find student with major = CS, gpa = 4.0, store this student’s name in <name>
– values can be tested against other values using <, >, =, <>, <= and >=, also
arithmetic operations are available
– compound conditions are available
• where conjuctions are placed in { } as in (student ^gpa {>= 3.0 <= 4.0})
• disjuctions are placed in << >> marks as in (student ^name <<anderson bruford
wakeman howe>>)
– testing to see if something does not exist: place – before the entry
• - (student ^major MUS ^gpa 0.0)
– are there no music majors with gpa of 0.0?
 RHS Actions
• Actions are what will happen if a rule is fired (executed)
– multiple actions can be listed, each in a separate list
– actions usually revolve around manipulating working memory
• add to working memory, for instance
– (make student ^name <name> ^hours <oldhours> + 3)
• remove from working memory
• alter some value(s) of a piece of working memory
– (modify 1 ^rank senior)
– (modify 2 ^major ) which removes the major value from that student’s
entry
– other actions include
• compute – use values from the conditions and return a new value (do
not update working memory)
• I/O actions – open a file, close a file, input, output, append
• input from keyboard
• output to monitor
• A brief OPS5 example is shown in the notes section of
this slide
 Conflict Resolution
• In Prolog, if two or more rules have matching (true)
clauses, they are tried one at a time until an answer is
reached
– but because of recursion and the depth-first approach taken, the
second clause would only be tried after the first clause led to a
failure
• so if clauses 1 and 2 matched, we try clause 1, assume it leads to
clauses 3, 4, 5, and 6 matching, each of which is tried and fails, we only
try clause 2 after all that
• In Ops5, the decision of which rule to fire is based on a
conflict resolution strategy, some options include:
– refraction: a given rule cannot fire twice in a row
– recency: select the rule that previously matched most recently
– specificity: select the rule that has the most number of
conditions on the LHS (this should be the most specific rule)
 Handling Uncertainty
• There is no built-in way to handle uncertainty in Ops5
– some possibilities used in AI:
• Bayesian probabilities
• fuzzy logic
• certainty factors
– how do you handle a conjunction or disjunction of items?
• if a rules says ( A B C  D) how do you compute the probability of A
AND B AND C?
• if a rule says (<<A B C>>  D) how do you compute the probability
of A OR B OR C?
• if the LHS matches, what is the probability of the RHS conclusion?
– these questions have different answers depending on the form
of uncertainty used
• Ops5 does not directly support any of these
• you can add probabilities/certainty factors to each piece of knowledge
and add rules to handle the probabilities/certainty factors
• See the example code in the notes section of this slide
 CLIPS
• There are a few problems with Ops5:
– forward chaining is only appropriate in data-driven problems and yet
people may not want to use Prolog for backward chaining problems
– the conflict resolution strategies are built-in, programmers cannot
implement their own
• Ops5, like Prolog, is not so much a programming language as a tool, what
about including other features?
• Clips – written in C (although it looks like lisp) offers solutions to
these problems
– Clips is a production system language but one that includes
• class constructs including multiple inheritance, class daemons, polymorphism
and dynamic binding
• functions and function calls to provide a different form of control, including a
progn statement, return, break
• switch statement
• forall construct used to test all possible combinations of a group of conditions
– Clips can perform forward and/or backward chaining based on the way
you specify your rules
 CLIPS Rule Strategies
• In Ops5, all rules were considered during each iteration,
and the only way to alter the search strategy (from
forward chaining) was by using conflict resolution
strategies
• In Clips, there are several added strategies:
– focus: on a set of rules pertaining to a current context
– agendas: rules whose conditions have matched but have not
yet been evaluated can be stored in a list and consulted before
searching through unmatched rules
– deactivated rules: eliminate rules from consideration which
are no longer relevant (deactivated rules may be later
activated)
– explicit conflict resolution strategies beyond those in Ops5
• salience – each rule can be given a salience value, how important is it?
select rules based on the highest salience
• depth-first search or breadth-first search
• simplicity – newly activated rules come before older activated rules
• complexity – opposite of simplicity
• random
 Jess
• Java Expert System Shell
• Java-based implementation of Clips (to produce expert
system applets)
– Jess simplifies/restricts several elements of Clips
• fewer resolution strategies, much of Clips OO facilities (these are
replaced largely through Java Beans)
• Jess is thought to be about 3 times slower than Clips
– but Jess is built on top of Java so it contains all of Java’s GUI
classes, is much more suitable for use over the Internet as a
platform-independent tool and can use threads
• Basically the choice between the two comes down to
– whether you want the full range of features in Clips or can live
without some of it
– want run-time efficiency
– want platform-independence and GUI features