Improving the quality of rule-based applications using the declarative verification approach

摘要

The quality of rule-based applications depends on the quality of rules. However, due to various reasons, for instance communication problems between business people and rule modellers, rules may become inconsistent, incomplete or redundant. A particular way to control and to improve the rule quality is by means of rule verification. In this paper, we present a rule-based (declarative) approach to rule verification. We consider several anomalies, which may appear in rule bases with production rules and semantic constraints. The presented approach defines special rules, called verifier rules, which derive facts when anomalous business rules are detected. The approach is flexible and easy to maintain in the sense that verifier rules can easily be added or modified if new anomalies are found and have to be detected.