Patent ID: 7571149

Claim:
An inferential evaluation system embodied in a computer for evaluating system capabilities relative to a set of requirements, the inferential evaluation system comprising: a computer configured to implement inferential evaluation system components, comprising: a requirements modeling component configured to be updated to model a set of requirements, the requirements modeling component including a requirements ontology model which defines the relationships among a set of requirements types in a hierarchical semantic dependency model and which uses the vocabulary of the requirements domain to refine and specialize the common requirements concepts and which has a knowledge base consistent with the ontology model to represent specific requirements facts; a system descriptive modeling component configured to be updated to model a system description of a first system to be analyzed, the system descriptive modeling component including a system capabilities ontology model which defines the relationships among a set of system capability types or concepts, defined using the specific system description vocabulary refining the common system capabilities vocabulary, thus defining a model to capture the capabilities of the first system in a hierarchical semantic dependency model, and an associated knowledge base with specific system capability facts; and an evaluation model component configured to relate the system description of the first system to requirements of the set of requirements to generate evaluation results in order to evaluate the capabilities of the first system to meet the set of requirements and to characterize the type of satisfaction achieved or not achieved, the evaluation model component including an evaluation ontology model which semantically links requirements of the set of requirements from the requirements ontology model and capabilities of the first system from the system capabilities ontology model, wherein the evaluation model component is configured to provide satisfaction classifications between requirements in the requirements ontology model and system capabilities in the system capabilities ontology model at an aspect hierarchical level, at an element hierarchical level and at an attribute hierarchical level: the computer further configured to display on a display device, the evaluation results for use by a user in identifying whether the first system to be analyzed satisfies the set of requirements.