Handling uncertainty and exploiting structure is fundamental to understanding and designing large-scale systems. Statistical relational learning (SRL) is a novel field of machine learning that applies techniques from probability theory and statistics, on the one hand, while benefitting from advances in logic, database systems, and programming languages. I introduce SRL through two very different approaches. The CLP(BN) language aims at constructing Bayesian Networks with a constraint logic programming framework. CLP(BN) programs are therefore a straightforward extension of logic programming. On the other hand, ProbLog shows a different probabilistic extension of Prolog. A ProbLog program defines a distribution over logic programs by specifying for each clause the probability that it belongs to a randomly sampled program, and these
probabilities are mutually independent. We give application examples for both languages.
Statistical Relational Learning
Vítor Santos Costa, Departamento de Ciência de Computadores, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto, Portugal