Active Rules In Database Systems

A timely survey of the field from the point of view of some of the subject's most active researchers. Divided into several parts organized by theme, the book first covers the underlying methodology regarding active rules, followed by formal specification, rule analysis, performance analysis, and support tools. It then moves on to the implementation of active rules in a number of commercial systems, before concluding with applications and future directions for research. All researchers in databases will find this a valuable overview of the topic.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Rules in Database Systems, RIDS '95, held in Athens, Greece, in September 1995. The book presents 22 revised full papers selected during a very careful reviewing process from a total of 47 submissions. In addition, there is a detailed invited introduction for a panel discussion on the Active Database Management Systems Manifesto. The papers are organized in sections on semantics for database systems, active behavior, rule base organization and modeling, rule analysis, deductive databases, implementation and benchmarking of active database systems, and cooperative systems support.

Active database systems enhance traditional database functionality with powerful rule-processing capabilities, providing a uniform and efficient mechanism for many database system applications. Among these applications are integrity constraints, views, authorization, statistics gathering, monitoring and alerting, knowledge-based systems, expert systems, and workflow management. This significant collection focuses on the most prominent research projects in active database systems. The project leaders for each prototype system provide detailed discussions of their projects and the relevance of their results to the future of active database systems. Features: A broad overview of current active database systems and how they can be extended and improved A comprehensive introduction to the core topics of the field, including its motivation and history Coverage of active database (trigger) capabilities in commercial products Discussion of forthcoming standards

This book is the proceedings of a workshop held at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh in August 1993. The central theme of the workshop was rules in database systems, and the papers presented covered a range of different aspects of database rule systems. These aspects are reflected in the sessions of the workshop, which are the same as the sections in this proceedings: Active Databases Architectures Incorporating Temporal Rules Rules and Transactions Analysis and Debugging of Active Rules Integrating Graphs/Objects with Deduction Integrating Deductive and Active Rules Integrity Constraints Deductive Databases The incorporation of rules into database systems is an important area of research, as it is a major component in the integration of behavioural information with the structural data with which commercial databases have traditionally been associated. This integration of the behavioural aspects of an application with the data to which it applies in database systems leads to more straightforward application development and more efficient processing of data. Many novel applications seem to need database systems in which structural and behavioural information are fully integrated. Rules are only one means of expressing behavioural information, but it is clear that different types of rule can be used to capture directly different properties of an application which are cumbersome to support using conventional database architectures. In recent years there has been a surge of research activity focusing upon active database systems, and this volume opens with a collection of papers devoted specifically to this topic.

The areas of active and real-time databases have seen a tremendous growth of interest in the past few years, particularly with regard to their support of time-critical and embedded applications. ARTDB-95 provided, therefore, an important forum for researchers from both communities to discuss research results, and also to chart new directions for the future. As well as the 11 submitted papers presented at the workshop, this volume also contains 4 invited papers on the following topics: the impact of active databases on commercial practice; the optimization of active database transactions; the need for better language, compiler and tool support for real-time databases; and the origin of time constraints associated with data, events and actions. Together the papers give a comprehensive overview of current research, and will provide invaluable reading for academic and industrial researchers and students at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Knowledge Base Systems are an integration of conventional database systems with Artificial Intelligence techniques. They provide inference capabilities to the database system by encapsulating the knowledge of the application domain within the database. Knowledge is the most valuable of all corporate resources that must be captured, stored, re-used and continuously improved, in much the same way as database systems were important in the previous decade. Flexible, extensible, and yet efficient Knowledge Base Systems are needed to capture the increasing demand for knowledge-based applications which will become a significant market in the next decade. Knowledge can be expressed in many static and dynamic forms; the most prominent being domain objects, their relationships, and their rules of evolution and transformation. It is important to express and seamlessly use all types of knowledge in a single Knowledge Base System. Parallel, Object-Oriented, and Active Knowledge Base Systems presents in detail features that a Knowledge Base System should have in order to fulfill the above requirements. Parallel, Object-Oriented, and Active Knowledge Base Systems covers in detail the following topics: Integration of deductive, production, and active rules in sequential database systems. Integration and inter-operation of multiple rule types into the same Knowledge Base System. Parallel rule matching and execution, for deductive, production, and active rules, in parallel Export, Knowledge Base, and Database Systems. In-depth description of a Parallel, Object-Oriented, and Active Knowledge Base System that integrates all rule paradigms into a single database system without hindering performance. Parallel, Object-Oriented, and Active Knowledge Base Systems is intended as a graduate-level text for a course on Knowledge Base Systems and as a reference for researchers and practitioners in the areas of database systems, knowledge base systems and Artificial Intelligence.

This book constitutes the strictly refereed post-workshop proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Rules in Database Systems, RIDS '97, held in Skövde, June 1997. The 13 revised papers presented in the book were carefully reviewed and selected from 33 submissions. The book documents the state-of-the art in the area. The papers are devoted to deductive databases, active database systems architectures, events in workflow management, rule modelling and simulation, rule confluence, rule termination analysis, rule testing and validation, active database systems design.