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Link - Expert Systems at Knowledgebased Systems Corp.

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It is interesting that the general view of rule-based systems as "rule-based expert systems" begs the question: is there such a thing as non-rule-based expert systems or rule-based non-expert systems ? I think the answer is yes.

For instance, the KBSC site mentions that the company "deals mostly with rulebased systems in the business world where they are sometimes referred to as Business Rule Management Systems, BRMS". In other words, rule-based non-expert systems, also know as business rules.


Link - Modeling Rule-Based Systems with EMF

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Oddly, this may be one of the best definitions of "rule-base system". It's when you do ....

Conventionally, rule-based systems are defined as or are closely associated with expert systems. But the usually ever-reliable Wikipedia mentions them only in the context of expert systems and that only in passing.  THe central definition of expert system is:


Link - OASIS Universal Business Language

From the document:

The OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) is intended to help solve these problems by defining a generic XML interchange format for business documents that can be extended to meet the requirements of particular industries. Specifically, UBL provides the following:

  • A library of XML schemas for reusable data components such as “Address,” “Item,” and “Payment” — the common data elements of everyday business documents.


Link - Ontologies for Bioinformatics

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This article on ontologies in bioinformatics seeks to resolve problems in the standardization of nomenclature in the domain of biology and bioinformatics for text mining and data integration. While intended primarily for biotech, it is very concise and well-formulated and useful to anyone constructing an ontology.


Link - PHP SOA Project

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For a selection of short, concrete and graphical examples of SOA implementations ( sort of "SOA in 3 Minutes Flat" ), see the PHP SOA project homepage. The aim of the SOA PHP project is to create, as a community, an infrastructure that simplifies the development of PHP applications in a service oriented architecture environment (SOA). Perhaps significantly, the posting was authored by Graham Barber of IBM.

The link is http://www.osoa.org/display/PHP/SOA+PHP+Homepage?showChildren=false


Link - Reference Model for Service Oriented Architecture v1.0



The spec for the SOA Reference Model includes a very good discussion of the differences between the SOA approach and an OO ( "Object-Oriented" ) approach to web services, although strictly SOA is not about web services. In their definition, SOA is "a paradigm for organizing and utilizing distributed capabilities that may be under the control of different ownership domains". Sounds a bit vague to me, but it may be the clearest definition to date.


Link - Rule Markup Initiative

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 From th RuleML site:

 

The participants of the RuleML Initiative constitute an open network of individuals and groups from both industry and academia. ... Our main objective is to provide a basis for an integrated rule-markup approach that will be beneficial to all involved and to the rule community at large.

 


Link - Semantic Web at Opera

Opera has several browser plugins and lively projects to build support for the Semantic Web.

One of most interesting plugins is the Tabulator RDF Browser Plugin. It's one of the few RDF tools that actually works.

The Tabulator Developers Notes ( and source code ) at MIT's DIG-CSAIL.

 

 


Link - Semantic Web Research Isn't Working

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Interesting article on the slow takeoff of the Semantic Web.

Semantic web technology is marred in a chicken/egg paradox. The technologies are generally not useful unless they are adopted and implemented on a large scale and people are not willing to invest in implementing them unless they are useful. This is exacerbated by the fact that there are very high technology, business, and social barriers to implementing the semantic web.


Link - SOA Blog at zdnet.com



Joe McKendrick capitalizing on service-oriented architecture, but interesting articles nonetheless.


Link - The Mother of All Flowcharts

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Think you've worked on some complex business applications ? Check out the flowchart for "Biochemical Pathways".


Link - Top 10 Reasons Why We Should Not Manage Business Rules or use Business Rule Engines

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A terse refutation of the 10 top reasons given for not using a business rules approach, not necessarily good reasons of course.

The usual suspects include such classics as "it didn't run fast on our 486 66Mz computer in 1988" and "our rules are too complex for a rule engine [ god help'em ]" and eight other great excuses for procedural determinism.

Actually, it's not ten reasons, only nine - see item #6.

 

 


Link - Using Semantic Web Technologies to Integrate Software Components

Updated Oct 20 2008: new link

A really excellent example of what can be accomplished with a pragmatic approach to implementing RDF and Semantic Web applications, by Drs. Marwan Sabbouh and Joseph K. DeRosa at the Mitre Corporation. They use OWL ontologies to map between databases in three basic steps:

1. Express any software component’s formalism as an ontology,
2. Map the component’s ontology to the domain ontology, and thus
3. Integrate components at the semantic level without writing integration code.


Links - Barbara Von Halle on Business Rules

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Updated Oct 6 2008: fixed bad links and added more links

Barbara Von Halle is a true pioneer in the discipline of business rules. She started with a series of important articles about business rules in Database Programming and Design magazine in the early 1990s and then just kept going. She founded Knowledge Partners International in 1996.


Links - Business Process Management (BPM)

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Good no-nonsense advice in the form of questions and answers about BPM. Unlike some overly-technical approaches to BPM, it shows a keen awareness of the importance of business rules and business issues in general.

Be prepared to zoom the text size in your browser.

Another good introduction and overview is Co-ordination Protocol and BPEL, which, despite its title, turns out to be solid business-oriented discussion of BPM issues. Some of the links do not seem to be functioning correctly.


Links - Business Rules

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Added Jan 20 2009: new section for Business Rules of Thumb
Updated Sept 16 2008: new links

The Grand Daddy of business rules sites is Business Rule Community, run by Ron Ross. They make you sign up in order to see most of their articles, but it's well worth the time to sign up. The content is excellent. They send you a newsletter about once a month - no big mailing lists, no spamming.


Links - Conceptual Modeling

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Revised Dec 2 2008:: many new links

A Spot of Philosophy

Conceptual modeling has two disticnt aspects: one os concepts and the other is modeling. That may sound trivial, but within that statemnt are complexities and important consequences. One can be come almost mysitcal about it.


Links - Grid Computing and the Semantic Grid

The Semantic Grid takes the standards of the Semantic Web usch as RDF and OWL and combines them with the technology of Grid Computing, sometimes called the Computational Grid. There is a strong association between Grid Computing and SOA architecture.

One of the best descriptions from the article Semantic Grid is Laying the Foundations for the Semantic Grid (PDF ):


Links - OMG Model Driven Architecture for Business Rules

Updated Sept 17 2008: new links

One of the great contributions to the world of business rules in the last decade is the OMG Model Driven Architecture for Business Rules. The OMG link will take you to a page listing several formats for the article. I suggest using the PDF format for Business Semantics of Business Rules, it's about 240K. They also have MS Word and RTF formats.


Links - Ontologies and Organizations

The general definition of ontology at Wikipedia ( versus the computer science definition given in the main link ) is "a study of conceptions of reality and the nature of being". In some ways, the general definition is more appropriate to modeling organizations - the target audience for an organizational ontology is people, not computers.

The shortest and most intuitive definition of term ontology is 'a description of things that be'. For most purposes, it may be the best definition.


Links - Rule Based Systems

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Updated Sept 7 2008: Found new link to Diane Cook lecture notes ...

Rule Based Systems and Artificial Intelligence

One of the better and more accessible rule-based system links is the student notes for a course on AI given by Jocelyn Paine in 1996.

The Jocelyn Paine definition of rule-based systems:


Links - Rule Based Systems at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)

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Tons of interesting aritcles at the System and Software Engineering lab (SSEL) ... many need a bit of googling to find them all.

Many links can be found on the VUB Publications page. Also check out the thesises ... thesii ? ...

The general basis of many of the articles is Aspect Oriented Programming, but the focus at VUB is business rules and rule-based systems.

 


Links - Semantic Web

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Jan 25 2009 - Added Named Graph links
Note to self Sept 10 2008 - This thing needs work.
Revised: April 4 2008. This disordered mess of links cleaned up, except for a few strays.

See Semantic Web at technorati.com.

Examples of RDF and stray stuff:


Links - Semantic Web Services

Revised Feb 23 2009: will get more attention in coming months

A year ago, the subject of Semantic Web Services might have been considered visionary. In fact, several of the early corporate efforts were canceled or abandoned ( such as Microsoft's GoDotNet ). At best, the technolgy has been static.

But that is not the case today. Several popular web development tools and packages ( such as the Drupal Services project ) are making the vision a concrete reality.


Links - Service Oriented Architecture ( SOA )



Revised Sept 7-12 2008: Added IBM and many other links

This site is primarily about open source solutions, so the honor of precedence goes to the Open SOA Collaboration. The organization is not very active, but it moves along over time.

From the home page:


Links - The SOA Glossaries at OMG



The OMG ( Object Management Group ) is a consortium that sets standards for object-oriented systems and and model-based architectures.

Perhaps the most interesting page from a standards standpoint is the SOA Glossary.

The SOA glossary, provided by the SOA Community of Practice, contains general definitions of SOA terms as well as links to common definitions in industry and standards organizations such as OMG, Oasis, Open Group and W3C.


Links - W6 Vocabularies for the Semantic Web

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W6 vocabularies ( ontologies ) allow resource descriptions and reasoning based on the 6 questions : who, why, what, when, where, and how. ( better called "W5-H" ? )

 


Links - Web Service Design Patterns



The main link is part of O'Reilly Publsihing's ever-widening archipelego of XML sites - many of the articles are not related to web service design patterns per se. Sometimes one gets the impression that the real purpose of design patterns is to sell books about design patterns, but they are very useful nevertheless.


Links- Commerical Open Source Software

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Feb 19 2009: added MoinMoin bounties.
Note from Nov 25 2008: Apparently, making a living from Open Source is a big subject whose time has arrived, if the number of hits on this page is any indication. This section will grow and may split in the coming months.


Links- Open Source / Open Content Initiative

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OReily - Open Source Open Content Paradigm Shift

" ... the open source story is far from over, and its lessons far from completely understood. Rather than thinking of open source only as a set of software licenses and associated software development practices, we do better to think of it as a field of scientific and economic inquiry, one with many historical precedents, and part of a broader social and economic story".