Cited by 184Logic, Reasoning, and KnowledgeComputability, Logic, AI AlgorithmsAI-based Problem Solving and Planning

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 69 of the 70 references it cites were found in a registry or an index, and 1 are not checked yet; 8 of the 31 sources its claims cite were checked for support.

Meta-interpretive learning of higher-order dyadic datalog: predicate invention revisited

Open access
Muggleton, Stephen H., Lin, Dianhuan, Tamaddoni-Nezhad, Alireza·2015·Machine Learning

Verified 2026-10-19 · 1 reference not checked yet

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

The paper generalises meta-interpretive learning (MIL) to higher-order dyadic datalog programs in the class H₂², showing that H₂² is Turing expressive with an infinite signature but decidable with a finite signature. It implements MetagolD and demonstrates efficient learning with predicate invention and recursion on robot strategies, East-West trains, and NELL data.

Key findings

  • H₂² has universal Turing expressivity when the constant signature is infinite, but satisfiability is decidable when the predicate and constant signatures are finite; the MIL setting is decidable when meta-rules, background knowledge, and examples are Datalog and signatures are finite.
  • MetagolD, using Knuth-Bendix ordering and logarithmic clause bounding, PAC-learns minimal cardinality H₂² definitions; Theorem 3 gives polynomial sample complexity, and experiments show rapid error reduction with roughly linear learning-time growth under the logarithmic bound.
  • On robot wall-building, MetagolD reaches predictive accuracy above 90% at training size 2 with one positive and one negative example; a dramatic time increase occurs at training size 10 because an additional negative example forces a larger hypothesis.
  • On East-West trains, Metagol learns a recursive theory that correctly classifies all 20 trains in about 45 s on a 2.5 GHz MacBook laptop, equivalent to the winning competition entry, which took about 1 day on a 40 MHz Sun Sparc 10; on NELL, a greedy variant runs in about 0.004 s, hundreds of times faster, and MetagolD learns higher-order concepts such as symmetry.

Methods

  • MIL uses higher-order meta-rules and a modified Prolog meta-interpreter that proves examples and saves metalogical substitutions for existentially quantified higher-order variables; applying these substitutions yields a first-order definite program.
  • MetagolD is implemented in Yap Prolog and constrains search with total orderings over the Herbrand Base (lexicographic/Knuth-Bendix and interval inclusion), iterative deepening for minimal cardinality hypotheses, logarithmic clause bounding, and episodes for multi-predicate incremental learning.
  • Experiments cover robot wall-building (training sizes 2–80, test size 200, half positive/half negative, averaged over five resamples), East-West trains (20 training trains, 100 test trains, averaged over 10 random samples), and NELL athletehomestadium (tenfold cross-validation, 120 examples, 919 background facts, training sizes up to 108).

Limitations

  • The paper states that the NELL evaluation can lead to excessive runtimes; the logarithmic bound was dropped and a 2 min time limit used, causing MetagolD’s learning curve to drop significantly at training size 80.
  • The paper states that the effect of incompleteness of meta-rules on predictive accuracy and robustness was not explored, and that the user is expected to provide the total orderings ⪰P and ⪰C over initial predicates and constants.
  • The paper states that the greedy search variant can lead to overly specific, non-minimal programs and has unresolved overfitting issues; it was not applied to the other experiments. Evident from the text, the robot model is a simplification of a real-world robotics application, and the NELL data is incomplete, with 17% of examples missing teamhomestadium information.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1007/s10994-014-5471-y

Cites

69 of 70 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

46 Own interpretation · 25 Own result · 23 No basis given · 9 No full text of the sources · 8 Own method · 5 Sources not found · 3 Partly supported · 3 Not checked yet · 2 Supported · 1 Mixed support · accuracy not yet measured

Show all 58 claims

  • Probably not a substantial claim. 46
  • It may state two separate claims as one. 26
  • The quote only partly states this claim. 1
67 of 67
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    SLD resolution is complete, so all hypotheses consistent with the examples can be constructed.

    “Completeness of SLD resolution ensures that all hypotheses consistent with the examples can be constructed.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    P' ⊆ P and C' ⊆ C represent uninterpreted predicates and constants whose interpretation is assigned by the Meta-interpreter.

    “To account for predicate invention we assume that P ′ ⊆ P and C ′ ⊆ C represent uninterpreted predicates and constants respectively, whose interpretation is assigned by the Meta-interpreter.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    The UTM has a suitably designed set of machine instructions representing functions of the form used in the encoding.

    “We assume the UTM has a suitably designed set of machine instructions representing functions of the form”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The user has no ascribed meaning for P' and C'.

    “Since the user has no ascribed meaning for P ′ and C ′ , it would not be possible to provide examples containing full interpretations, and therefore the Learning from Interpretations setting is inappropriate.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    The big data assumption holds.

    “under the big data assumption (Sect. 4.3)”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The simplified model of wall building is adequate for evaluating Metagol D's robot strategy learning.

    “This model is a simplification of a real-world robotics application.”
6 of 6

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

1 of 1

Citations

Cites

Show all 66 references

Research works printed but not linked: 4

  1. De Jong, G. (1981). Generalisations based on explanations. In IJCAI-81, pp. 67–69. Kaufmann.
  2. Muggleton, S. H., & Lin, D. (2013). Meta-interpretive learning of higher-order dyadic datalog: Predicate invention revisited. In Proceedings of the 23rd international joint conference artificial intelligence (IJCAI 2013), pp. 1551–1557.
  3. Rouveirol, C., & Puget, J-F. (1989). A simple and general solution for inverting resolution. In EWSL-89, pp. 201–210, London. Pitman.
  4. Srinivasan, A. (2001). The ALEPH manual. Oxford: Machine Learning at the Computing Laboratory, Oxford University.

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Metadata

Authors
Muggleton, S. H., Lin, D., & Tamaddoni-Nezhad, A.
Affiliations
Imperial College London (GB)
Corresponding author
Muggleton, Stephen H.
Venue
Machine Learning
Published
2015-03-12
Volume
100
Issue
1
Pages
49-73
ISSN
  • 0885-6125 (ISSN-L)
  • 1573-0565
OpenAlex
W1769664091
Cited by
184
References
66
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 20 · 2019: 25 · 2018: 24 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 10
FWCI
17.10
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Machine Learning (publishedVersion)
  • Spiral (Imperial College London) (submittedVersion)
  • Spiral (Imperial College London) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
Funders
  • Royal Academy of Engineering
  • Imperial College London
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Logic, Reasoning, and Knowledge
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computational Theory and Mathematics › Computability, Logic, AI Algorithms
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › AI-based Problem Solving and Planning
Keywords
predicate invention, higher-order logic, PAC learnability

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