Slide: Semantic Community
... 'Definition'

ISO 1087-1 and 24707 (Common Logic)

Slide: Business Vocabulary

separate meaning from notation

non-normative SBVR structured English

enforcement requires rules about rules

Slide: Semantic Formulation
... Seamntic Formulation of a Simple Rule

strongly linguistics oriented

integrated with formal logic

Grosof: RIF must be able to support communication of non-automatable rules? comment field? support?

e.g. must wear hard had on construction site

enforcement can't be automated

Grosof: perhaps different term that non-automatable

can analyze for ambiguity, inconsistency, etc. even if machine can't enforce

?: rules should be in human readable form - XML is basically binary

<hak> who spoke?

<MarkusK> Igor Mozetic

Speaker: Gary , Oracle

DB glossary

Slide: query

optimize using algebraic rewrite rules

Gary Hallmark, Oracle

Slide: view
... integrity constraints

conditions that must hold at transaction boundaries

perhaps add glossary term for transaction

<sandro> glossary+ transaction

constraints resemble queries - same syntax, different interpretation

Slide: triggers
... how to evolve the KB
... role based access control

security

in scope for RIF?

Grosof: use of rules for security policy?
... kitchen sink, without distinguishing layers
... is this satisfactory?

Gary: arbitrary security requirements, minimum result set size, etc.

Barkmeyer: hoping for more about transactions
... can't evaluate rule safely until everything available - unitary change

Gary: rules in database vs. rules in middle tier
... ECA rules can't impact other rules

<hak> There is no such verb as "to inference"! :-)

Speaker: Chris Welty leading open discussion

Welty: What are we doing? How are we doing it?

Boley: scalability to scope of the web?
... hard to control or debug, particularly for active rules (production and reactive)

Welty: scalability is more of a requirement

RIF focus on interchange, not defining a new language

understanding will emerge over time

should be less fuzzy as a result of this meeting

tomorrow reserved almost exclusively for discussion of use cases and requirements

Boley: are we concerned about efficient execution of interchanged rules?

<sandro> Jon Pellant

big difference in scope for interchange of rules vs. rule instances running in live environment

Mala: like to see support for evolution of large rule bases

Welty: sounds like requirement

Cory Casanave: what isn't a rule? process modeling as rules about behavior? every UML element?

Dave Springgay: usability, human readability, authoring - outside RIF scope

Hassan: different conceptions of formal semantics logicians as model theory semantics - doesn't have to be model-theoretic; other formalisms possible
... rules discussed today mostly involve inference, vs. just flexible way to express computation (production rules)
... just changes of state
... business rules don't require inference, just agile computing - useful to distinguish evaluation/execution from forward/backward inference

?: not a response but elaboration - what are we going to do in this working group

<MarkusK> ?^Pascal Hitzler

thanx

Grosof: think we should identify KR expressiveness and type of generic computational tasks associated with clusters of systems and use cases, then identify superset of subsets that enables significant translation and interoperability between pairs with well-understood semantics
... model theory is good at specifying these functions
... could support multiple KRs - e.g. SWRL sits on cusp between Horn FOL and Horn LP
... behaviors/ground conclusions often identical
... a lot known theoretically - should have 1 or 2 umbrella KRs, at least for this phase
... perhaps annotated comments

Welty: clusters of existing rule languages and systems (with possible overlap)
... classifying existing systems
... may not achieve 100% interoperability - standard approach is to cluster things with common assumptions

Sandro: keeps the market for extensions simple (package per cluster)

<sandro> Is the speaker Joshua Engel?

yes

Engel: also accommodates non-rule systems - queries are a special case of rules

Barkmeyer: different tasks: inference for the purpose of creating knowledge vs. immediate information vs. validation of information set
... tools tend to cross between tasks (DBMS as kitchen sink)
... 3 related but different axes

Welty: not hearing any dissent on classifying systems

Bijan: not sure - still assimilating
... worried about scope - job of working group to survey existing systems?

Welty: necessary for interchange?

Sandro: sides with Bijan - those communities are here, don't have to worry about others until Last Call

Bijan: would rather start with rule systems represented here

Christian: agree - but if some community is missing, may need to look outside for extensibility

Sandro: how does this relate to use cases? top down vs. bottom up?
... meet at features (systems) or requirements (use cases)

Ginsberg: clustering good - ontology about rules or reasoning may be helpful
... capturing features (e.g. types of nonmon) may help avoid confusion

Kifer: series of languages? interchange implies multiplicity
... define language(s) underlying format

Barkmeyer: define abstract concepts

Kifer: and concrete syntax

Welty: classification could drive requirements for syntax and semantics of interchange format

Kifer: OK

Bijan: use cases for rules vs. use cases for exchange

MDean: +1

Welty: most use cases for rule language not interchange between rule languages
... use cases fairly standard in standards efforts - to assess coverage, etc.
... no use cases focused on interchange

<bijan> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rif-wg/2005Dec/0055.html

Dieter: use cases provide guidance on relevant features

<bijan> Possible use cases from a interchange perspective

<bijan> I don't agree with that :)

Grosof: agree, but how valuable/likely is exchange of certain rules?
... e.g. context required to run aprocs
... counter-argument is combination of local context with exchanged information - need to semantically integrate

Dieter: too limited notion of exchange - could be within processes/vendors locally

Grosof: agree

Paul: need to define "exchange"

Bijan: need to prioritize features?

Ginsberg: use case showing exchange discussed tomorrow
... also compare consistency of rules

Hassan: 1+

Welty: enumeration problem - use case for each rule engine
... e.g. what kind of interopability can be achieved between systems with different semantics

Boley: agree - should combine use cases - compare translated results - multiple groups working on same domain (e.g. bioinformatics)

Hassan: translate between formalisms preserving structure (homomorphism) - PRR started with this (meta-model)
... same issue here - PRR approach makes continuing sense

homomorphism can be forgetful - exchange only patterns

Hassan: first describe objects in common

Cory: relative stupidity of meta-models can be an advantage - simplify synthesize common meta-model
... use cases for rules have probably been accommodated in existing languages

David Springgay: OMG goal to identify core then extend

David Springgay: solves goal of interoperability between vendors

Dave Reynolds: what do rule vendors expect from RIF that PRR with XML serialization doesn't provide?

Bijan: or RuleML?

Paul: excellent question - PRR aimed at OMG and modelling - clear need for more real-time non-modelling interchange closely related to modelling interchange
... RIF should be run-time interchange format based on PRR - production rule support required, otherwise irrelevant
... RIF in XMI possible, but other formats probably better

Reynolds: concrete syntax for PRR would meet requirement? semantics requires?

Paul: no concrete syntax for PRR core (main meta-model) - what other concrete syntax will be required for RIF

Welty: need concrete syntax for rule interchange - phase 1 for core subset

Paul: meta-model describes only semantics - e.g. doesn't define expression language (e.g. RDF)
... concrete syntax provides hub

Grosof: what semantics will PRR have before RIF arrives?
... semantics expressed at level of meta-model rather than logical conclusions and actions from premises
... should RIF provide that kind of stuff? finer/deeper/different level

Welty: agree - PRR has different type of semantics

Barkmeyer: model-theoretic semantics?

Welty: not necessary - but want to ensure same conclusions

Paul: rule vendors won't change engines

Welty: semantics should be specified, allowing rule engine to know how to translate into their system

Paul: requirement is purely compatibility - OMG uses annotated meta-model

Hassan: converging - Structured Operational Semantics (SOS) are rules that transform syntactic constructs - formal semantics

<sandro> http://www.cs.vu.nl/~x/sos.html Structured Operational Semantics

<sandro> by J.C.M. Baeten and C. Verhoef ?

<hak> SOS is a formalism due to Gordon Plotkin

<sandro> http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=199472 ?

<hak> yes !

<sandro> G. Plotkin. A structured approach to operational semantics. Technical Report DAIMI FN-19, Computer Science Department, Aarhus University, 1981. 15

Uli: how many semantics of how many vendors of how many engines?

<hak> http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/plotkin81structural.html

Welty: scope of this WG is primarily its membership

Sandro: charter discussed standard and non-standard (vendor specific) extensions

Welty: non-member rule engine features could be addressed when designing extension mechanisms

Grosof: any Prolog vendors here?

<phitzler> Concerning SOS I have some doubts whether this would cover e.g. non-monotonic logical semantics and other things important for logic-programming based rule languages. This is probably rather a case for research?

Paul: every PRR vendor has features not covered by PRR - subset/least common denominator

Engel: OntologyWorks is Prolog-like

Grosof: nice to interoperate with pure Prolog

Christian: need phase 1 use cases to identify extensibility mechanism requirements

Welty: how to proceed? classification of existing systems?

<hak> About phitzler doubts re: SOS and non-motonicity - no problems at all. Read Plotkin's paper (cited above)

Sandro: worked some on "feature matrix" over summer, inspired by workshop

Bijan: could proponents provide (preferably semantic) descriptions of their languages, particularly vendor-unique features

<hak> I second Chris Welty's "let's classify systems" initiative.

Bijan: free licenses helpful too :-)

Welty: need some documentation/understanding from vendors

pfps: user documents generally don't describe semantics - evocative not descriptive

<MarkusK> Offtopic: where are the logs of this chat to be found?

Ginsberg: benchmark results may apply here

Bijan: what parts of languages aren't usefully covered by PRR, RuleML, etc.?

Welty: want clear agenda for tomorrow - sense relative satisfaction with classification
... what about use cases? not interchange-centric? higher-level use cases?

Christian: should include test cases from specific applications as use cases

Dieter: 80/20 rule - RIF needs to support common constructs

<sandro> hand raised for you, hak

Grosof: use use cases to weight different features

Dieter: strange RDF features to cover PICS use case - over-design

Welty: use cases not carved in stone - don't commit to cover everything

<GaryH> download a beta of Oracle Biz rules at http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/ias/business_rules/index.html

<GaryH> in the .zip file, rl.pdf is a "spec" of the java-like technical rule language

?: half of use cases can be satisified by web services

?: when do rules need to be explicitly interchanged

?: constraint programming engines also important

<MarkusK> ^?^Igor Mozetic^

<MarkusK> Last ?="Philippe Bernard"

<csma> Philippe Bonnard

<MarkusK> Oh, soory

Gary: 2 types of scenario: interchange (vendor/company/tool), rule use cases

Engel: another scenario - vendor-neutral authoring tool (e.g. Eclipse or SourceForge)
... need to motivate exchange of rules - some engines may not be able to handle even if properly translated

Boley: collaborating rule engines on large distributed problem

Welty: challenge authors of existing use cases, etc. to think more generally and about how they relate to classification

Pellant: won't be here tomorrow - use case: very wide set of behaviors

Welty: please write up

<hak> who spoke?

Bijan: don't want interchange language, want Semantic Web Rules Language - others may also - how to accommodate this

Welty: have this conversation at end of tomorrow, after more clear expectations
... view question as largely irrelevant
... interchange already complex, without introducing divide
... can phrase desire as use case or requirement

Kifer: RIF not possible without defining (web) language

<hak> I disagree!

Welty: gather requirements based on need to interchange - resulting spec can be viewed as language

Bijan: different between rules language and (semantic) web rules language

^different^difference

Welty: RIF will be web-savvy interchange format (URIs, interoperability with OWL/RDF)

Barkmeyer: distinguish desire for interchange with what to interchange
... focus on capabilities

Pascal Hitzler: ambiguous terms between communities: model, etc.

Welty: on-going and evolving process - can adapt as necessary

close of meeting

start promptly at 9am for "quick" 3 hour roundtable

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