Search
2007 Volume 22
Article Contents
RESEARCH ARTICLE   Open Access    

XcelLog: a deductive spreadsheet system

More Information
  • Abstract: The promise of rule-based computing was to allow end-users to create, modify, and maintain applications without the need to engage programmers. But experience has shown that rule sets often interact in subtle ways, making them difficult to understand and reason about. This has impeded the widespread adoption of rule-based computing. This paper describes the design and implementation of XcelLog, a user-centered deductive spreadsheet system, to empower non-programmers to specify and manipulate rule-based systems. The driving idea underlying the system is to treat sets as the fundamental data type and rules as specifying relationships among sets, and use the spreadsheet metaphor to create and view the materialized sets. The fundamental feature that makes XcelLog suitable for non-programmers is that the user mainly sees the effect of the rules; when rules or basic facts change, the user sees the impact of the change immediately. This enables the user to gain confidence in the rules and their modification, and also experiment with what-if scenarios without any programming. Preliminary experience with using XcelLog indicates that it is indeed feasible to put the power of deductive spreadsheets for doing rule-based computing into the hands of end-users and do so without the requirement of programming or the constraints of canned application packages.
  • 加载中
  • Augusti J., Puigsegur J., Robertson D. and Schorlemer W.1996 Visual logic programming through set inclusion and chaining. In CADE 13 Workshop on Visual Reasoning.

    Google Scholar

    Couch A. L. and Gilfix M.1999 It’s elementary, dear watson: Applying logic programming to convergent system management processes. In Proceedings of the 13th USENIX Conference on Systems Administration (LISA), pp. 123–138.

    Google Scholar

    Das S. K.Deductive Databases and Logic programming. Addidon-Wesley, Wokingham, England, 1992.

    Google Scholar

    Dong Y., Ramakrishnan C. R. and Smolka S. A.2003 Evidence explorer: a tool for exploring model-checking proofs. In Fifteenth International Conference on Computer Aided Verification (CAV), Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2725, pp. 215–218, Springer.

    Google Scholar

    Gupta G. and Akhter S. F.2000 Knowledgesheet: A graphical spreadsheet interface for interactively developing a class of constraint programs. In Practical Aspects of Declarative Languages (PADL), Vol. 1753 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp. 308–323, Springer.

    Google Scholar

    Guttman J. D., Herzog A. L. and Ramsdell J. D.2003 Information flow in operating systems: Eager formal methods. In Workshop on Issues in the Theory of Security (WITS).

    Google Scholar

    Jaeger T., Sailer R. and Zhang X.2003 Analyzing integrity protection in the SELinux example policy. In USENIX Security Symposium.

    Google Scholar

    Jayaraman B. and Moonm K.2000Subset logic programs and their implementation. Journal of Logical Programming, 42(2): 71–110.

    Google Scholar

    Jones S. P., Blackwell A. and Burnett M.2003 A user-centered approach to function in excel. In ICFP.

    Google Scholar

    Kassoff M., Zen L.-M., Garg A. and Genesereth M.2005 PrediCalc: A logical spreadsheet management system. In 31st International Conference on Very Large Databases (VLDB).

    Google Scholar

    Li N., Grosof B. and Feigenbaum J.2000 A practically implementable and tractable delegation logic. In IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, pp. 27–42.

    Google Scholar

    Li N., Mitchell J. and Winsborough W. May, 2002 Design of a role-based trust-management framework. In Proceedings of 2002 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, pp. 114–130.

    Google Scholar

    Li N., Winsborough W. H. and Mitchell J. C.2003Distributed credential chain discovery in trust management. Journal of Computer Security, 11(1): 35–86.

    Google Scholar

    Lloyd J. W.Foundations of Logic Programming. 2nd Edn. Springer Verlag, New York, 1987.

    Google Scholar

    Loscocco P. and Smalley S.2001a Integrating flexible support for security policies into the Linux operating system. In Proceedings of FREENIX track of the 2001 Usenix Annua; Technical Conference. Available at www.nsa.gov/selinx/.

    Google Scholar

    Loscocco P. and Smalley S.2001b Meeting critical security objectives with security-enhanced Linux. In Proceedings of 2001 Ottawa Linux Symposium, 2001. Available at www.nsa.gov/selinx/.

    Google Scholar

    Maier D. and Warren D. S.1988Computing with Logic: Logic Programming and Prolog. Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin/Cummings Publishers, ISBN 0-8053-6681-4, 535 pp.

    Google Scholar

    Ou X., Govindavajhala S. and Appel A. W.2005 MulVAL: A logic-based network security analyzer. In 14th Usenix Security Symposium.

    Google Scholar

    Ramakrishnan C. R. and Sekar R.2002Model-based analysis of configuration vulnerabilities. Journal of Computer Security, 10(1/2): 189–209.

    Google Scholar

    Reeves D. M., Wellman M. P. and Grosof B. N.2001 Automated negotiation from declarative contract descriptions. In Müller J. P., Andre E., Sen S., and Frasson C., (eds.), Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Autonomous Agents, pp. 51–58, Montreal, Canada: ACM Press.

    Google Scholar

    Roychoudhury A., Ramakrishnan C. R. and Ramakrishnan I. V.2000 Justifying proofs using memo tables. In Proceedings of Principles and Practice of Declarative Programming.

    Google Scholar

    Sagonas K., Swift T., Warren D. S., Freirre J. and Rao P.2001XSB Programmers Manual. Available at http://xsb.sourceforge.net/.

    Google Scholar

    Saha D. and Ramakrishnan C. R.2003 Incremental evaluation of tabled logic programs. In Proceedings of International Conference on Logic Programming.

    Google Scholar

    Sarna-Starosta B. and Stoller S. D. April, 2004 Policy analysis for security-enhanced linux. In Proceedings of the 2004Workshop on Issues in the Theory of Security (WITS), pp. 1–12. Available at www.cs.sunysb.edu/~stoller/WITS2004.html.

    Google Scholar

    Schwartz J. T., Dewar R. B., Schonberg E. and Dubinsky E.1986Programming with Sets; An Introduction to SETL.New York, NY: Springer-Verlag.

    Google Scholar

  • Cite this article

    C.R. RAMAKRISHNAN, I.V. RAMAKRISHNAN, DAVID S. WARREN. 2007. XcelLog: a deductive spreadsheet system. The Knowledge Engineering Review. 22: doi: 10.1017/S026988890700118X
    C.R. RAMAKRISHNAN, I.V. RAMAKRISHNAN, DAVID S. WARREN. 2007. XcelLog: a deductive spreadsheet system. The Knowledge Engineering Review. 22: doi: 10.1017/S026988890700118X

Article Metrics

Article views(27) PDF downloads(126)

RESEARCH ARTICLE   Open Access    

XcelLog: a deductive spreadsheet system

The Knowledge Engineering Review  22 Article number: 10.1017/S026988890700118X  (2007)  |  Cite this article

Abstract: Abstract: The promise of rule-based computing was to allow end-users to create, modify, and maintain applications without the need to engage programmers. But experience has shown that rule sets often interact in subtle ways, making them difficult to understand and reason about. This has impeded the widespread adoption of rule-based computing. This paper describes the design and implementation of XcelLog, a user-centered deductive spreadsheet system, to empower non-programmers to specify and manipulate rule-based systems. The driving idea underlying the system is to treat sets as the fundamental data type and rules as specifying relationships among sets, and use the spreadsheet metaphor to create and view the materialized sets. The fundamental feature that makes XcelLog suitable for non-programmers is that the user mainly sees the effect of the rules; when rules or basic facts change, the user sees the impact of the change immediately. This enables the user to gain confidence in the rules and their modification, and also experiment with what-if scenarios without any programming. Preliminary experience with using XcelLog indicates that it is indeed feasible to put the power of deductive spreadsheets for doing rule-based computing into the hands of end-users and do so without the requirement of programming or the constraints of canned application packages.

    • Copyright © Cambridge University Press 20072007Cambridge University Press
References (25)
  • About this article
    Cite this article
    C.R. RAMAKRISHNAN, I.V. RAMAKRISHNAN, DAVID S. WARREN. 2007. XcelLog: a deductive spreadsheet system. The Knowledge Engineering Review. 22: doi: 10.1017/S026988890700118X
    C.R. RAMAKRISHNAN, I.V. RAMAKRISHNAN, DAVID S. WARREN. 2007. XcelLog: a deductive spreadsheet system. The Knowledge Engineering Review. 22: doi: 10.1017/S026988890700118X
  • Catalog

      /

      DownLoad:  Full-Size Img  PowerPoint
      Return
      Return