Title: A graph distance based metric for data oriented workflow retrieval with variable time constraints
Author: Ma, Yinglong (1)
; Zhang, Xiaolan (1)
; Lu, Ke (3)
Corresponding Author: Ma, Y.(yinglongma@gmail.com)
Keyword: Business process management
; Data oriented workflow
; Similarity computation
; Process mining
; Process retrieval
Source: Expert Systems with Applications
Issued Date: 2014
Volume: 41, Issue: 4 PART 1, Pages: 1377-1388 Indexed Type: SCI
; EI
Department: (1) School of Control and Computer Science, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China; (2) State Key Laboratory of Computer Science, Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; (3) University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
Abstract: There are many applications in business process management that require measuring the similarity between business processes, such as workflow retrieval and process mining, etc. However, most existing approaches and models cannot represent variable constraints and achieve data oriented workflow retrieval of considering different QoS requirements, and also fail to allow users to express arbitrary constraints based on graph structures of workflows. These problems will impede the customization and reuse of workflows, especially for data oriented workflows. In this paper, we will be towards workflow retrieval with variable time constraints. We propose a graph distance based approach for measuring the similarity between data oriented workflows with variable time constraints. First, a formal structure called Time Dependency Graph (TDG) is proposed and further used as representation model of workflows. Similarity comparison between two workflows can be reduced to computing the similarity between their TDGs. Second, we detect whether two TDGs of workflows for similarity comparison are compatible. A distance based measure is proposed for computing their similarity by their normalization matrices established based on their TDGs. We theoretically proof that the proposed measure satisfies the all the properties of distance. In addition, some exemplar processes are studied to illustrate the effectiveness of our approach of similarity comparison for workflows. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. English Abstract: There are many applications in business process management that require measuring the similarity between business processes, such as workflow retrieval and process mining, etc. However, most existing approaches and models cannot represent variable constraints and achieve data oriented workflow retrieval of considering different QoS requirements, and also fail to allow users to express arbitrary constraints based on graph structures of workflows. These problems will impede the customization and reuse of workflows, especially for data oriented workflows. In this paper, we will be towards workflow retrieval with variable time constraints. We propose a graph distance based approach for measuring the similarity between data oriented workflows with variable time constraints. First, a formal structure called Time Dependency Graph (TDG) is proposed and further used as representation model of workflows. Similarity comparison between two workflows can be reduced to computing the similarity between their TDGs. Second, we detect whether two TDGs of workflows for similarity comparison are compatible. A distance based measure is proposed for computing their similarity by their normalization matrices established based on their TDGs. We theoretically proof that the proposed measure satisfies the all the properties of distance. In addition, some exemplar processes are studied to illustrate the effectiveness of our approach of similarity comparison for workflows. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Language: 英语
WOS ID: WOS:000330158700040
Citation statistics:
Content Type: 期刊论文
URI: http://ir.iscas.ac.cn/handle/311060/16870
Appears in Collections: 软件所图书馆_期刊论文
There are no files associated with this item.
Recommended Citation:
Ma, Yinglong ,Zhang, Xiaolan ,Lu, Ke . A graph distance based metric for data oriented workflow retrieval with variable time constraints[J]. Expert Systems with Applications,2014-01-01,41(4 PART 1):1377-1388.
