Title: Business rules for semantics-aware business modelling: overview and open issues

Authors: V. Cisternino, A. Corallo, G. Elia, C. Fugazza

Addresses: Department of Innovation Engineering, University of Lecce; eBusiness Management Section – ISUFI, Monteroni Street, 73100 Lecce, Italy. ' Department of Innovation Engineering, University of Lecce; eBusiness Management Section – ISUFI, Monteroni Street, 73100 Lecce, Italy. ' Department of Innovation Engineering, University of Lecce; eBusiness Management Section – ISUFI, Monteroni Street, 73100 Lecce, Italy. ' Department of Information Technologies, University of Milan, 65, Bramante Street, 26013 Crema, Italy

Abstract: This work outlines the benefits of adopting semantics-aware formalisms in the description of business vocabularies and rules in the context of enterprise modelling. Within the framework outlined by the Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) approach, these formalisms may enable a wide range of inference capabilities and provide a more direct translation of business models into formalisms that can drive the actual orchestration of business processes. Furthermore, whenever the semantics conveyed by business vocabularies and rules can be portrayed with semantic web languages such as Web Ontology Language (OWL)-Descriptive Logic (DL), business domains can be evaluated according to the open-world interpretation of a Knowledge Base (KB) that constitutes the default interpretation of business models. Three different use cases addressing, respectively, intramodel, model-to-model and model-to-metadata processing of business vocabularies and rules are presented.

Keywords: business modelling; business rules; reasoning engines; semantic web languages; semantics awareness; business vocabularies; enterprise modelling; model-driven architecture.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWET.2009.025016

International Journal of Web Engineering and Technology, 2009 Vol.5 No.1, pp.104 - 131

Published online: 06 May 2009 *

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