Archive for the ‘Prolog’ Category

AI Algorithms, Data Structures, and Idioms…

Tuesday, March 19th, 2013

AI Algorithms, Data Structures, and Idioms in Prolog, Lisp and Java by George F. Luger and William A. Stubblefield.

From the introduction:

Writing a book about designing and implementing representations and search algorithms in Prolog, Lisp, and Java presents the authors with a number of exciting opportunities.

The first opportunity is the chance to compare three languages that give very different expression to the many ideas that have shaped the evolution of programming languages as a whole. These core ideas, which also support modern AI technology, include functional programming, list processing, predicate logic, declarative representation, dynamic binding, meta-linguistic abstraction, strong-typing, meta-circular definition, and object-oriented design and programming. Lisp and Prolog are, of course, widely recognized for their contributions to the evolution, theory, and practice of programming language design. Java, the youngest of this trio, is both an example of how the ideas pioneered in these earlier languages have shaped modern applicative programming, as well as a powerful tool for delivering AI applications on personal computers, local networks, and the world wide web.

Where could you go wrong with comparing Prolog, Lisp and Java?

Either for the intellectual exercise or because you want a better understanding of AI, a resource to enjoy!

Posted in Algorithms, Artificial Intelligence, Data Structures, Java, Lisp, Prolog | No Comments »

Linked Lists in Datomic [Herein of tolog and Neo4j]

Tuesday, August 21st, 2012

Linked Lists in Datomic by Joachim Hofer.

From the post:

As my last contact with Prolog was over ten years ago, I think it’s time for some fun with Datomic and Datalog. In order to learn to know Datomic better, I will attempt to implement linked lists as a Datomic data structure.

First, I need a database “schema”, which in Datomic means that I have to define a few attributes. I’ll define one :content/name (as a string) for naming my list items, and also the attributes for the list data structure itself, namely :linkedList/head and :linkedList/tail (both are refs):
…

You may or may not know that tolog, a topic map query language, was inspired in part by Datalog. Understanding Datalog could lead to new insights into tolog.

The other reason to mention this post is that Neo4j uses linked lists as part of its internal data structure.

If I am reading slide 9 (Neo4J Internals (update)) correctly, relationships are hard coded to have start/end nodes (singletons).

Not going to squeeze hyperedges out of that data structure.

What if you replaced the start/end node values with key/value pair as membership criteria for membership in the hyperedge?

Even if most nodes have only start/end nodes meeting a membership criteria, would free you up to have hyperedges when needed.

Will have to look at the implementation details on hyperedges/nodes to see. Suspect others have found better solutions.

Posted in Datomic, Prolog, tolog | No Comments »

The ClioPatria Semantic Web server

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

The ClioPatria Semantic Web server

I ran across this whitepaper about the ClioPatria Semantic Web server that reads in part:

What is ClioPatria?

ClioPatria is a (SWI-)Prolog hosted HTTP application-server with libraries for Semantic Web reasoning and a set of JavaScript libraries for presenting results in a browser. Another way to describe ClioPatria is as “Tomcat+Sesame (or Jena) with additional reasoning libraries in Prolog, completed by JavaScript presentation components”.

Why is ClioPatria based on Prolog?

Prolog is a logic-based language using a simple depth-first resolution strategy (SLD resolution). This gives two readings to the same piece of code: the declarative reading and the procedural reading. The declarative reading facilitates understanding of the code and allows for reasoning about it. The procedural reading allows for specifying algorithms and sequential aspects of the code, something which we often need to describe interaction. In addition, Prolog is reflexive: it can reason about Prolog programs and construct them at runtime. Finally, Prolog is, like the RDF triple-model, relational. This match of paradigms avoids the complications involved with using Object Oriented languages for handling RDF (see below). We illustrate the fit between RDF and Prolog by translating an example query from the official SPARQL document:…

Just in case you are interested in RDF or Prolog or both.

Posted in Prolog, RDF, Semantic Web | No Comments »