Objective

Knowledge Representation in general and Rule Based Representations in particular, are core areas of Artificial Intelligence. Research in these areas strongly influences standards on the web like RuleML or the W3C standards OWL and SWRL. Advancing the theoretical underpinnings and practical impact of these technologies will be an ongoing challenge.

On the other hand, Business Rules and Semantic Business Process Management are growing research and application areas. Business Rules strive to meet the increasing requirements of transparency and compliance: making sure that all stakeholders comply with all rules and regulations at any place and any time. Business Processes are derived form the strategy of an enterprise, and define the requirements of information systems. Here, AI methods such as Semantic Modelling, Knowledge Validation, Automated Planning and Intelligent Agents will play ever increasing roles.

Both areas- Business Rules and Business Process Management-make use of model driven knowledge representations, often in conjunction with application-oriented modeling tools. In the last few years, both communities have realized the potential of knowledge representations with precise semantics. For example, OMG is bringing semantics into business rules with SBVR (Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules), although without making full use of the benefits and standards already achieved with AI's semantic technologies in the Semantic Web and Ontology Engineering. Similar observations can be made for other aspects of rule based systems that have already been addressed earlier within AI (e.g. rule capture, inferencing and explanation).

While standards for business process definition and execution have been put forward by OMG, WfMC, and OASIS, there is increasing research interest in combining business processes with semantic technologies. In particular, the concept of Semantic Web Services promises a new level of agility in process execution where AI can contribute insights and technologies from knowledge representation, reasoning and planning.

Generally, the areas of 'Business Rules', 'Semantic Technologies' and 'Business Process Management' are addressed by different communities at present. The symposium aims to bringing together researchers and practitioners from all three communities to educate and inspire each other in order to avoid pitfalls and provide the basis for synergetic cooperation, with the aim of identifying and advancing the most promising points of cross-fertilization.