R&D in the field of intelligent systems engineering, aimed at developing and applying innovative methodologies, supported by appropriate language and software tools, with particular emphasis on those aspects, pertaining to human conceptualization of the universe of discourse (application domain of interest) and related knowledge organization paradigms and representation formalisms as well as corresponding reasoning mechanisms, underlying human’s ability to dynamically analyse and solve non-trivial ill-structured problems, possibly making action plans and taking alternatives discriminating decisions under conditions of imperfect (incomplete, inconsistent or uncertain) information.

  In general, software is a means of human activity automation. Unlike other automation means, software applications are mostly suited to automation of methodologies, created and used by humans in their professional activities (whether routine jobs such as record keeping or more sophisticated ones such as problem solving and decision support) in their corresponding application domain of expertise. Hence, a software application is only as good (and intelligent) as the underlying expert methodology it supports.

In general, such software methodologies (generally implemented in the system backend that provides application's main functionality) contain more or less formalised procedures (methods) how to use (at each step of the process) the available information in order to produce (derive/explicate) other useful information that is only implicitly contained within the one already known. In combination, those information structures and related derivation methods constitute a kind of useful approximation (model) of the essential aspects of the relevant application domain expertise (knowledge). The important characteristic of this model is that it is conceptual – its information structures are described by means of a relevant professional terminology (established set of terms with well defined meaning within the corresponding area of expertise, e.g., the OMG “Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules (SBVR)” standard). The semantic aspects of those information structures are to be reflected in and taken into account by the operations of the related explication methods.

At each stage (analysis, design, implementation, deployment) of the above described principle methodological framework of software system creation, it is extremely important for backend application developers to have at their disposal adequate conceptual modelling tools (among others) in order to be able to describe the methodology at hand in those natural professional terms that guaranty cohesion of the different parts (information structures and related operations) of the domain model as well as mutual understanding between their corresponding developers at different stages of the application system development process. Ideally, such backend development tools should include human-friendly conceptual modelling language along with corresponding dynamic (run-time) general-purpose storage for information in conceptual form, which in combination should provide for a flexible reasonable balance between declarative (easy to describe and alter) and procedural (fast to execute) styles of modelling and programming, depending on the application specifics. Among other considerations, iConceptStore^™ was designed with all these backend application development requirements in mind. 

  iConceptStore^™ is aimed at supporting the science, art and pragmatics of both qualitative and quantitative modelling of real and hypothetical systems and related phenomena as a way of expressing in conceptual form relevant declarative and procedural knowledge that underlies expert reasoning during problem-solving and decision-making processes. In terms of usability iConceptStore^™ has four main pivots:

(1) For ordinary application development it can serve as a flexible general-purpose Conceptual Information Store (i.e., information represented by means of user-defined concepts, hence iConceptStore^™) while for more sophisticated scenarios it can serve as an Expert Knowledge Representation and Storage System through additional use of iConceptStore^™ categories (built-in high-level meta-concepts);

(2) Its Conceptual Modelling Language (CML) and related framework provide flexible infrastructure with integrated tools for advanced application back-end development, emphasizing the primary role of logic that underlies any functionality. Note that CML is a general-purpose descriptive (conceptually structured) language that is not confined to knowledge representation per se and software developers can use it to describe in their own terms virtually anything, however intricately structured;

(3) The iConceptStore^™ SQL-Link and Enterprise editions enable dynamic integration and intelligent use of data (no particular use or knowledge of SQL itself is required);

(4) In pure practical terms iConceptStore^™ is more than just a development tool – out-of-the-box its advanced multi-tear architecture seamlessly becomes a run-time feature of any particular application developed. Although its full potential can be only unlocked in developing knowledge-based intelligent systems, there is nothing in its architecture and tools preventing its use for developing ordinary software and information systems of arbitrary complexity. Such regular systems can still benefit from iConceptStore's ready-made small-footprint/high-speed general-purpose run-time infrastructure with universal backend information storage, easy-to-use declarative conceptual modelling language, flexible generic conceptual information structures, standardised functional extensibility and inter-process communication as well as close integration with Microsoft products such as  MS SQL Server and Excel. This is a valuable practical proposition since no real world problem-solving and decision support tool can exist in a vacuum – often surrounded by conventional software and information components it must be able to function within the infrastructure and context of such legacy application environments. Conversely, ordinary applications’ methodologies could gradually evolve in complexity to an extent that requires knowledge-based intelligence and then their iConceptStore^™ based “ordinary” implementations would suddenly turn out to be their future-proof extraordinary saviours.

In a nutshell, as a vital component of the iConceptStore^™ Conceptor^™ Knowledge Engineering subsystem, CML is intended to serve as natural means of describing the relevant parts of what application developers and their intended users in the corresponding domain of interest know and understand. Being not necessarily programmers, they can use Conceptor^™ CML in their modelling activities to describe dynamic fragments of real or hypothetical worlds in terms, corresponding to their own natural human conceptualization (as well as relevant professional terminology for good inter-expert communication) in order to concentrate on application domain compexities rather than computer internal representations and operations. Subsequently, the related CML Compiler converts such external human mental model descriptions into usage-independent iConceptStore^™ internal models that are potentially accessible to any domain-specific iConceptStore^™ application by means of the same terms that experts used to define their corresponding external CML model.

Since CML is a seamless embodiment of the iConceptStore's original cognitive methodology, its users do not have to read books about that methodology. They can simply learn how to use CML, whether as part of their application software development or stand-alone What-If Analysis. By rough analogy with SQL servers, for software developers iConceptStore^™ works as CML Server (under the hood SQL and CML are mutually compatible and can serve complementary roles in iConceptStore^™ SQL-Link and Enterprise editions). Incidentally, apart from their acronym and intended usage similarity, the iConceptStore^™ CML has no relation to the acclaimed (but actually user-unfriendly, Lisp-syntax based) ontology specification language OCML (in fact, the international publication of our earlier VAX/VMS-based CML version – the rudimentary precursor of today's iConceptStore^™ CML – predates OCML by more than 5 years).

With a COM based implementation in C++, iConceptStore^™ currently runs under MS Windows XP/7/10 Professional as well as Windows Server 2008 and later (32-/64-bit) operating systems. It is integrated with MS SQL Server and on the desktop with MS Office (COM/C++/VBA add-ins for Excel, Word, Outlook and Project) and Internet Explorer. It is further extensible by means of custom functions to provide for user specific modelling capabilities. Readily accessible from within any C/C++/VB/VBA/VBScript/C#/Python code, its well structured framework can be used programmatically to easily embed (or connect to) other software and information components and/or be embedded within (or connected to) any other software system.

Among many usage scenarios, iConceptStore^™ provides to MS Excel an advanced application infrastructure and serves as its intelligent back-end engine, seamlessly linked to it through COM/VBA interfaces. The purpose of this integration is to combine the modelling capabilities of these complementary tools by using Excel as universal information presentation front-end with embedded dynamic links to sophisticated conceptual structures and business logic in iConceptStore^™ modelbases. Deployed within the context of modern knowledge management paradigms, this symbiosis can provide effective means of improving problem-solving and other decision support activities in different application domains.

So far, we have intentionally avoided commercialisation of iConceptStore^™ as a development toolset in order to prevent its unique knowledge representation language CML (as a form of using its underlying original methodology) from being shamelessly copied or modified in multiple derivative works, as usual. As means of such Intellectual Property (IP) protection, software patents are notoriously unreliable – territory and time restricted, expensive to maintain and difficult to enforce while easy to invalidate or design around. As soon as patent is registered, its novelty/originality is over (its publicly accessible patent information no longer holds anything unknown) and it could no longer potentially disrupt any market niche. Due to that unpredictable nature of software patents^* (as well as copyright), we keep all iConceptStore related original Intellectual Property far better protected as “trade secrets”.

^*„In that case, the Federal Circuit issued seven different opinions disputing how to apply US Supreme Court decisions on patentability.  So, five years after Alice, if the Federal Circuit cannot agree on how to evaluate patentability, no one should expect to predict the outcome of a patentability challenge to software patents.„ (Quote of the above pointed out article of August 2019 in WIPO Magazine)

We believe that serious businesses need Analytical Minds and Analytical Minds need Methodology and Tools such as those embodied in iConceptStore^™. Hence, we seek collaboration with Analytical Minds of any professional background in order to multiply our effort to commercialise the iConceptStore^™ technologies in combination with third-party products and services. To this end, we look forward to joining local and international business partners with complementary expertise, whether general business process analysis/management consultants or decision support experts in particular application domains (e.g., investment information analysis, engineering design, manufacturing process planning, etc.) or researchers or software developers:

We invite individuals and organizations, interested in any form of such long-term business collaboration with us, to get in touch by sending detailed background information and motivation points to any of the following e-mail addresses as appropriate (Research/Development/Applications):

Research(at)Cognitive-Technology(dot)com
Development(at)Cognitive-Technology(dot)com
Applications(at)Cognitive-Technology(dot)com
 

Please note that in each of the above email addresses each "(at)" must be replaced with "@" and each  "(dot)" with ".", respectively (this format is aimed at reducing spam).

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