基于日志自动机的业务流程混沌活动过滤方法

业务流程事件日志有时包含混沌活动,混沌活动是独立于流程状态且不受流程约束,会随时随地发生的一类活动。混沌活动的存在会严重影响业务流程挖掘的质量,因此过滤混沌活动成为业务流程管理的关键内容之一。目前,混沌活动的过滤方法主要是从事件日志中过滤不频繁行为,以高频优先为基础的过滤方法并不能有效地过滤日志中的混沌活动。为了解决上述问题,提出了一种基于日志自动机和熵的方法来过滤日志中的混沌活动。首先,根据活动的直接前集率和直接后集率计算得到熵值大的可疑混沌活动集;然后,基于事件日志构建日志自动机,利用日志自动机模型计算得到不频繁弧的活动集与日志中熵值大的活动集,对其取交集得到混沌活动集;最后,运用条件发生概率和行为轮廓确定该混沌活动与其他活动之间的依赖关系,从而决定是在日志中完全删除该混沌活动还是保留该混沌活动在日志中的正确位置而删除其他位置的此活动。案例分析验证了该方法的有效性。     

Scalable alignment of process models and event logs: An approach based on automata and S-components

Given a model of the expected behavior of a business process and given an event log recording its observed behavior, the problem of business process conformance checking is that of identifying and describing the differences between the process model and the event log. A desirable feature of a conformance checking technique is that it should identify a minimal yet complete set of differences. Existing conformance checking techniques that fulfill this property exhibit limited scalability when confronted to large and complex process models and event logs. One reason for this limitation is that existing techniques compare each execution trace in the log against the process model separately, without reusing computations made for one trace when processing subsequent traces. Yet, the execution traces of a business process typically share common fragments (e.g. prefixes and suffixes). A second reason is that these techniques do not integrate mechanisms to tackle the combinatorial state explosion inherent to process models with high levels of concurrency. This paper presents two techniques that address these sources of inefficiency. The first technique starts by transforming the process model and the event log into two automata. These automata are then compared based on a synchronized product, which is computed using an A* heuristic with an admissible heuristic function, thus guaranteeing that the resulting synchronized product captures all differences and is minimal in size. The synchronized product is then used to extract optimal (minimal-length) alignments between each trace of the log and the closest corresponding trace of the model. By representing the event log as a single automaton, this technique allows computations for shared prefixes and suffixes to be made only once. The second technique decomposes the process model into a set of automata, known as S-components, such that the product of these automata is equal to the automaton of the whole process model. A product automaton is computed for each S-component separately. The resulting product automata are then recomposed into a single product automaton capturing all the differences between the process model and the event log, but without minimality guarantees. An empirical evaluation using 40 real-life event logs shows that, used in tandem, the proposed techniques outperform state-of-the-art baselines in terms of execution times in a vast majority of cases, with improvements ranging from several-fold to one order of magnitude. Moreover, the decomposition-based technique leads to optimal trace alignments for the vast majority of datasets and close to optimal alignments for the remaining ones.     

CPL+: An improved approach for evaluating the local completeness of event logs

Process mining aims at deriving order relations between tasks recorded by event logs in order to construct their corresponding process models. The quality of the results is not only determined by the mining algorithm being used, but also by the quality of the provided event logs. As a criterion of log quality, completeness measures the magnitude of information for process mining covered by an event log. In this paper, we focus on the evaluation of the local completeness of an event log. In particular, we consider the direct succession (DS) relations between the tasks of a business process. Based on our previous work, an improved approach called CPL+ is proposed in this paper. Experiments show that the proposed CPL+ works better than other approaches, on event logs that contain a small amount of traces. Finally, by further investigating CPL+, we also found that the more distinct DSs observed in an event log, the lower the local completeness of the log is.     

基于Petri网的并发事件流程模型修复分析

目前,流程模型可以从大量的事件日志中挖掘出来,以重放大多数的日志.但是,少数偏离流程模型的日志亦是有效的,为了使事件日志与流程模型更加拟合,模型修复是一个很好的方法.提出了基于Petri网的并发事件流程模型修复分析方法.首先,找到事件日志与流程模型的最优对齐,筛选出用于修复的并发事件;其次,利用提出的重构子流程的修复方法,对筛选得到的并发事件进行重构;最后,根据算法嵌入到原始模型中以实现模型修复,并通过一个具体实例说明了该方法的合理有效性.修复后的模型可以完全重放给定的事件日志,并且能够避免因循环造成的多余行为的发生,同时也在最大程度上保留了原始模型的使用价值.     

Scalable process discovery and conformance checking

Considerable amounts of data, including process events, are collected and stored by organisations nowadays. Discovering a process model from such event data and verification of the quality of discovered models are important steps in process mining. Many discovery techniques have been proposed, but none of them combines scalability with strong quality guarantees. We would like such techniques to handle billions of events or thousands of activities, to produce sound models (without deadlocks and other anomalies), and to guarantee that the underlying process can be rediscovered when sufficient information is available. In this paper, we introduce a framework for process discovery that ensures these properties while passing over the log only once and introduce three algorithms using the framework. To measure the quality of discovered models for such large logs, we introduce a model–model and model–log comparison framework that applies a divide-and-conquer strategy to measure recall, fitness, and precision. We experimentally show that these discovery and measuring techniques sacrifice little compared to other algorithms, while gaining the ability to cope with event logs of 100,000,000 traces and processes of 10,000 activities on a standard computer.     

Model repair — aligning process models to reality

Process mining techniques relate observed behavior (i.e., event logs) to modeled behavior (e.g., a BPMN model or a Petri net). Process models can be discovered from event logs and conformance checking techniques can be used to detect and diagnose differences between observed and modeled behavior. Existing process mining techniques can only uncover these differences, but the actual repair of the model is left to the user and is not supported. In this paper we investigate the problem of repairing a process model w.r.t. a log such that the resulting model can replay the log (i.e., conforms to it) and is as similar as possible to the original model. To solve the problem, we use an existing conformance checker that aligns the runs of the given process model to the traces in the log. Based on this information, we decompose the log into several sublogs of non-fitting subtraces. For each sublog, either a loop is discovered that can replay the sublog or a subprocess is derived that is then added to the original model at the appropriate location. The approach is implemented in the process mining toolkit ProM and has been validated on logs and models from several Dutch municipalities.     

An alignment-based framework to check the conformance of declarative process models and to preprocess event-log data

Process mining can be seen as the “missing link” between data mining and business process management. The lion's share of process mining research has been devoted to the discovery of procedural process models from event logs. However, often there are predefined constraints that (partially) describe the normative or expected process, e.g., “activity A should be followed by B” or “activities A and B should never be both executed”. A collection of such constraints is called a declarative process model. Although it is possible to discover such models based on event data, this paper focuses on aligning event logs and predefined declarative process models. Discrepancies between log and model are mediated such that observed log traces are related to paths in the model. The resulting alignments provide sophisticated diagnostics that pinpoint where deviations occur and how severe they are. Moreover, selected parts of the declarative process model can be used to clean and repair the event log before applying other process mining techniques. Our alignment-based approach for preprocessing and conformance checking using declarative process models has been implemented in ProM and has been evaluated using both synthetic logs and real-life logs from a Dutch hospital.     

基于混合人工免疫算法的流程挖掘事件日志融合方法

流程挖掘是流程管理和数据挖掘交叉领域中的一个研究热点.在实际业务环境中,流程执行的数据往往分散记录到不同的事件日志中,需要将这些事件日志融合成为单一事件日志文件,才能应用当前基于单一事件日志的流程挖掘技术.然而,由于流程日志间存在着执行实例的多对多匹配关系、融合所需信息可能缺失等问题,导致事件日志融合问题具有较高挑战性.本文对事件日志融合问题进行了形式化定义,指出该问题是一个搜索优化问题,并提出了一种基于混合人工免疫算法的事件日志融合方法：以启发式方法生成初始种群,人工免疫系统的克隆选择理论基础,通过免疫进化获得“最佳”的融合解,从而支持包含多对多的实例匹配关系的日志融合;考虑两个实例级别的因素：流程执行路径出现的频次和流程实例间的时间匹配关系,分别从“量”匹配和“时间”匹配两个维度来评价进化中的个体;通过设置免疫记忆库、引入模拟退火机制,保证新一代种群的多样性,减少进化早熟几率.实验结果表明,本文的方法能够实现多对多的实例匹配关系的事件日志融合的目标,相比随机方法生成初始种群,启发式方法能加快免疫进化的速度.文中还针对利用分布式技术提高事件日志融合性能,探讨了大规模事件日志的分布式融合中的数据划问题.     

Efficient Deviation Detection Between a Process Model and Event Logs

Business processes described by formal or semi-formal models are realized via information systems. Event logs generated from these systems are probably not consistent with the existing models due to insufficient design of the information system or the system upgrade. By comparing an existing process model with event logs, we can detect inconsistencies called deviations, verify and extend the business process model, and accordingly improve the business process. In this paper, some abnormal activities in business processes are formally defined based on Petri nets. An efficient approach to detect deviations between the process model and event logs is proposed. Then, business process models are revised when abnormal activities exist. A clinical process in a healthcare information system is used as a case study to illustrate our work. Experimental results show the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed approach.      

基于BERT的多视角事件日志修复

在业务流程执行过程中,由于信息系统故障或者人工记录出错等问题导致事件日志中数据的丢失,从而产生缺失的事件日志,使用这种缺失日志会严重影响业务流程分析结果的质量。针对这种缺失日志的修复问题,现有的研究大部分仅从数据视角或者行为视角进行展开,很少从数据和行为相融合的视角开展事件日志的修复工作。提出了一种基于BERT模型的多视角事件日志修复方法。该方法利用双层BERT模型,从数据和行为融合的视角训练模型,通过BERT模型的预训练任务（masked attribute model,MAM）和（masked event model,MEM）以及Transformer编码块的注意力机制,捕获输入属性的双向语义信息和长期依赖关系,使用微调策略进行模型训练,以预测的形式修复事件日志中的缺失值。最后,通过公开可用的数据集进行评估分析,结果表明,该方法在修复事件日志方面表现良好。     

Decomposing Petri nets for process mining: A generic approach

The practical relevance of process mining is increasing as more and more event data become available. Process mining techniques aim to discover, monitor and improve real processes by extracting knowledge from event logs. The two most prominent process mining tasks are: (i) process discovery: learning a process model from example behavior recorded in an event log, and (ii) conformance checking: diagnosing and quantifying discrepancies between observed behavior and modeled behavior. The increasing volume of event data provides both opportunities and challenges for process mining. Existing process mining techniques have problems dealing with large event logs referring to many different activities. Therefore, we propose a generic approach to decompose process mining problems. The decomposition approach is generic and can be combined with different existing process discovery and conformance checking techniques. It is possible to split computationally challenging process mining problems into many smaller problems that can be analyzed easily and whose results can be combined into solutions for the original problems.     

基于时间差约束的事件日志合并

在跨企业、跨系统的环境中,流程数据通常记录在单独的事件日志中,这使得无法挖掘完整的端到端的执行流程,因此本算法提出仅使用事件名称以及时间戳属性对日志进行合并。首先分别获取两个系统的过程模型以及根据活动的跨系统跟随依赖关系获得的合并模型,接着将两个系统的流程一对一进行合并并按照时间戳排序,留下与合并模型路径一致的合并流程,然后从这些流程中获得一对一的实例对,即唯一主流程仅与唯一子流程可以合并,再从这些实例对中挖掘活动间的时间约束用于剩余日志的合并,重复最后两步直到所有日志均合并或无法一对一合并日志。该算法在真实的事件日志上进行了实验,达到了满意的合并效果并获得较高的准确率与召回率。     

基于行为轮廓矩阵增强的业务流程结果预测方法

预测性过程监控依赖于预测效果,针对如何增强预测性过程监控预测效果的问题,提出了一种基于行为轮廓矩阵增强的业务流程结果预测方法。首先,通过分析活动间的行为关系提取行为轮廓矩阵,并将其与事件序列一同输入到模型中。随后,结合卷积神经网络（CNN）和长短期记忆网络（LSTM）分别学习矩阵图像特征和序列特征。最后,引入注意力机制以整合图像特征和序列特征进行预测。通过真实事件日志进行验证,在预测事件日志结果方面,提出的增强方法对比基准的LSTM预测方法提高了预测效果,验证了方法的可行性。该方法结合行为轮廓矩阵增强了预测模型对事件日志中行为之间关系的理解,进而提升了预测效果。     

Discovering Social Networks from Event Logs

Process mining techniques allow for the discovery of knowledge based on so-called “event logs”, i.e., a log recording the execution of activities in some business process. Many information systems provide such logs, e.g., most WFM, ERP, CRM, SCM, and B2B systems record transactions in a systematic way. Process mining techniques typically focus on performance and control-flow issues. However, event logs typically also log the performer, e.g., the person initiating or completing some activity. This paper focuses on mining social networks using this information. For example, it is possible to build a social network based on the hand-over of work from one performer to the next. By combining concepts from workflow management and social network analysis, it is possible to discover and analyze social networks. This paper defines metrics, presents a tool, and applies these to a real event log within the setting of a large Dutch organization.     

Stage-based discovery of business process models from event logs

An automated process discovery technique generates a process model from an event log recording the execution of a business process. For it to be useful, the generated process model should be as simple as possible, while accurately capturing the behavior recorded in, and implied by, the event log. Most existing automated process discovery techniques generate flat process models. When confronted to large event logs, these approaches lead to overly complex or inaccurate process models. An alternative is to apply a divide-and-conquer approach by decomposing the process into stages and discovering one model per stage. It turns out, however, that existing divide-and-conquer process discovery approaches often produce less accurate models than flat discovery techniques, when applied to real-life event logs. This article proposes an automated method to identify business process stages from an event log and an automated technique to discover process models based on a given stage-based process decomposition. An experimental evaluation shows that: (i) relative to existing automated process decomposition methods in the field of process mining, the proposed method leads to stage-based decompositions that are closer to decompositions derived by human experts; and (ii) the proposed stage-based process discovery technique outperforms existing flat and divide-and-conquer discovery techniques with respect to well-accepted measures of accuracy and achieves comparable results in terms of model complexity.     

事件日志的批量迹与过程模型的多视角对齐方法

在业务过程发现的一致性检测中,现有事件日志与过程模型的多视角对齐方法一次只能获得一条迹与过程模型的最优对齐;并且最优对齐求解中的启发函数计算复杂,以致最优对齐的计算效率较低。为此,提出一种基于迹最小编辑距离的、事件日志的批量迹与过程模型的多视角对齐方法。首先选取事件日志中的多条迹组成批量迹,使用过程挖掘算法得到批量迹的日志模型;进而获取日志模型与过程模型的乘积模型及其变迁系统,即为批量迹的搜索空间;然后设计基于Petri网变迁序列集合与剩余迹的最小编辑距离的启发函数来加快A*算法;最后设计可调节数据和资源视角所占权重的多视角代价函数,在乘积模型的变迁系统上提出批量迹中每条迹与过程模型的多视角最优对齐方法。仿真实验结果表明,相比已有工作,在计算批量迹与过程模型间的多视角对齐时,所提方法占用更少的内存空间和使用更少的运行时间。该方法提高了最优对齐的启发函数计算速度,可以一次获得批量迹的所有最优对齐,进而提高了事件日志与过程模型的多视角对齐效率。     

Conformance checking of processes based on monitoring real behavior

Many companies have adopted Process-aware Information Systems (PAIS) to support their business processes in some form. On the one hand these systems typically log events (e.g., in transaction logs or audit trails) related to the actual business process executions. On the other hand explicit process models describing how the business process should (or is expected to) be executed are frequently available. Together with the data recorded in the log, this situation raises the interesting question “Do the model and the log conform to each other?”. Conformance checking, also referred to as conformance analysis, aims at the detection of inconsistencies between a process model and its corresponding execution log, and their quantification by the formation of metrics. This paper proposes an incremental approach to check the conformance of a process model and an event log. First of all, the fitness between the log and the model is measured (i.e., “Does the observed process comply with the control flow specified by the process model?”). Second, the appropriateness of the model can be analyzed with respect to the log (i.e., “Does the model describe the observed process in a suitable way?”). Appropriateness can be evaluated from both a structural and a behavioral perspective. To operationalize the ideas presented in this paper a Conformance Checker has been implemented within the ProM framework, and it has been evaluated using artificial and real-life event logs.     

Bridging abstraction layers in process mining

While the maturity of process mining algorithms increases and more process mining tools enter the market, process mining projects still face the problem of different levels of abstraction when comparing events with modeled business activities. Current approaches for event log abstraction try to abstract from the events in an automated way that does not capture the required domain knowledge to fit business activities. This can lead to misinterpretation of discovered process models. We developed an approach that aims to abstract an event log to the same abstraction level that is needed by the business. We use domain knowledge extracted from existing process documentation to semi-automatically match events and activities. Our abstraction approach is able to deal with n:m relations between events and activities and also supports concurrency. We evaluated our approach in two case studies with a German IT outsourcing company.     

基于OSGi的分布式系统集中日志管理方案

目前分布式业务应用的日志多存储在各分布式服务器节点本地日志文件中,没有集中存储和管理,导致业务系统问题定位速度慢,解决问题效率低.本文提供一种基于OSGi的分布式日志收集与分析技术方案.该方案单独设计了集中的日志存储服务器用于存储日志,并提供一套通用日志模型,业务应用分布式节点向该设备发送基于该模型的日志数据,日志存储服务器接收到各节点的日志数据后进行统一存储和界面化分析展示,帮助开发人员快速定位和分析问题.该方案以OSGi插件形式部署到应用系统,应用卸载该插件后则以原有方式存储日志.应用结果表明,采用该日志管理方案对1000并发下记录日志的业务应用访问性能平均提升2秒,并且没有日志数据丢失.开发人员反馈,错误日志更加一目了然,定位问题的时间明显短于普通的日志存储方式.     

业务流程隐变迁的拟间接依赖挖掘方法

隐变迁存在于业务流程中,但在日志中未被记录,挖掘隐变迁能够还原模型并提高流程的运行效率。已有方法都是基于日志间直接依赖关系挖掘隐变迁,未考虑其间接依赖关系,具有一定的局限性。提出基于拟间接依赖关系挖掘隐变迁的方法,根据事件日志中活动间的轮廓关系构建初始模型,通过拟间接依赖关系表找出日志序列之间的约束体。利用整数线性规划方法,查找符合要求的拟间接关系变迁对,从而挖掘出拟间接关系变迁对中存在的隐变迁。将隐变迁融合到初始模型中,得到含有隐变迁的目标模型。通过具体的实例分析验证了该方法的有效性。