Rule correlation to rules input attributes according to disparate distribution analysis

• US 8,825,588 B2
• Filed: 10/25/2011
• Issued: 09/02/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/21/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Baudel, Thomas, Van Ham, Frank
• Primary Examiner(s): Gaffin, Jeffrey A
• Assistant Examiner(s): Chubb, Mikayla
• Application Number:
  US13/280,594
• Publication Number:
  US 20130103635A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,043 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 706/52
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/025 Extracting rules from data

Abstract

Embodiments of the present invention provide a method, system and computer program product for visualizing rule input attributes with a rule according to disparate rule attribute distributions. In an embodiment of the invention, a method for visualizing rule input attributes with a rule according to disparate rule attribute distributions has been provided. The method includes identifying in response to a selection of a rule for viewing in a rule viewer an input for the selected rule and determining an attribute for the input. However, attributes present in a guard for the selected rule can be excluded. The method also can include computing a global distribution of the attribute irrespective of the identified input and a specific distribution for the identified input. Thereafter, the attribute can be flagged as being correlated with the selected rule when it is determined that a sufficient disparity exists between the global distribution and the specific distribution.

Claims

1. A rules editing system comprising:

a computer with memory and at least one processor;

a datastore of rules previously applied utilizing different inputs;

a rules viewer configured to display a selected one of the rules in the datastore; and

,

attribute logic executing in the memory of the computer and enabled to identify an input for a rule selected in the rules editor, to determine an attribute for the input, to compute a global distribution of the attribute irrespective of the identified input and a specific distribution for the identified input and to flag the attribute in the rules editor as being correlated with the selected rule responsive to determining a sufficient disparity between the global distribution and the specific distribution.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein rules had been previously applied in a business rules management system (BRMS).

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the attribute logic excludes from consideration an attribute present in a guard for the selected rule.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein a sufficient disparity exists when a probability of the specific distribution being derived from a random sampling of the global distribution is small below a threshold value.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the probability is determined according to a chi square test of independence.

6. A computer program product for visualizing rule input attributes with a rule according to disparate rule attribute distributions, the computer program product comprising:

a computer readable storage medium comprising a memory device having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code comprising;

computer readable program code for identifying in response to a selection of a rule for viewing in a rule viewer executing in memory of a computer, an input for the selected rule;

computer readable program code for determining an attribute for the input;

computer readable program code for computing a global distribution of the attribute irrespective of the identified input and a specific distribution for the identified input; and

,

computer readable program code for flagging the attribute as being correlated with the selected rule responsive to determining a sufficient disparity between the global distribution and the specific distribution.

7. The computer program product of claim 6, further comprising computer readable program code for excluding an attribute from consideration present in a guard for the rule.

8. The computer program product of claim 6, wherein a sufficient disparity exists when a probability of the specific distribution being derived from a random sampling of the global distribution is small below a threshold value.

9. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein the probability is determined according to a chi square test of independence.