Mechanism and system for representing and processing activity models

A method executed by one or more processors for determining the conceptual model of an activity, wherein,

• specialized entities called conceptual entities are employed to depict conceptual structures, and effects of processing on real entities, and wherein,
• states of particular aspects of a subset of said conceptual entities called macro entities, could yield new states, owing to the conceptual execution of said activity, such that
• a sequence of activities called KBM workflow, is determined from an initial set of macro entities and the states of their aspects, called initial planning state, and a final set of macro entities and the states of their aspects called goal planning state, by a framework called KBM workflow planning, which comprises:
• a) Assigning a type to said conceptual entity, whereby said conceptual entity is classified as entity, process, or wrapper, and wherein the entity type is further sub classified as component, port, fluent, signal, channel, connector, event or concept;
• b) Storing Conceptual entities in memory by means of a predefined data structure called Conceptual object data structure, which assists in accessing and manipulating the contents of the conceptual entity;
• such that,
• said components could store other components, ports, fluents, characteristics, and functions;
• said ports store channels or connectors as components;
• said channel or connector stores source and target components as components, and source and target ports as ports;
• said conceptual entities of all types store their colors, characteristics, in a predefined object called KBMAdapter;
• c) Associating complete or partial paths of execution of said KBM rule graphs or any generic process structure with novel functions called conceptual Mu-Functions, which operate on said conceptual entities;
• such that,
• Said Mu-Functions, operate on conceptual entities and perform operations such as, create, morph, delete, bind, unbind, move, insert, remove, send, receive, increase, decrease, set, reset, compute, perform, start, stop, pause, publish, subscribe;
• d) Compiling a list of applicable Mu-functions, for a particular path of KBM activity based on contained KBM gears, and the contained KBM graphs within the said contained KBM gears, based on specifications in a table called process structure table;
• e) Executing the said Mu-functions compiled for an activity from the contained KBM Gears and KBM Rule graphs, with a pre-specified initial configuration of conceptual entities, which when executed yields a transformed configuration of the initial configuration, in terms of conceptual entities;
• f) Evaluating said configuration further by a set of predefined kbm rules, called aspect rules, of said macro entities, to yield new states of particular aspects of macro entities;
• g) Storing the state switching behavior of said activities with respect to said aspects of the said macro entities, in the form of a table, called Activity Switching table, wherein the said initial configuration is depicted by “Start Macro Entity Aspect vector” or start state, and the transformed configuration is depicted by “Target Macro Entity Aspect vector” or target state.

A system, stored in a non-transitory computer readable medium, called Knowledge Base Modeler (KBM), including computer usable program code for processing Activity Models, wherein,

• rules called KBM rules, which were devised to depict complex processing scenarios, and which utilize the norms employed for representing and processing the static and dynamic information of the Knowledge Base (KB) system,
• are further integrated into larger process structures, by a framework called KBM “Desired Special Complex” (DSC) framework, which facilitates integration of process structures of lower order to process structures of higher order, recursively, until higher level process structures called “KBM Activities” are generated, and wherein,
• specialized entities called conceptual entities are employed to depict conceptual structures, and effects of processing on real entities, and wherein,
• states of particular aspects of a subset of said conceptual entities called macro entities, could yield new states, owing to the conceptual execution of said activity,
• such that
• a sequence of activities called KBM workflow, is determined from an initial set of macro entities and the states of their aspects, and a final set of macro entities and the states of their aspects called goal, by a novel framework called KBM workflow planning, and
• said KBM workflow, which depicts the activity flow of a complex application system, is executed to accomplish the goals of the application system, comprises:
• a) A tool called KBM translator, means for translating—
• said KBM rules, utilizing said KBM colors, and process structures derived recursively from said KBM rules, like KBM rule graphs, KBM Gears and KBM activities to equivalent statements of a predetermined host language;
• b) A tool called KBM Planner, means for—
• determining a sequence of activities, based on an initial, and goal planning states, wherein, said planning state comprises of states of aspects of a set of Macro entities;
• c) A plurality of tables called KBM tables, means for storing—predefined configurations and associations, of said KBM colors, KBM rules, and process structures;
• and a plurality of Configuration files called KBM Configuration files, means for storing—predefined configurations and associations, of said KBM colors, KBM rules, and process structures;
• d) A plurality of modules called KBM tools and Runtime, means for supporting the execution of user activities and code generated by said KBM Translator, for said KBM rules, and said process structures like KBM rule graphs, KBM Gears, and KBM activities, for a predefined host language;
• e) Means for storing the configuration of colors and their mappings to KBM rules, in a predefined configuration document, called Entity Maps document;
• and means for storing colors and characteristics of object instances, determined at run time, in a predefined object called KBMAdapter and for providing access to this information, via a predefined interface called IKBMColorPalette;
• f) Means for storing mappings of abstract entity specified with taxonomy and auxiliary colors, and a token, or an interaction of several abstract entities with taxonomy and auxiliary colors to a semantic role and method of the abstract entity;
• g) Means for storing the mapping of semantic role and method of an abstract entity to a kbm rule, and its verb color;
• h) Means for storing conceptual objects in memory, for processing;
• i) Means for storing the configuration of KBM rule graphs, and their states and effects, in a predefined configuration document called the KBM Rule Graph document;
• j) Means for storing the configuration of KBM Gears, and their states and effects, in a predefined configuration document called the KBM Gear document;
• k) Means for storing the configuration information for the operational model of said KBM activities, and their states, in a predefined configuration document called the Operational description of KBM Activity;
• l) Means for storing the configuration information for the conceptual model of said KBM activities, in a predefined configuration document called the Conceptual description of KBM Activity;
• m) Means for storing the configuration information for the deployment of said KBM activities, in a predefined configuration document called the Deployment description of KBM Activity;
• n) Means for storing the configuration information of said KBM Workflow, in a predefined configuration document called the description of KBM WorkFlow;
• o) Means for storing KBM rules in a predefined table called KBM rules table, wherein, the columns of KB rules table are inherited from KB System, and new columns comprising of Unique Rule id, Group rule id, Type of output, Type and name of color, effect rule, function handler class name, are added to support the functionality of the KBM system;
• p) Means for storing the structural rules in a predefined table called the structural rules table;
• q) Means for storing the Collaboration objects in memory in partitions called datasets, in a data structure called the CObject structure;
• Said KBM rules are executed against said collaboration objects held in a table called O-Context of KB System, which now employs said CObject structure, to store a plurality of entity references partitioned as data sets;
• r) Means for storing the effects of process structures on entities as functional and transformation colors;
• s) Means for storing the configuration information of Macro Entities, in a predefined configuration document called the Macro Entity Description document;
• t) Means for storing the execution status of kbm workflows, and their activities in a predefined table called KBM Workflow execution status table;
• u) Means for storing the transformation of states of aspects of macro entities by activities, in a predefined table called Activity Switching table;
• and means for storing planning state and planning node as data structures in memory;
• v) Means for storing the mapping of a higher level process structure to lower level process structures, in a table called the Process Structure table;
• w) Means for receiving as input, a request for executing a KBM Workflow, wherein a queue entry in a predefined queue called KBM Workflow queue, is created by an online or batch program, which is initiated by the end user;
• x) Means for storing Activity failure records in a queue specified by the end user in the configuration files of the said Activity, when the activity reaches a special state, for which the queue is configured.