K-SITE RULES Integrating Business Rules in the Mainstream Software Engineering Practice

The technology for business rule based systems faces two important challenges: standardization and integration within conventional software development lifecycle models and tools. Despite the standardization effort carried out by international organizations, commercial tools incorporate their own flavours in rule languages, making difficult the migration among tools. On the other hand, although some business rules systems vendors incorporate interfaces to encapsulate decision models as web services, it is still difficult integrating business rules in traditional object-oriented analysis and design methodologies. This is the rationale behind the development of K-Site Rules, a tool that facilitates the cooperation of business people and software designers in business applications

XESS: The XML expert system shell

The XML Expert System Shell (XESS) was designed to alleviate some of the difficulties associated with translating a knowledge base from one expert system to another. The major goal of XESS is to allow programmers to model an expert system, complete with traditional facts and rules, in an XML-based language that leverages the universally understood terms used when teaching artificial intelligence to students. XML, the extensible markup language, is a text-based standard for information interchange between disparate systems1; it was originally designed to represent data in an easily parsable, human readable format2. While some extensions of the XML specification, particularly the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), have long since abandoned human readability, the core XML specification is still used frequently to produce documents that can easily be exchanged between computational platforms and created or understood by human beings. The XESS-XML language inherits all of the usability of XML; it can be edited by hand in any text editor, is human readable, and can be parsed using XML parsers commonly available in any modern programming language. The XML Schema specification provides a mechanism for explicitly defining the content of an XML document so that a document can be validated3,4,5. XML schemas specify the make-up of an XML document in exacting detail6, using a pseudo-object-oriented syntax to specify exactly which entities are allowed in the document, the attributes of those entities, where they are allowed in the document, and how often they may occur. The XESS-XML language is defined as a fully extensible XML Schema, which can be used to validate any knowledge base written in the language. The Schema provides entities for common facts (e.g. predictes, structs) and a robust syntax for expressing rules in an if-then-else format, as well as the actions that should be taken in the event that a rule is fired. Additionally, because XML schemas are fully extensible, the XESS schema may be extended to add additional functionality such as support for fuzzy logic, new clause types, or new actions to be taken when rules are fired. In addition to the XML language, XESS also includes an object oriented interpreter specification that defines a robust set of language independent APIs for interacting with the expert system. This interpreter specification is meant to set expectations, both for XESS developers and users, as to the features provided by the XESS API regardless of the language in which the interpreter has been implemented. As part of the specification, the XESS API also provides object oriented definitions for XESS plug-ins; a plug-in is capable of translating from an XESS document to the native language of a specific expert system shell in a generic way (i.e. not specific to any one rule set) and back again. This allows users to express custom expert system shells in the XESS-XML language, parse them using an XESS interpreter written in any language, and translate them to a specific expert system shell through the use of an XESS plug-in without needing to learn the specific expert system shell language or rewriting the knowledge base once for each shell tested

Fuzzy Dynamic Discrimination Algorithms for Distributed Knowledge Management Systems

A reduction of the algorithmic complexity of the fuzzy inference engine has the following property: the inputs (the fuzzy rules and the fuzzy facts) can be divided in two parts, one being relatively constant for a long a time (the fuzzy rule or the knowledge model) when it is compared to the second part (the fuzzy facts) for every inference cycle. The occurrence of certain transformations over the constant part makes sense, in order to decrease the solution procurement time, in the case that the second part varies, but it is known at certain moments in time. The transformations attained in advance are called pre-processing or knowledge compilation. The use of variables in a Business Rule Management System knowledge representation allows factorising knowledge, like in classical knowledge based systems. The language of the first-degree predicates facilitates the formulation of complex knowledge in a rigorous way, imposing appropriate reasoning techniques. It is, thus, necessary to define the description method of fuzzy knowledge, to justify the knowledge exploiting efficiency when the compiling technique is used, to present the inference engine and highlight the functional features of the pattern matching and the state space processes. This paper presents the main results of our project PR356 for designing a compiler for fuzzy knowledge, like Rete compiler, that comprises two main components: a static fuzzy discrimination structure (Fuzzy Unification Tree) and the Fuzzy Variables Linking Network. There are also presented the features of the elementary pattern matching process that is based on the compiled structure of fuzzy knowledge. We developed fuzzy discrimination algorithms for Distributed Knowledge Management Systems (DKMSs). The implementations have been elaborated in a prototype system FRCOM (Fuzzy Rule COMpiler).Fuzzy Unification Tree, Dynamic Discrimination of Fuzzy Sets, DKMS, FRCOM

Compliance validation and diagnosis of business data constraints in business processes at runtime

Business processes involve data that can be modified and updated by various activities at any time. The data involved in a business process can be associated with flow elements or data stored. These data must satisfy the business compliance rules associated with the process, where business compliance rules are policies or statements that govern the behaviour of a company. To improve and automate the validation and diagnosis of compliance rules based on the description of data semantics (called Business Data Constraints), we propose a framework where dataflow variables and stored data are analyzed. The validation and diagnosis process is automated using Constraint Program-ming, to permit the detection and identification of possibly unsatisfiable Business Data Constraints, even if the data involved in these constraints are not all instantiated. This implies that the potential errors can be determined in advance. Furthermore, a language to describe Business Data Constraints is proposed, for the improvement of user-oriented aspects of the business process description. This language allows a business expert to write Business Data Constraints that will be automatically validated in run-time, without the support of an information technology expert.Junta de Andalucía P08-TIC-04095Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIN2009-1371

Tool Support for Finding and Preventing Faults in Rule Bases

This thesis analyzes challenges for the correct creation of rule bases. Based on experiences and data from three rule base development projects, dedicated experiments and a survey of developers, ten main problem areas are identified. Four approaches in the area of Testing, Debugging, Anomaly Detection and Visualization are proposed and evaluated as remedies for these problem areas

Langage contrôlé pour la spécification des règles métier dans le contexte de la modélisation des systèmes d'information

Our thesis focuses on controlled natural languages (CNL) for software engineering. It aims at facilitating the adoption of the business rule approach (BRA) by companies by creating a CNL in order to help business experts in the specification of their business rules. Our solution will allow reducing the semantic gap between business experts and system experts to meet not only the need for mutual understanding between them but also to achieve an automatic transfer of the description of business rules to information systems (IS). The CNL that we have created will also ensure the consistency and the traceability of these rules together with their implementationNotre thèse s’inscrit dans le cadre des langages contrôlés pour le génie logiciel. Elle a pour but de faciliter l’adoption de l’approche par règles métier (ARM) par les entreprises en créant un langage contrôlé en vue d’aider à la spécification des règles métier par les experts métier. Notre solution va permettre de réduire la distance sémantique entre les experts métier et les experts système afin de répondre non seulement au besoin d’intercompréhension entre ces derniers mais aussi pour réaliser un transfert automatique de la description des règles métier vers les systèmes d’information (SI). Ce langage contrôlé que nous avons créé permettra d’assurer en plus la consistance et la traçabilité de ces règles avec leur implantatio

Semantisk modellering av juridisk regelverk med bruk av SBVR - en brobygger mellom jus og IT

Utviklingen har bidratt til at to verdener som har stått langt fra hverandre, nå kan møtes gjennom en felles plattform, til nytte for begge parter. På den ene siden er det myndighetene som utvikler juridisk regelverk i naturlig språk, på den andre siden er det foretakene som implementerer regelverket gjennom IT-løsningene. Utviklingen av standarder og metoder for å omforme naturlig språk til formelt språk representerer en felles plattform. Ved hjelp av Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules (SBVR) som er en åpen, ikke-kommersiell standard for omforming av naturlig språk til formelt språk, prøver jeg ut om juridisk regelverk kan uttrykkes som regelbaserte formuleringer. Ideen er at lovgiver kan bruke dette som en metode for å omforme lovtekster i naturlig språk til lovregler i et strukturert språk. I prosessen med å omforme lovteksten, kan lovgiver avdekke svakheter og uklarheter som kan bidra til en kvalitetssikring av lovteksten før den publiseres. Resultatet av omformuleringen, selve reglene, kan publiseres sammen med lovteksten og være en veileder for foretakene slik at de sparer tid i analyse- og implementeringsfasen. Dess flere foretak som implementerer samme regelverk, dess mere tid er det å spare. Formelle formuleringer kan utveksles i elektronisk format og kan transformeres til regler i et format som kan transformeres til programkode

Hive society: the popularization of science and beekeeping in the British Isles, 1609 -1913

The history of scientific beekeeping involved many of the social and intellectual trajectories that transformed western societies between the seventeenth century and the early twentieth century. The title, Hive society: the popularization of science and beekeeping in the British Isles, 1609-1913, emphasizes the theme of science that connects each chapter. The evolving social structure of the British Isles, the expansion of print culture, and the proliferation of voluntary societies conditioned the development and popularization of scientific beekeeping. The case study contributes to histories of rural reform, the popularization of science, and the roles of voluntary associations that focused on scientific and moral improvement. Investigation of apicultural history reveals a thriving vernacular science that included loose connections with elite scientific societies. Voluntary associations collaborated to bring scientific beekeeping to an audience that transected social classifications, though their rhetoric especially targeted cottagers. The investigation intertwines analyses of beekeeping treatises, pamphlets, periodicals, apicultural society records, and private letters. Overall, the project illustrates the contributions of multiple socioeconomic classes to the popularization of scientific beekeeping. Their diverse mentalities created a more socially-inclusive movement than appears in some accounts that are clouded by the Darwin specter that dominates some histories of nineteenth-century science. The dissertation also revises the idea of a popular revolution in nineteenth-century beekeeping technology