Semantic Knowledge Engineering for Business Intelligence: concepts and tools

Instructors and their contact information

The tutorial will be given by the members of GEIST – Group for Engineering of Intelligent Systems and Technologies (http://geist.agh.edu.pl) from AGH University of Science and Technology, Poland:

Grzegorz J. Nalepa, PhD, gjn@agh.edu.pl, http://home.agh.edu.pl/~gjn
Grzegorz J. Nalepa, PhD holds a position of assistant professor at AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow, Poland, Department of Applied Computer Science. Since 1995 he has been actively involved in number of research projects, including Regulus, Mirella, Adder, HeKatE and recently INDECT (FP7) and BIMLOQ. He authored and co-authored over 100 research publications, from the domains of knowledge engineering, intelligent systems and software engineering. His fields of interest also include computer security and operating systems. He worked out a new design and implementation approach for intelligent rule-based systems called XTT (eXtended Tabular Trees). He is involved in scientific committees of numerous conferences and workshops. Since 2008 he has been co-organizing the Knowledge and Software Engineering Workshop (KESE) at KI, the German and Spanish AI conferences. In 2012 KESE will be held with the ECAI conference. He is the President of PSSI – Polish Artificial Intelligence Society (http://pssi.agh.edu.pl). In 2011 he published a monograph “Semantic Knowledge Engineering. A Rule-Based Approach”.

Dr. Nalepa gave several invited talks. In 2011 and 2012 he was invited to give 1-week long lectures and tutorials on knowledge engineering in the University of Almeria, Andalusia, Spain.
Antoni Ligęza, Prof, PhD, ligeza@agh.edu.pl, http://home.agh.edu.pl/~ligeza
Prof. Antoni Ligęza, PhD is a professor in the domain of computer science at AGH UST. His principal area of investigation is Artificial Intelligence and Knowledge Engineering. He lectures on knowledge engineering, databases, Prolog, automated diagnosis, discrete mathematics and logics. He actively participated in numerous national and international projects (KBN, TEMPUS, POLONIUM); he was the head of KBN-Regulus Project, Mirella Project and recently HeKatE on hybrid knowledge engineering, and BIMLOQ. Moreover, he is a leader of a team being a part of the INDECT FP7 Project.

Antoni Ligęza was a visiting professor and worked in Denmark (Technical University of Lyngby), in France (LAAS of CNRS, Toulouse; University of Nancy I, Nancy; CRIL Lens; University of Caen, Caen) for about two years in total and in Spain (University of Balearic Islands, Palma de Mallorca; University of Girona, Girona) for about one year. He gave numerous invited talks and lectures. He is also a vice president of PSSI.

Prof. Ligęza is the author of internationally recognized monograph: Logical Foundations for Rule-Based Systems, Springer, 2006.
Krzysztof Kaczor, kk@agh.edu.pl, http://home.agh.edu.pl/~kk
Krzysztof Kaczor holds a position of a research assistant at AGH UST. His main research interest is focused on visual and formal knowledge representation in the field of Business Intelligence applications. In this context, he is an author of more than 20 articles that were presented on international scientific conferences. Currently, his work concerns formalized methods for rule interoperability. Since 2007 he has been actively involved in the several projects mainly related to the visual knowledge representation: HeKatE, Rebit, BIMLOQ.

He is an co-author of a tool presentation – tutorial on the HaDEs environment he gave on the KESE workshop on the German AI Conference KI in 2009. He was also the principal developer of the HeKatE Visual Editor.
Szymon Bobek, szymon.bobek@agh.edu.pl, http://home.agh.edu.pl/~sbobek
Szymon Bobek holds a position of a research assistant at AGH UST. Since 2008 he has been actively involved in the HeKatE project, where he was responsible for a design and implementation of a runtime for XTT rule representation method. After that he participated in Rebit project, where he implemented a rule verification module. His main research interest is now focused on machine learning techniques for patterns classifications in the field of business processes and rule based systems, as well as ambient intelligence.

In 2011 he gave an extended presentation of the HeaRT engine during the RuleML conference, hold with the IJCAI in Barcelona.
Weronika T. Adrian, wta@agh.edu.pl, http://home.agh.edu.pl/~wta
Weronika T. Adrian is a research assistant at AGH UST. She is a member of the GEIST Research Group, a founder member of PSSI and a member of IEEE. Her main research interests cover Semantic Web technologies and logic programming. She is an author and co-author of 22 publications. She has been involved in several national and international research projects: HeKatE, BIMLOQ, INDECT; and EU programs: Knowledge and Practice, it2edu.

She is a laureate of the first edition of “Top 500 Innovators” project sponsored by Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education within which she completed a four-month training program at the Stanford University in autumn 2011. She is a co-author of a tool presentation – tutorial on Loki presented on the KESE workshop on the Spanish AI Conference CAEPIA in 2011.
Krzysztof Kluza, kluza@agh.edu.pl, http://home.agh.edu.pl/~kluza
Krzysztof Kluza holds a position of a research assistant at AGH UST. His main scientific interests focus on software and knowledge engineering, especially business processes and business rules. He is an author of over 20 papers in the modeling of business rules and process for business intelligence, and an expert in UML and BPMN. Recently his work is focused on the quality issues in the business process models. He is the Secretary of PSSI and a member of IEEE. He also graduated in Cultural Studies at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland.

In 2010 he gave an extended presentation on the modeling of business rules on the KESE workshop, on the German AI conference KI, in Karlsruhe.

Short Abstract

Knowledge-Based Systems are an important class of intelligent systems originating from the field of Artificial Intelligence, and now widely used in business and industry. In the creation of such systems a number of knowledge formalization and representation methods are used. Recently there has been a growing interest in the use of the socalled Business Rules in such systems. Moreover, the rules need to be aligned and integrated with the Business Processes of an enterprise. The semantics of such a heterogeneous systems is often captured with the use of Formal Ontologies providing a common vocabulary for business concepts. Design, analysis and deployment of such systems remains a great challenge for knowledge engineers and business software architects.
The tutorial presents a coherent methodology capturing knowledge representation, knowledge management and application with focus on semantic aspects – the Semantic Knowledge Engineering approach. It supports design, verification and deployment of knowledge base systems that integrate rules, process and ontologies using a formalized framework for knowledge representation and processing. During the tutorial the conceptual foundations of the methodology are given, including the hierarchical design process, concept formalization with the ALSV(FD) logic, and rule representation with the XTT2 method. Then a number of practical methods and tools for a visual and collaborative modeling rules and business process based on ontologies are given. Finally, the applications of this approach in the field of Business Intelligence are discussed and presented.

List of topics with description

The 1-day long tutorial will be composed of six parts shortly described below.

SKE: Introduction, Concepts, and Design Process. This part of the tutorial deals with selected prospective applications of Knowledge Engineering methods in the practice Software Engineering and Business Intelligence. The state-of-the-art, contemporary tools and their limitations are outlined. Assumptions and the main concepts of the Semantic Knowledge Engineering methodology are presented. The methodology allows for faster development of reliable knowledge-based systems that can be integrated with regular software. It offers important features of visual design, formal verification, and gradual refinement of the logical model of the system. The system lifecycle is supported from the conceptual model stage to an executable prototype. An integrated design environment and a runtime engine are provided to support it.
Rule Formalization with ALSV(FD) and XTT2. This part of the tutorial discusses a new knowledge representation for rule-based systems called XTT2. This hybrid knowledge representation combines decision trees and decision tables. It forms a transparent and hierarchical visual representation of the decision tables linked into a graph-like structure. There are two levels of abstraction in the XTT2 model: the lower level, where a single knowledge component defined by a set of rules working in the same context is represented in a single table, and the higher level, where the structure of the whole knowledge base is considered. This model has a transparent visual representation suitable for practical design. It has a concise formalization which opens up possibility of formalized design and verification. Based on the visual XTT2 model, an algebraic human-readable textual representation of the rule base is generated. It can be used by the HeKatE RunTime (HeaRT) engine that provides a unified run-time environment for the XTT2 rule bases. The main focus of this part of the tutorial is on the formalization of the approach. It uses the so-called ALSV(FD) logic to provide an expressive knowledge representation tool for encoding rules. In the tutorial an executable, textual rule specification is also introduced.
Visual Rule Modeling with HQEd. This part of the tutorial is related to practical modeling of the XTT2 rule bases. During this tutorial the XTT2-based design process is presented in the step-by-step manner by using HQEd editor. This editor has been developed within the HeKatE (Hybrid Knowledge Engineering) project as a part of the HaDEes (Hekate Design Environment) tools that are used in the SKE (Semantic Knowledge Engineering) methodology. HQEd allows for modeling of the XTT2 rule bases in a visual way with the help of extended decision tables forming network-like structure. The editor has a modular architecture that provides API communication protocol allowing for extending of the tool functionality by optional plugins e.g. for system executing and analysis.
Rule Execution in HeaRT. In this tutorial a rule engine called HeaRT (HeKatE Run Time) is presented. It solves three main problems of rule-based systems design: (i) efficient rule representation, (ii) inference control and (iii) logical verification. It uses a custom rule representation called XTT2, that is based on a formalized rule description that allows for a formalized verification of rule-based systems. The XTT2 notation provides rule grouping allowing for a structural design of rule-based systems and more flexible inference-flow control. The engine presented in this tutorial is a part of the SKE design methodology. The engine supports structured rule bases and custom inference mechanisms. The rule-based logic can be integrated with the system environment using external callback functions in Java or network protocol in the MVC pattern.
Knowledge Modeling with Loki. Semantic wikis constitute an increasingly popular class of systems for collaborative knowledge engineering. Knowledge representation methods as well as automated processing and reasoning possibilities vary a lot between different implementations. Basic semantic annotations and lightweight reasoning are sufficient in simple applications. However, practical knowledge solutions require more robust inference approaches. Loki is a semantic wiki that can be used for collaborative semantic knowledge engineering. The system uses a logic-based knowledge representation. It is compatible with semantic annotations used in the Semantic MediaWiki system. It also supports exporting and querying data using standard Semantic Web languages: RDF and SPARQL. In addition, Loki is integrated with a rule engine HeaRT that supports inference with production rules. Moreover, new extension of Loki supports collaborative development of business processes. In this part of the tutorial, the Loki system concepts and functionality is demonstrated.
Integrating Rules with Processes towards Semantic Business Intelligence. Business rules have been one of the preferred knowledge representation and processing solution in business applications. However, handling large rule bases remains a challenging task due to inference problems. To solve this problem business applications are designed with the use of business process models. Such models can express a high level control flow. On the lower level, business rules are used to express the specific parts of the business logic. Recently, the use of workflow engines that run the business process models to control rule engines has been advocated. In this part of the tutorial a method for integration of BPMN-based business processes with the XTT2 business rules is discussed. We present different approaches such as collaborative knowledge acquisition using Wiki system supporting BPMN models, modeling business processes using the existing open tools for BPMN (such as Oryx, Activity), as well as executing business process models with rules using workflow engines, such as jBPM.

Target audience description

The workshop is targeted on a broad audience familiar with methods of Artificial Intelligence and Business Intelligence. It is intended to give a theoretical background as well as practical approach and tools. It can also serve as a source of inspiration both for researchers involved in this and similar domain and PhD students working in the area of Knowledge Engineering and Software Engineering. Representatives of industry and members of software management staff are also cordially welcome.

The prerequisite knowledge preferably (but necessarily) expected from participants includes knowledge representation methods, business rules, expert systems, and business process modeling methods.

References that would support proposal evaluation

Grzegorz J. Nalepa , Semantic Knowledge Engineering. A Rule-Based Approach., AGH, 2011.
Antoni Ligęza, Grzegorz J. Nalepa: A study of methodological issues in design and development of rule-based systems: proposal of a new approach, WIRES, Wiley, 2011.
Grzegorz J. Nalepa, Antoni Ligęza, The HeKatE methodology. Hybrid engineering of intelligent systems, J. AMCS, 1(20), 2010.
Grzegorz J. Nalepa, Antoni Ligęza, Krzysztof Kaczor, Formalization And Modeling of Rules Using the XTT 2 Method, IJAIT, 20(6), 2011
Grzegorz J. Nalepa, Antoni Ligęza, Krzysztof Kaczor and Weronika T. Furmańska, HeKatE Rule Runtime and Design Framework, RuleApps 2009.
Grzegorz J. Nalepa, Architecture of the HeaRT Hybrid Rule Engine, LNCS/LNAI 6114 , Springer, 2010
Grzegorz J. Nalepa, Weronika T. Furmańska, Pellet-HeaRT – Proposal of an Architecture for Ontology Systems with Rules, LNCS/LNAI 6359, Springer, 2010
Grzegorz J. Nalepa, Weronika T. Furmańska, Proposal of a New Rule-Based Inference Scheme for the Semantic Web Applications, Springer SCI vol. 244, 2009
Grzegorz J. Nalepa, Weronika T. Furmańska, Integration Proposal for Description Logic and Attributive Logic – Towards Semantic Web Rules, Springer TCCI II, LNCS/LNAI 6450, 2010
Grzegorz J. Nalepa, PlWiki – A Generic Semantic Wiki Architecture , LNCS/LNAI 5796 , Springer, 2009,
Grzegorz J. Nalepa, Collective Knowledge Engineering with Semantic Wikis, JUCS, 16(7), 2010,
Grzegorz J. Nalepa, Loki - Semantic Wiki with Logical Knowledge Representation, TCCI III LNCS , Springer, 2011,
Krzysztof Kluza, Krzysztof Kaczor, Grzegorz J. Nalepa, Enriching Business Processes with Rules Using the Oryx BPMN Editor, LNCS 7268, Springer, 2012.
Krzysztof Kluza, Grzegorz J. Nalepa: Visual Business Rules and Process Modeling, seminar presentation, 2009.
Łukasz Łysik, Krzysztof Kluza, Grzegorz J. Nalepa, Proposal of a New Approach to the Design of the Modularized Rule Bases, seminar presentation, 2010.
Grzegorz J. Nalepa, Antoni Ligęza, Krzysztof Kluza, Krzysztof Kaczor, Szymon Bobek, Weronika T. Adrian, Łukasz Łysik, The BIMLOQ Project Overview, seminar presentation, 2011.
Weronika T. Furmańska, Grzegorz J. Nalepa Description logics and OWL, seminar presentation, 2009.
Weronika T. Furmańska, Grzegorz J. Nalepa From HeKatE to the Semantic Web – Translations of Knowledge Representation, seminar presentation, 2010.
Krzysztof Kaczor, Szymon Bobek, Grzegorz J. Nalepa Overview of Rule Inference Algorithms for Structured Rule Bases, seminar presentation, 2010.
the HaDEs webpage.