Markov Logic Networks

This is a method that combines first-order logic and probabilistic graphical models. In first-order logic, a set of formulas represent hard constraints over a set of instances, and if an instance violates one of them, it has zero probability. The basic idea of a Markov Logic Network (MLN) is to generalize first-order logic by softening those hard constraints, assigning a real number (the weight) to each formula to indicate how hard it is, so that an instance that violates one or more formulas is not impossible anymore, just less probable.

Definition

A Markov Logic Network L is a set of pairs (F_i, w_i) where F_i is a formula in first-order logic and w_i is a real number. Given C is a finite set of constants {c₁, c₂, ...}, L defines together with C a Markov Network M_{L, C}:

• M_{L, C} contains one binary node for each possible grounding of each predicate in L. If the ground atom is true, the value of the node is 1, and 0 otherwise.

• M_{L, C} contains one binary node for each possible grounding of each predicate in L. If the ground atom is true, the value of the node is 1, and 0 otherwise.