RE: Expressing Ruleset differences as Meta-information for RIF

Thanks so much Allen. I had formulated my email based on the older 
version of the Design Goals document so I missed out on your 
incorporation of my request in the new document.

         Mala



At 12:02 PM 2/20/2006, Ginsberg, Allen wrote:
>Hi Mala,
>
>Thanks for your input.
>
>In response to this message, I have added the following possible design
>goal to the list of design goals in the category named "Design Goals
>Concerning RIF Supported Metadata Features:"
>
>"The RIF should support meta-level or metadata features which make it
>possible to create rule "templates" that capture patterns of semantic
>and/or syntactic structures common across two or more rules."
>
>I hope this captures the intent of the use-case you describe.
>
>Allen
>
>
>
>
>
>________________________________
>
>         From: Mala Mehrotra [mailto:mm@pragati-inc.com]
>         Sent: Monday, February 20, 2006 2:42 PM
>         To: Ginsberg, Allen; public-rif-wg@w3.org
>         Subject: Expressing Ruleset differences as Meta-information for
>RIF
>
>
>         Hi Allen and RIF members,
>
>                  In going through the Design Goals document, I believe
>that an important observation regarding capture of meta-information on
>rule-sets, (which we had addressed as "Supporting the Reuse of Rules"
>use case) has not been included. The last para in section 1 of the
>Design Goals document states the following:
>
>
>         "Besides representing an order of magnitude less effort for the
>implementation of translation algorithms, the use of a RIF has the
>potential for additional benefits. For example, in cases where
>rule-interchange mappings cannot be reliably automated, the information
>provided by the RIF representation should, at the very least, be useful
>in automatically constructing explanations of the translation impasse.
>
>         It is important to understand, however, that the RIF itself
>provides neither a translation algorithm nor an explicit mapping
>between rule languages. Rather the RIF includes a framework of
>concepts, represented as tags in a markup language, that can be used to
>provide information about the meaning of wffs in a rule language. For
>rule authors who wish to make their rules accessible across languages
>and platforms, the more completely, precisely, and accurately they tag
>their creations using the RIF, the more likely it is that their rules
>will be capable of being automatically translated correctly."
>
>         Our use case focuses on the issue of utilizing RIF tags to
>provide meta- information about sets of rules rather than just single
>rules. In my experience while analyzing rules, we have repeatedly
>encountered common patterns across rule sets in various forms,
>regardless of representation and domain that the rules are embedded in.
>In the use case cited in the RIF Use Cases and Requirements, we have
>shown how that different classes such as, MaritimeEquipmentType,
>ElectronicEquipmentType and MiscellaneousEquipmentType have been
>similarly defined in OWL. The last block, in the use case,  abstracts
>the similarities while providing <slots> which indicate the parts which
>are different across the rules. I believe that this type of
>meta-information about sets of rules, such as similarity across the
>rules, can be usefully exploited by systems that utilize RIF for both
>exchange and interoperability of rules.
>
>         Below I provide a similar (but shorter) example from Cyc rules
>from the spatial microtheory, that I had analyzed for the DARPA RKF
>project:
>
>         (#$implies
>         (#$and
>         (#$termOfUnit ?CONVEXHULLFN (#$ConvexHullFn ?OBJECT))
>         (#$termOfUnit ?CONVEXHULLFN-1 (#$ConvexHullFn ?CONVEXHULLFN)))
>         (#$equals ?CONVEXHULLFN ?CONVEXHULLFN-1))
>
>         (#$implies
>         (#$and
>         (#$termOfUnit ?INTERIORFN (#$InteriorFn ?OBJECT))
>         (#$termOfUnit ?INTERIORFN-1 (#$InteriorFn ?INTERIORFN)))
>         (#$equals ?INTERIORFN ?INTERIORFN-1))
>
>
>         This is a case of discovering the characteristic of idempotency
>across various rules where the functions return the same value
>regardless of how many times you invoke it. (termOfUnit in Cyc is like
>a macropredicate to store the value returned by a function call.)
>
>         It is important to capture such similarity in invocations, at a
>meta-level in the RIF language, so that these types of rules can be
>invoked in any other language easily and translation process can
>proceed en masse. In other words, we need a way to separate out the
>commonality in formulation of the rules, from the specific invocations
>of these rules, so that these rules can be made more amenable to
>transfer across different rule representations.
>
>         So far my attempt to abstracting the commonality has been in
>the form of templates, by recognizing the idempotent rules found above,
>as a UniqueFn, which can invoke the set of rules above by being defined
>in the following manner:
>
>         (#$implies
>         (#$and
>           (#$<UniqueFn> ?<UNIQUEFN>)
>           (#$termOfUnit ?<UNIQUEFN-TERM-1> (?<UNIQUEFN> ?OBJECT))
>           (#$termOfUnit ?<UNIQUEFN-TERM-2> (?<UNIQUEFN>
>?<UNIQUEFN-TERM-1>)))
>           (#$equals ?<UNIQUEFN-TERM-1> ?<UNIQUEFN-TERM-2>))
>
>         Now the exchange across other rule representation languages can
>be carried out both at the syntactic level and at a meta-level  and any
>number of such rules can be invoked, with different names, in either
>one of the languages to be interoperated with.
>
>         Thus RIF needs to capture the meta-level formulation of these
>rules - and I see a strong role for advocating first order
>representation for such cases, so that one can invoke rules on sets of
>classes.
>
>         Please note that I am not advocating a first order reasoner (as
>that can be a hard problem to tackle in Phase I) - as I am not
>executing the meta-rules. However it is important to represent them in
>RIF so as to generate other rules.
>
>         I would be happy to discuss this further in tomorrow's telecon
>and/or at the F2F in Cannes,
>
>                          Thanks for listening!
>                                   Mala
>
>
>
>         At 01:20 PM 2/16/2006, Ginsberg, Allen wrote:
>
>
>
>
>                 Dear RIF-WGers,
>
>                 At the last telecon I was assigned the action item of
>starting to
>                 compile a list of Design Goal issues on the WIKI.
>
>                 To view what I have done so far please visit
>                 http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wg/wiki/UCR/Design_Goals.
>
>                 Here is a synopsis:
>
>                 I list 3 design goal categories.  Each category has
>some explanation of
>                 what it is, and one or more of the following
>
>                         1) a list of possible design goals
>                        2) a list of NOT-A-Design-Goals
>                         3) commentary
>                         4) questions
>
>                 My next step is to go back over the messages in the
>email list and
>                 build up these lists and add new categories as
>required. I hope to get
>                 that done before the next telecon.
>
>                 Any feedback and suggestions are most welcome.
>
>                 Allen
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________________________
>
>                 Dr. Allen Ginsberg        The MITRE Corporation,
>Information Semantics
>                 aginsberg@mitre.org       Center for Innovative
>Computing & Informatics
>
>                 Voice: 703-983-1604       7515 Colshire Drive, M/S H305
>
>                 Fax:   703-983-1379       McLean, VA 22102-7508, USA
>
>
>
>         Mala Mehrotra
>         Pragati Synergetic Research Inc.  MS 19-46Q, NASA Research
>Park, Moffett Field, CA 94035
>         Voice:
>         (650)-625-0274(Office)
>         (408)-861-0939 (Home Office)
>         (408)-910-4115 (Cell)
>         Fax: (408)-516-9599
>         URL: http://www.pragati-inc.com
>         Email: mm@pragati-inc.com
>

Mala Mehrotra
Pragati Synergetic Research Inc.  MS 19-46Q, NASA Research Park, 
Moffett Field, CA 94035
Voice:
(650)-625-0274(Office)
(408)-861-0939 (Home Office)
(408)-910-4115 (Cell)
Fax: (408)-516-9599
URL: http://www.pragati-inc.com			
Email: mm@pragati-inc.com

Received on Monday, 20 February 2006 21:36:52 UTC