Publications on Decision Tables, Tabular decision models and Business Rules

Our research results have been (and are being) published in the following journals: Communications of the ACM, Management Science, Expert Systems with Applications, Data and Knowledge Engineering, Information Systems, Information and Management, Intelligent Systems, Business Rules Journal, AI and Tools, Decision Support Systems.
Also papers were presented at the following conferences: Fourth Intl Conf. on AI & Law (ICAIL 93), International Symposium on the Management of Industrial and Corporate Knowledge (ISMICK 93), Fifth Intl Conf. on Tools with Artificial Intelligence (TAI 93), Fifth Annual Conference on Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management (ISAFM), 6th Intl Conf. on Legal Knowledge-Based Systems (JURIX 93), The World Congress on Expert Systems (WCES), The Second World Congress on Expert Systems (WCES 94), TAI 94, European Symposium on the Validation and Verification of Knowledge Based Systems (EUROVAV 95), TAI 95, WCES 96, EUROVAV 97, Business Rules Forum, ORM 2007, RuleML 2007, RuleML 2008, SeDes 2012, BPM 2013.

Some often requested publications

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Reproducing Policy: "A product of the CODASYL is not the property of any individual, company or organization or of any group of individuals, companies or organizations. No warranty, expressed or implied, is made by any contributor or by any CODASYL Committee as to the accuracy and functioning of any system developed as a result of this product. Moreover, no responsibility is assumed by any contributor or by any committee in connection therewith. This product neither states the opinion of, nor implies support of, the sponsoring institutions."

 

  1. Introduction

  2. Overview: advantages and use of decision tables

  3. Theory: A theoretical foundation for decision tables based on set theory and modern algebra

  4. Conversion: a review of decision table optimization techniques

  5. Development Methodology: The recommended use of decision tables and systems

  6. Education: A plan for teaching decision table technology and a set of sample problems

  7. Glossary

  8. Annotated Bibliography: An annotated bibliography on 545 decision table publications

 

Download an updated version of chapters 1-2 from: http://henry.beitz.org/pdfs/DTTG1982/report-1-2.pdf

 

Please remember that this is a 1982 report. It does not necessarily reflect the current state of the art in 2012.

 

Download entire report

 

 

About tabular decision modeling in general:

•          Developments in decision tables: evolution, applications and a proposed standard, Vanthienen J, Dries E, 1992, DTEW Research Report 9227, pp. 1 - 40. http://www.econ.kuleuven.be/prologa/refsdtpubs/DTDevACM.pdf

•          What business rules and tables can do for regulations, Vanthienen J, 2007, Business Rules Journal, vol. 8, no. 7 (Jul.). http://www.brcommunity.com/b355.php

•          Why text Is so difficult to understand - a tennis example, Vanthienen J, 2007, Business Rules Journal, vol. 8, no. 5 (May). http://www.brcommunity.com/b346.php

•          Less rules, more rules? Better rules!, Vanthienen J, 2006, Business Rules Journal, vol. 7, no. 8 (Aug.), pp. 1 – 3. http://www.brcommunity.com/b303.php

•          Quality by design: using decision tables in business rules, Vanthienen J, 2004, Business Rules Journal, vol. 5, no. 2 (Feb), http://www.brcommunity.com/n008.php

•          Moreno A, Verhelle M and Vanthienen J, Decision tables: An Overview of the Existing Literature, GIACA, Information Technologies in Accounting, Fifth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies in Accounting, Finance and Tax (Huelva, Spain 2000), www.econ.kuleuven.ac.be/prologa/download/overview82-2000.pdf

•          Huysmans J, Dejaeger K, Mues C, Vanthienen J, Baesens B, An empirical evaluation of the comprehensibility of decision table, tree and rule based predictive models, 2011, Decision Support Systems, vol. 51, no. 1, pp. 141 - 154.

 

About normalization of decision models:

•          Jan Vanthienen, "Rules as Data:  Decision Tables and Relational Databases," Business Rules Journal, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Jan. 2010), URL:  http://www.BRCommunity.com/a2010/b516.html  

•          Vanthienen, J., Wets, G. (1995), Integration of the decision table formalism with a relational database environment, Information Systems, vol. 20, no. 7 (Nov.), pp. 595 - 616.
http://www.econ.kuleuven.be/prologa/refsdtpubs/DT&RelDB_InformationSystems.pdf

•          Vanthienen J., Snoeck M., Knowledge Factoring Using Normalization Theory, International Symposium on the Management of Industrial and Corporate Knowledge (ISMICK'93), Compiθgne (FR), pp. 97-106, October 27-28, 1993. http://www.econ.kuleuven.be/prologa/refsdtpubs/NORM4WIN.pdf

 

About Decision table structures and network models:

•          Jan Vanthienen, "Modeling Decision Table Structures," Business Rules Journal, Vol. 11, No. 11 (Nov. 2010), URL:  http://www.BRCommunity.com/a2010/b565.html  

•          Vanthienen J., Wijsen J., On the Decomposition of Tabular Knowledge Systems, New Review of Applied Expert Systems, pp. 77-89, 1996.

 

About types of decision tables:

•          Jan Vanthienen, "Simplifying and Optimizing Tabular Decision Models," Business Rules Journal, Vol. 12, No. 10 (Oct. 2011), URL:  http://www.BRCommunity.com/a2011/b618.html  

•          Jan Vanthienen, "How many business rules do you count?  It depends," Business Rules Journal, Vol. 11, No. 9 (Sep. 2010), URL:  http://www.BRCommunity.com/a2010/b554.html  

•          50 Ways to represent your rule sets, Vanthienen J, 2006, Business Rules Journal, vol. 7, no. 1 (Jan.), http://www.brcommunity.com/b266.php

 

About verification and validation:

•          An illustration of verification and validation in the modeling phase of KBS development
Vanthienen J, Mues C, Aerts A, 1998, Data & knowledge engineering, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 337 - 352. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0169-023X(98)80003-7, http://www.econ.kuleuven.be/prologa/refsdtpubs/DKE98-VandV.pdf

 

About modeling methods and tooling:

•          Illustration of a decision table tool for specifying and implementing knowledge based systems
Vanthienen J, Dries E, 1993, Fifth International Conference on Tools with Artificial Intelligence (TAI), pp. 198 - 205. http://econweb.econ.kuleuven.ac.be/tew/academic/infosys/members/VTHIENEN/pub/tai93/tai93.doc

•     A tool-supported approach to inter-tabular verification, Vanthienen J, Mues C, Wets G, Delaere K, 1998, Expert systems with applications, vol. 15, no. 3-4, pp. 277 - 285. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0957-4174(98)00047-5

•     Maes R., Vanthienen J., Verhelst M., Practical Experiences with the PROcedural DEcision MOdeling System, Proc. Joint IFIP WG 8.3/IIASA Working Conference on Processes and Tools for Decision Support, Laxenburg (Austria), July 19-21, 1982, pp. 139-154.
http://econweb.econ.kuleuven.ac.be/tew/academic/infosys/members/VTHIENEN/PUB/IFIPWG8.3-82/IFIPWG8.3.pdf

•     Maes R., Vanthienen J., Verhelst M., Procedural Decision Support through the Use of PRODEMO, Proc. Second Int. Conf. on Information Systems ICIS, Cambridge (Mass.), December 7-9, 1981, pp. 135-152.
http://econweb.econ.kuleuven.ac.be/tew/academic/infosys/members/VTHIENEN/PUB/ICIS81/BEV8101.PDF

 

About standards:

•          Codasyl, A Modern Appraisal of Decision Tables, Report of the Decision Table Task Group, ACM, New York, 1982

•          CSA, (1970): Z243.1-1970 for Decision Tables, Canadian Standards Association, 1970.

 

About applications:

•          Experiences with modeling and verification of regulations, Vanthienen J, Mues C, Goedertier S, 2006, Proceedings of the CAiSE'06 Workshop on Regulations Modeling and their Validation & Verification (REMO2V'06), pp. 793 - 800. http://lacl.univ-paris12.fr//REMO2V/sourcesArticles/Vanthienen-Goedertier.pdf

•     Using neural network rule extraction and decision tables for credit-risk evaluation, Baesens B, Setiono R, Mues C, Vanthienen J, 2003, Management science, vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 312 - 329. http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=970387

•     Modelling decision tables from data, Wets G, Vanthienen J, Timmermans H, 1998, Research and development in knowledge discovery and data mining, Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence,vol. 1394, pp. 412 - 413. http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/conf/pakdd/pakdd98.html#WetsVT98

•     From knowledge discovery to implementation: Developing business intelligence systems using decision tables, Mues C, Baesens B, Vanthienen J, 2006, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Professional Knowledge Management: Third Biennial Conference, WM 2005, Kaiserslautern, Germany, April 10-13, 2005, Revised Selected Papers, vol. 3782, pp. 483 - 495.

•     Semantic decision tables: self-organizing and reorganizable decision tables, Tang Y, Meersman R, Vanthienen J, 2008, Lecture notes in computer science, vol. 5181, pp. 434 - 449.

 

About Rule-based processes, business rules and SBVR:

•         Goedertier, S. and Vanthienen, J. (2007). Declarative Process Modeling with Business Vocabulary and Business Rules. In Halpin, T., Nijssen, S., and Meersman, R., editors, Proceedings of Object-Role Modeling (ORM’07), Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Springer), volume 4805, pp. 603-612.

•     Vanthienen, J. (2007). How Business Rules (Re)define Business Processes: A Service Oriented View, 10th International Business Rules Forum, Orlando, FL (USA), Oct. 21-25.

•     Specifying Process-Aware Access Control Rules in SBVR, Goedertier, S., Mues, C., and Vanthienen, J. 2007, , in Paschke, A. and Biletskiy, Y., editors, Advances in Rule Interchange and Applications, Proceedings of The International RuleML Symposium (RuleML 2007), Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Springer), volume 4824, pp. 39-52. (Best Paper Award). http://www.econ.kuleuven.be/prologa/refsdtpubs/ProcessAwareRules.pdf

•     Rule-based business process modelling and enactment, Goedertier S., Haesen R., Vanthienen J. 2008, International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management, Special Issue on Service Intelligence and Service Science, 2008 - Vol. 3, No.3  pp. 194 – 207. http://www.econ.kuleuven.be/prologa/refsdtpubs/IJBPIM030304_RuleBasedBPM.pdf

•     How business rules define business processes, Vanthienen J, Goedertier S, 2007, Business Rules Journal, vol. 8, no. 3 (Mar.). http://www.brcommunity.com/b336.php

  

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