Constructing libraries of typical plans

Abstract

Databases able to represent, not only facts, but also events in the mini-world of the underlying information system can be seen as repositories of narratives about the agents and objects involved. The events treated in our approach are those attributed to executions of predefined application-oriented operations. This work addresses the identification of typical plans adopted by agents, by analysing a Log registering the occurrence of events, as represented by executions of such operations. The analysis is done by applying a previously formulated set of goal-inference rules to sequences of interrelated events, called plots, taken from the Log. The obtained Library of Typical Plans, together with the goal-inference rules, constitute the behavioural level of our proposed threelevel conceptual schemas for the specification of information systems. A prototype Prolog implementation of the method for extracting typical plans is operational. A simple example is used to illustrate the discussion.