21. The system of claim 15 , wherein the exclusionary conditional statement is based on a rejection query, wherein the rejection query returns a rejection set comprising a plurality of data records to be excluded from processing.
15. A system comprising: a processor; and a memory containing a program which, when executed on the processor, is configured to process an abstract rule by performing the steps of: receiving a rule set container storing a plurality of abstract rules, wherein each abstract rule includes (i) a conditional statement and (ii) a consequential statement defining a result returned by an abstract rule for a data record supplied to the abstract rule satisfying the conditional statement; identifying a first abstract rule among the plurality of abstract rules, wherein the consequential statement of the first abstract rule specifies to reject data records that satisfy the conditional statement of the first abstract rule from being processed by other abstract rules among the plurality of abstract rules; identifying a second abstract rule among the plurality of abstract rules, wherein the consequential statement of the second abstract rule specifies an inference message to return for data records that satisfy the conditional statement of the second abstract rule; transforming the first abstract rule and the second abstract rule into a single executable rule, wherein the single executable rule includes the consequential statement of the second abstract rule and a new conditional statement, the new conditional statement comprising the conditional statement of the second abstract rule and an exclusionary conditional statement that excludes data records satisfying the conditional statement of the first abstract rule; and storing the single executable rule for execution against a database query result.