An intelligent agent interacting with the real world will encounter individual people, courses, test results, drugs prescriptions, chairs, boxes, etc., and needs to reason about properties of these individuals and relations among them as well as cope with uncertainty. Uncertainty has been studied in probability theory and graphical models, and relations have been studied in logic, in particular in the predicate calculus and its extensions. This book examines the foundations of combining logic and probability into what are called relational probabilistic models. It introduces representations, inference, and learning techniques for probability, logic, and their combinations. The book focuses on two representations in detail: Markov logic networks, a relational extension of undirected graphical models and weighted first-order predicate calculus formula, and Problog, a probabilistic extension of logic programs that can also be viewed as a Turing-complete relational extension of Bayesian networks.

This SpringerBrief addresses the challenges of analyzing multi-relational and noisy data by proposing several Statistical Relational Learning (SRL) methods. These methods combine the expressiveness of first-order logic and the ability of probability theory to handle uncertainty. It provides an overview of the methods and the key assumptions that allow for adaptation to different models and real world applications. The models are highly attractive due to their compactness and comprehensibility but learning their structure is computationally intensive. To combat this problem, the authors review the use of functional gradients for boosting the structure and the parameters of statistical relational models. The algorithms have been applied successfully in several SRL settings and have been adapted to several real problems from Information extraction in text to medical problems. Including both context and well-tested applications, Boosting Statistical Relational Learning from Benchmarks to Data-Driven Medicine is designed for researchers and professionals in machine learning and data mining. Computer engineers or students interested in statistics, data management, or health informatics will also find this brief a valuable resource.