Introduction to Statistical Relational Learning

Front Cover
Lise Getoor, Ben Taskar
MIT Press, 2007 - Computers - 586 pages

Advanced statistical modeling and knowledge representation techniques for a newly emerging area of machine learning and probabilistic reasoning; includes introductory material, tutorials for different proposed approaches, and applications.

Handling inherent uncertainty and exploiting compositional structure are fundamental to understanding and designing large-scale systems. Statistical relational learning builds on ideas from probability theory and statistics to address uncertainty while incorporating tools from logic, databases and programming languages to represent structure. In Introduction to Statistical Relational Learning, leading researchers in this emerging area of machine learning describe current formalisms, models, and algorithms that enable effective and robust reasoning about richly structured systems and data. The early chapters provide tutorials for material used in later chapters, offering introductions to representation, inference and learning in graphical models, and logic. The book then describes object-oriented approaches, including probabilistic relational models, relational Markov networks, and probabilistic entity-relationship models as well as logic-based formalisms including Bayesian logic programs, Markov logic, and stochastic logic programs. Later chapters discuss such topics as probabilistic models with unknown objects, relational dependency networks, reinforcement learning in relational domains, and information extraction. By presenting a variety of approaches, the book highlights commonalities and clarifies important differences among proposed approaches and, along the way, identifies important representational and algorithmic issues. Numerous applications are provided throughout.

 

Contents

1 Introduction
1
2 Graphical Models in a Nutshell
13
3 Inductive Logic Programming in a Nutshell
57
4 An Introduction to Conditional Random Fields for Relational Learning
93
5 Probabilistic Relational Models
129
6 Relational Markov Networks
175
7 Probabilistic EntityRelationship Models PRMs and Plate Models
201
8 Relational Dependency Networks
239
Probabilistic Models with Unknown Objects
373
A GeneralPurpose Probabilistic Language
399
15 Lifted FirstOrder Probabilistic Inference
433
16 Feature Generation and Selection in MultiRelational Statistical Learning
453
With an Application in Mammography
477
A PolicyLanguage Approach
499
19 Statistical Relational Learning for Natural Language Information Extraction
535
20 Global Inference for Entity and Relation Identification via a Linear Programming Formulation
553

9 Logicbased Formalisms for Statistical Relational Learning
269
Theory and Tool
291
A Tutorial
323
A Unifying Framework for Stastical Relational Learning
339
Contributors
581
Index
587
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About the author (2007)

Lise Getoor is Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland. Ben Taskar is Assistant Professor in the Computer and Information Science Department at the University of Pennsylvania.