Systems, methods and mediums are described for processing rules and associated bags of facts generated by an application in communication with a processing engine, database and rule engine that process the bags of facts in view of the rules and generate one or more rule-dependent responses to the application which performs one or more work flows based on the responses. The rule engine may apply forward-chaining, backward-chaining or a combination of forward-chaining and backward-chaining to process the rules and facts. Numerous novel applications that work in conjunction with the processing engine, database and rule engine are also described.
Please help me write a proper abstract based on the patent claims. CLAIM: 1. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising instructions for monitoring crew members associated with an airline that, when executed on a computing device, cause the computing device to at least: receive data within an application regarding each crew member; send a message containing the data and a set of rules that apply to the data together to a rule engine to initiate a process for analyzing the data, the data being true for the set of rules for a current process state; analyze the data based on the set of rules operated within the rule engine to produce a rule-dependent response based on the data without requesting additional rules or additional data for the first set of rules from any source during the current process state; and based on the rule-dependent response, perform one or more work flows within the application related to identifying one or more airplane flights that meet duty time requirements for the crew member. 2. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the instruction to analyze the data includes combining a forward-chaining rule with a backward-chaining rule by creating a condition within the forward-chaining rule that contains a backward-chaining query. 3. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the instruction to analyze the data includes combining a backward-chaining rule with a forward-chaining rule by utilizing a fact inferred from the forward-chaining rule as a goal for the backward-chaining rule, unless the forward-chaining rule contains a condition that depends on negation of another forward-chaining inference, in which case execution of the forward-chaining rule is suspended, the dependency of the rule-predicate for the problematic fact is recorded in a table, and execution of the forward-chaining rule skips to the next untried fact to select a new rule to execute. 4. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the one or more work flows identify a work schedule for the crew member.