ExplainIt! -- A declarative root-cause analysis engine for time series data (extended version)

We present ExplainIt!, a declarative, unsupervised root-cause analysis engine that uses time series monitoring data from large complex systems such as data centres. ExplainIt! empowers operators to succinctly specify a large number of causal hypotheses to search for causes of interesting events. ExplainIt! then ranks these hypotheses, reducing the number of causal dependencies from hundreds of thousands to a handful for human understanding. We show how a declarative language, such as SQL, can be effective in declaratively enumerating hypotheses that probe the structure of an unknown probabilistic graphical causal model of the underlying system. Our thesis is that databases are in a unique position to enable users to rapidly explore the possible causal mechanisms in data collected from diverse sources. We empirically demonstrate how ExplainIt! had helped us resolve over 30 performance issues in a commercial product since late 2014, of which we discuss a few cases in detail.Comment: SIGMOD Industry Track 201

Rule Mining in Action: The RuM Toolkit

Procedural process modeling languages can be difficult to use for process mining in cases where the process recorded in the event log is unpredictable and has a high number of different branches and exceptions. In these cases, declarative process modeling languages such as DECLARE are more suitable. Declarative languages do not aim at modeling the end-to-end process step by step, but constrain the behavior of the process using rules thus allowing for more variability in the process model yet keeping it compact. Although there are several commercial and academic process mining tools available based on procedural models, there are currently no comparable tools for working with declarative models. In this paper, we present RuM, an accessible and easy-to-use rule mining toolkit integrating multiple DECLARE-based process mining methods into a single unified application. RuM implements process mining techniques based on Multi-Perspective DECLARE, namely the extension of DECLARE supporting data constraints together with controlflow constraints. In particular, RuM includes support for process discovery, conformance checking, log generation and monitoring as well as a model editor. The application has been evaluated by conducting a qualitative user evaluation with eight process analysts

Generating Synthetic Event Logs based on Multi- perspective Business Rules

Traditsiooniline äriprotsesside modelleerimine kasutab imperatiivset lähenemist, kus äri-protsesse kirjeldatakse üksteise järel sooritatavate tegevuste abil. On näidatud, et imper-atiivne lähenemine on sobivam lahendus stabiilsete ja ennustatavate protsesside puhul. Deklaratiivsed mudelid seevastu sobivad muutuvate protsesside kirjeldamiseks. Deklaratiivne mudel sisaldab endas reeglite hulka mida ei tohi eirata protsessi käitamisel. Viimastel aastatel on arendatud mitmeid uusi meetodeid deklaratiivsete protsessimudelite leidmiseks sündmuste logidest. Meetodite testimiseks on vajalik tööriistade olemasolu, mis genereerivad sünteetilisi sündmuste logisid, mille peal neid meetodeid katsetada. Enamus olemasolevaid tööriistu kasutavad imperatiivseid protsessimudelid logide genereerimiseks. Selline lähenemine ei ole sobiv deklaratiivsete protsessimudelite avastamise meetodite tes-timiseks. Sarnaselt on olemas vajadus tööriistade järgi, mis genereeriks sündmuste logisid kasutades mitmeperspektiivseid Declare mudeleid. Käesolevas töös esitleme tööriista mitmeperspektiivsete Declare mudelite genereerimiseks. See töörist tõlgib Declare piirangud lõpliku olekumasina esitusse,et neid kasutada deklaratiivsete mudelite simu-leerimiseks. Tööriist võimaldab kasutajatel genereerida logisid eeldefineeritud omadustega ( näiteks protsessi instantside arv ja protsessi pikkus), mis on kooskõlas Declare mudeli-tega.\n\rMärksõnad: Declare, deklaratiivne protsessimudel, protsessi simuleerimine, logide gene-reerimine, mitmeperspektiive, lineaarne taisarvuline planeerimineTraditional business modelling is imperative in the sense that activities are provided step by step, from start to end, leading towards full business process. It has been proved that the imperative paradigm is most suitable in the context of stable and predictable processes. Declarative models are more suitable for variable processes. A declarative model is made of a set of constrains that cannot be violated during the process execution. In recent years, many techniques have been developed to discover declarative process model from event logs. To test these techniques it is sometime necessary to have tools that generate synthetic logs on which the techniques can be applied. However, majority of the existing tools avail-able in this field use simulation of an imperative process model to generate synthetic event logs. These approaches are not suitable for the evaluation of process discovery techniques using declarative process models. Additionally, there is a need for tools to generate event logs based on the simulation of multi-perspective declarative models. To close this gap, we developed a tool for log generation based on multi- perspective Declare models. This mod-el simulator will base on the translation of Declare constraints into Finite State Automata for the simulation of declarative processes. The tool will allows users to generate logs with predefined characteristics (e.g., number and length of the process instances), which is compliant with a given Declare model.\n\rKeywords: Declare, Declarative Process Models, Process Simulation, Log Generation, Multi-perspective, Integer Linear Programmin

Process Mining Handbook

This is an open access book. This book comprises all the single courses given as part of the First Summer School on Process Mining, PMSS 2022, which was held in Aachen, Germany, during July 4-8, 2022. This volume contains 17 chapters organized into the following topical sections: Introduction; process discovery; conformance checking; data preprocessing; process enhancement and monitoring; assorted process mining topics; industrial perspective and applications; and closing

Knowledge-Intensive Processes: Characteristics, Requirements and Analysis of Contemporary Approaches

Engineering of knowledge-intensive processes (KiPs) is far from being mastered, since they are genuinely knowledge- and data-centric, and require substantial flexibility, at both design- and run-time. In this work, starting from a scientific literature analysis in the area of KiPs and from three real-world domains and application scenarios, we provide a precise characterization of KiPs. Furthermore, we devise some general requirements related to KiPs management and execution. Such requirements contribute to the definition of an evaluation framework to assess current system support for KiPs. To this end, we present a critical analysis on a number of existing process-oriented approaches by discussing their efficacy against the requirements

Data-Aware Declarative Process Mining with SAT

Process Mining is a family of techniques for analyzing business process execution data recorded in event logs. Process models can be obtained as output of automated process discovery techniques or can be used as input of techniques for conformance checking or model enhancement. In Declarative Process Mining, process models are represented as sets of temporal constraints (instead of procedural descriptions where all control-flow details are explicitly modeled). An open research direction in Declarative Process Mining is whether multi-perspective specifications can be supported, i.e., specifications that not only describe the process behavior from the control-flow point of view, but also from other perspectives like data or time. In this paper, we address this question by considering SAT (Propositional Satisfiability Problem) as a solving technology for a number of classical problems in Declarative Process Mining, namely log generation, conformance checking and temporal query checking. To do so, we first express each problem as a suitable FO (First-Order) theory whose bounded models represent solutions to the problem, and then find a bounded model of such theory by compilation into SAT

Knowledge will Propel Machine Understanding of Content: Extrapolating from Current Examples

Machine Learning has been a big success story during the AI resurgence. One particular stand out success relates to learning from a massive amount of data. In spite of early assertions of the unreasonable effectiveness of data, there is increasing recognition for utilizing knowledge whenever it is available or can be created purposefully. In this paper, we discuss the indispensable role of knowledge for deeper understanding of content where (i) large amounts of training data are unavailable, (ii) the objects to be recognized are complex, (e.g., implicit entities and highly subjective content), and (iii) applications need to use complementary or related data in multiple modalities/media. What brings us to the cusp of rapid progress is our ability to (a) create relevant and reliable knowledge and (b) carefully exploit knowledge to enhance ML/NLP techniques. Using diverse examples, we seek to foretell unprecedented progress in our ability for deeper understanding and exploitation of multimodal data and continued incorporation of knowledge in learning techniques.Comment: Pre-print of the paper accepted at 2017 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Web Intelligence (WI). arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1610.0770