Paul Vincent of Fair Isaac on PRR production rules effort in OMG

context:  OMG UML / commercial biz rules mgm sys (BRMS)

2 subtypes in 1st version 

1. *sequentially processed procedural rules

2. production rules

dream:  transformations

why a PRR standard required?

prodn rules in:
- rule engines / biz rules mgm sys
- *process engines 

LibRT:  does just rule verification, as technology  

co-development with proposed PRRuleML

meta-model compatible with: mult rule types, e.g., f/w, b/w, sequential; 
and with mult expr repns, e.g., XPath
- looking at OCL too 

PRR is for rule modeling

PRR only loosely "related" to formal logic 
are defining behavior as the semantics

plan to model events

sequential rules can sometimes be viewed as a hint to the execution 
engine, that makes it simpler to determine execution order of rules
[Pegasys. person]

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Daniel Selman of Ilog on JSR94

(ff. is summary of his presentation) 

he product manager for ILOG's JRules

lots of interest in Java community on using rule-based technology

there's no equivalent in .Net currently, as far as know

JSR94 is a standard within Java Community Process, as of 2004

lightweight and weak:  it's for getting stuff in and out of the engine,
  either if stateful or stateless;
  avoids defining what a rule engine is 
- needs a standard rule language and semantics to get stronger 

a number of vendors have implemented it

see:
*www.javarules.org  lists like40+ vendors in Java rules space 

tremendous variety, incl. b/w, production rules, rule templates 

many use:
*Java Open Source Spring framework
- helps acquire an interface to a Java-based rule engine

value:  merely ensures code portability 

engine semantics not defined, so very high level:  like JDBC without SQL

no underlying rule language, hence no API to introspect rules, create rulesets,
provide pluggable parsers, etc.

Rete forward chaining
or simpler sequential 

issues: define the binding between the engine internal object model
and the Java object model
- e.g., fairly-tight but indirect cf. Jess or Ilog or Pega
- how does updating of state get handled

might take 500 pages (cf. JVM, SQL92, C standard spec's) 
to spec fully a "virtual rule engine spec" doc

ideas for more:  there are a number
incl. packaging for hot deployment,
Ruleset API's 

Discussion:

Q:  why not extend language itself, as ATT did with R++ from C++
A:  not sure, partly it's patent issue, partly would have required 
reengineering the existing rule systems, partly Sun reluctant to change
the language itself that way

Q by Benjamin Grosof:
what besides the rule language and engine behavior would be good to 
standardize in the -WEB- space? 
A:  *the persistence service for rules/facts, e.g., get via URI's;
would be interesting perhaps to do this dynamically, say by assembling
several rulebases from around the web

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Don Chapin, of Business Rules Team:  OMG SBVR 

(ff. is summary of his presentation) 

SBVR = Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules

do not tackle standardizing syntax

do suggest one:  structured English

BRT is consortium of 18 companies/org's from 6 countries 

SBVR is for business modeling by business customer, in their own terms
- indep of implicit or explicit IS consideration or design decision
- in lang that the biz people use
- created and maintained by the Business staff 

IT supplier by contrast uses metamodels built on 
  production rules, OCL, RDBMS triggers

want 2-way MDA transformations between them

synthesis of 4 previous established areas ("disciplines")  
- terminology for translating natural lang doc's (ISO 1807-1) 
- BRG's "structuring biz vocab's for biz rules"
- formal logics:  Halpin's "obj role modeling (ORM) for the biz"
    . First order predicate logic with some (limited) extensions: underpins
- linguistics & communication:  Unisys' "linguistic exr of biz rules based on 
    exchangeable vocab's" 

meaning sense:  may have several ...
  semantic formulation:  which in turn may have several ...
    business expression, e.g., in mult natural languages, in a graphic 

approach: 
- vocabulary is separate from the rules
- all "declarative" rules 

it's a lang for structuring meaning of concepts (defns), rules, questions
- e.g., rules that govern operation of an org

optimized for people and natural language -- not for machine processing

interpretable in formal logics:  1st order and restricted higher order;
recursive

there's some consideration of deontic and alethic(?) aspects

*has XML for logical formulation, that can be used for interchange

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DAY 2
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Phil Archer of ICRA:  

(ff. is summary of presentation)

ICRA = Internet Content Rating Assoc

moving from PICS to RDF-based

want authorization rules,
that are prioritized defaults

now simple totally-ordered defaults

Phil's Q: what's available that can help? 


Discussion follows:  

Benjamin:
- Courteous LP in RuleML can handle your example and this kind of use case
well, e.g., in our use cases for trust; use RuleML, its RDF syntax is 
under development right now, the examples done already have been in 
XML syntax or presentation syntax.
- your approach looks like P3P, a lesson from there is that want a bit
more expressive richness to permit partially, not just totally, ordered
prioritization, since that's a class of orderings that's closed under 

Phil:  sounds good; we can use help  

Paul Vincent:
similar to what Benjamin said, 
as scale up, I would expect there are rule management issues,
right?

Phil:  yes, probably; we can use help