Research map / Learning theory and algorithms / Combinatorial and search optimization
Logic and answer set programming theory
Studies semantics, expressiveness and chase termination for logic-based knowledge representation.
150 accepted papers at ICML, NeurIPS, ICLR, CVPR and AAAI (2016–2026) · an approach in Combinatorial and search optimization, keyword cluster “logic · sat · boolean”
State History Tried Preprints Who Export
Where it stands
Not enough benchmark data Fewer than four papers report the same benchmark, so there is no record to follow.
28 papers in 2023–24 and 35 in 2025–26 (at ICML, NeurIPS, ICLR, CVPR and AAAI); its share of the topic grew, from 8.1% to 9.6%.
How this is decided
A benchmark is tracked when at least four papers of this approach report their own method on the same dataset and metric in at least two different years. Its record is the best number reported up to 2024 compared with the best reported in 2025–26: still improving means at least 1% better, flat means at most 0.2% better with at least two papers from 2025–26 trying. Numbers on a different scale from the rest (a fraction among percentages) and far outliers are left out. Results come from different papers with different setups, so they are signals, not head-to-head comparisons. The share of papers is counted at ICML, NeurIPS, ICLR, CVPR and AAAI.
How it got here
Most cited paper of each year
- 2016 · Complexity Results and Algorithms for Extension Enforcement in Abstract Argumentation (AAAI 2016 · 60 citations)
- 2017 · Ontology-Based Data Access with a Horn Fragment of Metric Temporal Logic (AAAI 2017 · 60 citations)
- 2018 · Repairing Ontologies via Axiom Weakening (AAAI 2018 · 44 citations)
- 2019 · Reasoning over Streaming Data in Metric Temporal Datalog (AAAI 2019 · 36 citations)
- 2020 · FastLAS: Scalable Inductive Logic Programming Incorporating Domain-Specific Optimisation Criteria (AAAI 2020 · 54 citations)
- 2021 · Argumentation Frameworks with Strong and Weak Constraints: Semantics and Complexity (AAAI 2021 · 14 citations)
- 2022 · Incomplete Argumentation Frameworks: Properties and Complexity (AAAI 2022 · 18 citations)
- 2023 · Learning Interpretable Temporal Properties from Positive Examples Only (AAAI 2023 · 14 citations)
- 2024 · Adaptive Reactive Synthesis for LTL and LTLf Modulo Theories (AAAI 2024 · 10 citations)
- 2025 · (1+1) Genetic Programming with Functionally Complete Instruction Sets Can Evolve Boolean Conjunctions and Disjunctions with Arbitrarily Small Error (AAAI 2025 · 4 citations)
- 2026 · 2-ASP(Q) Solving Based on CEGAR (AAAI 2026 · 1 citation)
Earliest papers here
- Complexity Results and Algorithms for Extension Enforcement in Abstract Argumentation (AAAI 2016 · 60 citations)
- SDDs Are Exponentially More Succinct than OBDDs (AAAI 2016 · 40 citations)
- A Model for Learning Description Logic Ontologies Based on Exact Learning (AAAI 2016 · 20 citations)
What has been tried
80 papers here report 489 measured changes (a component added, removed or swapped, compared with a baseline): helped 65%, no clear effect 9%, hurt 19%, mixed 7%. Papers mostly publish changes that helped, so "helped" is over-represented.
Ablations in recent papers
| What was changed | Measured on | Result | Effect | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Add 300 FBarr examples to BPoly training data | FBarr · accuracy | 35 -> 89 | Helped | Global Lyapunov functions: a long-standing open problem in mathematics, with symbolic transformers (NeurIPS 2024 · 9 citations) |
| replace leaf-only deletion with subtree deletion | AND16, complete truth table · iterations | 469.9 -> 544.6 | Mixed | (1+1) Genetic Programming with Functionally Complete Instruction Sets Can Evolve Boolean Conjunctions and Disjunctions with Arbitrarily Small Error (AAAI 2025 · 4 citations) |
| Add the definition task to compute embeddings for new definitions | Coq test theorems, 10-minute evaluation · pass rate | 17.4% vs 26.1% | Helped | Graph2Tac: Online Representation Learning of Formal Math Concepts (ICML 2024 · 4 citations) |
| Use Cara caching instead of caching scheme i | Two-layer Bayesian networks · compilation time | 664 -> 437 | Helped | New Compilation Languages Based on Restricted Weak Decomposability (AAAI 2025 · 0 citations) |
| add epistemic propagation to the generator (G0 → G1) | All benchmarks · instances solved | 166 -> 283 | Helped | Solving Epistemic Logic Programs Using Generate-and-Test with Propagation (AAAI 2025 · 0 citations) |
| Increase the maximum discrepancy value δ | LCN instances in Figure 3 · average CPU time (seconds) | Hurt | Abductive Reasoning in Logical Credal Networks (NeurIPS 2024 · 0 citations) |
Recent preprints
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Who publishes on it
Institutions on the most papers of this approach since 2023 (of 63 papers; from OpenAlex and the papers' affiliations).
- Free University of Bozen-Bolzano · 4 papers
- Leipzig University · 4 papers
- University of Udine · 3 papers
- TU Dortmund University · 3 papers
- University of Oxford · 3 papers
- CNRS · 3 papers
- University of Calabria · 2 papers
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology · 2 papers
- TU Wien · 2 papers
- University Alliance Ruhr · 2 papers
Use it
Download BibTeX of 40 key papersOpen the topic in the interactive map
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Related approaches
Same keyword cluster
- Structure and complexity of constraint reasoning (92 papers)
- SAT and model counting solvers (89 papers)
- Differentiable and symbolic reasoning (56 papers)
Elsewhere in the topic
- Heuristic and local search algorithms (147 papers)
- Classical and HTN planning (145 papers)
- Unsupervised neural combinatorial optimization (113 papers)
- Constrained neural network optimization (111 papers)
- Decision-focused optimization (97 papers)
- Multi-objective optimization (93 papers)
- Predict-then-optimize learning (89 papers)
- Heuristics for integer programming (60 papers)
Benchmark numbers, ablations and baseline numbers are extracted by AI from each paper's full text and can be wrong; the paper is the authority. Data: results index of 2026-11-02, citation counts from OpenAlex (2026-10-09).