Many forms of inductive logic programming (ILP) use metarules, second-order Horn clauses, to define the structure of learnable programs and thus the hypothesis space. Deciding which metarules to use for a given learning task is a major open problem and is a trade-off between efficiency and expressivity: the hypothesis space grows given more metarules, so we wish to use fewer metarules, but if we use too few metarules then we lose expressivity. In this paper, we study whether fragments of metarules can be logically reduced to minimal finite subsets. We consider two traditional forms of logical reduction: subsumption and entailment. We also consider a new reduction technique called derivation reduction, which is based on SLD-resolution. We compute reduced sets of metarules for fragments relevant to ILP and theoretically show whether these reduced sets are reductions for more general infinite fragments. We experimentally compare learning with reduced sets of metarules on three domains: Michalski trains, string transformations, and game rules. In general, derivation reduced sets of metarules outperforms subsumption and entailment reduced sets, both in terms of predictive accuracies and learning times.

We present a framework for formal refutational completeness proofs of abstract provers that implement saturation calculi, such as ordered resolution or superposition. The framework relies on modular extensions of lifted redundancy criteria. It allows us to extend redundancy criteria so that they cover subsumption, and also to model entire prover architectures in such a way that the static refutational completeness of a calculus immediately implies the dynamic refutational completeness of a prover implementing the calculus, for instance within an Otter or DISCOUNT loop. Our framework is mechanized in Isabelle/HOL.

Meta-interpretive learning (MIL) is a form of inductive logic programming. MIL uses second-order Horn clauses, called metarules, as a form of declarative bias. Metarules define the structures of learnable programs and thus the hypothesis space. Deciding which metarules to use is a trade-off between efficiency and expressivity. The hypothesis space increases given more metarules, so we wish to use fewer metarules, but if we use too few metarules then we lose expressivity. A recent paper used Progol's entailment reduction algorithm to identify irreducible, or minimal, sets of metarules. In some cases, as few as two metarules were shown to be sufficient to entail all hypotheses in an infinite language. Moreover, it was shown that compared to non-minimal sets, learning with minimal sets of metarules improves predictive accuracies and lowers learning times. In this paper, we show that entailment reduction can be too strong and can remove metarules necessary to make a hypothesis more specific. We describe a new reduction technique based on derivations. Specifically, we introduce the derivation reduction problem, the problem of finding a finite subset of a Horn theory from which the whole theory can be derived using SLD-resolution. We describe a derivation reduction algorithm which we use to reduce sets of metarules. We also theoretically study whether certain sets of metarules can be derivationally reduced to minimal finite subsets. Our experiments compare learning with entailment and derivation reduced sets of metarules. In general, using derivation reduced sets of metarules outperforms using entailment reduced sets of metarules, both in terms of predictive accuracies and learning times.

We designed a superposition calculus for a clausal fragment of extensional polymorphic higher-order logic that includes anonymous functions but excludes Booleans. The inference rules work on βη-equivalence classes of λ-terms and rely on higher-order unification to achieve refutational completeness. We implemented the calculus in the Zipperposition prover and evaluated it on TPTP and Isabelle benchmarks. The results suggest that superposition is a suitable basis for higher-order reasoning.

Superposition is among the most successful calculi for firstorder logic. Its extension to higher-order logic introduces new challenges such as infinitely branching inference rules, new possibilities such as reasoning about formulas, and the need to curb the explosion of specific higher-order rules. We describe techniques that address these issues and extensively evaluate their implementation in the Zipperposition theorem prover. Largely thanks to their use, Zipperposition won the higher-order division of the CASC-J10 competition.