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We present an overview of various learning techniques used in automated theorem provers. We characterize the main problems arising in this context and classify the solutions to these problems from published approaches. We analyze the suitability of several combinations of solutions for different approaches to theorem proving and place these combinations in a spectrum ranging from provers using very specialized learning approaches to optimally adapt to a small class of proof problems, to provers that learn more general kinds of knowledge, resulting in systems that are less efficient in special cases but show improved performance for a wide range of problems. Finally, we suggest combinations of solutions for various proof philosophies.
Automatic proof systems are becoming more and more powerful.However, the proofs generated by these systems are not met withwide acceptance, because they are presented in a way inappropriatefor human understanding.In this paper we pursue two different, but related, aims. First wedescribe methods to structure and transform equational proofs in away that they conform to human reading conventions. We developalgorithms to impose a hierarchical structure on proof protocols fromcompletion based proof systems and to generate equational chainsfrom them.Our second aim is to demonstrate the difficulties of obtaining suchprotocols from distributed proof systems and to present our solutionto these problems for provers using the TEAMWORK method. Wealso show that proof systems using this method can give considerablehelp in structuring the proof listing in a way analogous to humanbehaviour.In addition to theoretical results we also include descriptions onalgorithms, implementation notes, examples and data on a variety ofexamples.