1,094 research outputs found
Engineering algorithms for workflow satisfiability problem with user-independent constraints
The workflow satisfiability problem (WSP) is a planning problem. Certain sub-classes of this problem have been shown to be fixed-parameter tractable. In this paper we develop an implementation of an algorithm for WSP that has been shown, in our previous paper, to be fixed-parameter for user-independent constraints. In a set of computational experiments, we compare our algorithm to an encoding of the WSP into a pseudo-Boolean SAT problem solved by the well-known solver SAT4J. Our algorithm solves all instances of WSP generated in our experiments, unlike SAT4J, and it solves many instances faster than SAT4J. For lightly constrained instances, SAT4J usually outperforms our algorithm
Algorithms for the workflow satisfiability problem engineered for counting constraints
The workflow satisfiability problem (WSP) asks whether there exists an
assignment of authorized users to the steps in a workflow specification that
satisfies the constraints in the specification. The problem is NP-hard in
general, but several subclasses of the problem are known to be fixed-parameter
tractable (FPT) when parameterized by the number of steps in the specification.
In this paper, we consider the WSP with user-independent counting constraints,
a large class of constraints for which the WSP is known to be FPT. We describe
an efficient implementation of an FPT algorithm for solving this subclass of
the WSP and an experimental evaluation of this algorithm. The algorithm
iteratively generates all equivalence classes of possible partial solutions
until, whenever possible, it finds a complete solution to the problem. We also
provide a reduction from a WSP instance to a pseudo-Boolean SAT instance. We
apply this reduction to the instances used in our experiments and solve the
resulting PB SAT problems using SAT4J, a PB SAT solver. We compare the
performance of our algorithm with that of SAT4J and discuss which of the two
approaches would be more effective in practice
Tight lower bounds for the Workflow Satisfiability Problem based on the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis
The Workflow Satisfiability Problem (WSP) asks whether there exists an
assignment of authorized users to the steps in a workflow specification,
subject to certain constraints on the assignment. The problem is NP-hard even
when restricted to just not equals constraints. Since the number of steps
is relatively small in practice, Wang and Li (2010) introduced a
parametrisation of WSP by . Wang and Li (2010) showed that, in general, the
WSP is W[1]-hard, i.e., it is unlikely that there exists a fixed-parameter
tractable (FPT) algorithm for solving the WSP. Crampton et al. (2013) and Cohen
et al. (2014) designed FPT algorithms of running time and
for the WSP with so-called regular and user-independent
constraints, respectively. In this note, we show that there are no algorithms
of running time and for the two
restrictions of WSP, respectively, with any , unless the Strong
Exponential Time Hypothesis fails
Iterative Plan Construction for the Workflow Satisfiability Problem
The Workflow Satisfiability Problem (WSP) is a problem of practical interest that arises whenever tasks need to be performed by authorized users, subject to constraints defined by business rules. We are required to decide whether there exists a plan - an assignment of tasks to authorized users - such that all constraints are satisfied. It is natural to see the WSP as a subclass of the Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP) in which the variables are tasks and the domain is the set of users. What makes the WSP distinctive is that the number of tasks is usually very small compared to the number of users, so it is appropriate to ask for which constraint languages the WSP is fixed-parameter tractable (FPT), parameterized by the number of tasks.
This novel approach to the WSP, using techniques from CSP, has enabled us to design a generic algorithm which is FPT for several families of workflow constraints considered in the literature. Furthermore, we prove that the union of FPT languages remains FPT if they satisfy a simple compatibility condition. Lastly, we identify a new FPT constraint language, user-independent constraints, that includes many of the constraints of interest in business processing systems. We demonstrate that our generic algorithm has provably optimal running time O*(2^(klog k)), for this language, where k is the number of tasks
Valued Workflow Satisfiability Problem
A workflow is a collection of steps that must be executed in some specific
order to achieve an objective. A computerised workflow management system may
enforce authorisation policies and constraints, thereby restricting which users
can perform particular steps in a workflow. The existence of policies and
constraints may mean that a workflow is unsatisfiable, in the sense that it is
impossible to find an authorised user for each step in the workflow and satisfy
all constraints. In this paper, we consider the problem of finding the "least
bad" assignment of users to workflow steps by assigning a weight to each policy
and constraint violation. To this end, we introduce a framework for associating
costs with the violation of workflow policies and constraints and define the
\emph{valued workflow satisfiability problem} (Valued WSP), whose solution is
an assignment of steps to users of minimum cost. We establish the computational
complexity of Valued WSP with user-independent constraints and show that it is
fixed-parameter tractable. We then describe an algorithm for solving Valued WSP
with user-independent constraints and evaluate its performance, comparing it to
that of an off-the-shelf mixed integer programming package
The bi-objective workflow satisfiability problem and workflow resiliency
A computerized workflow management system may enforce a security policy, specified in terms of authorized actions and constraints, thereby restricting which users can perform particular steps in a workflow. The existence of a security policy may mean that a workflow is unsatisfiable, in the sense that it is impossible to find a valid plan (an assignment of steps to authorized users such that all constraints are satisfied). Work in the literature focuses on the workflow satisfiability problem, a decision problem that outputs a valid plan if the instance is satisfiable (and a negative result otherwise). In this paper, we introduce the Bi-Objective Workflow Satisfiability Problem (BO-WSP), which enables us to solve optimization problems related to workflows and security policies. In particular, we are able to compute a “least bad” plan when some components of the security policy may be violated. In general, BO-WSP is intractable from both the classical and parameterized complexity point of view (where the parameter is the number of steps). We prove that computing a Pareto front for BO-WSP is fixed-parameter tractable (FPT) if we restrict our attention to user-independent constraints. This result has important practical consequences, since most constraints of practical interest in the literature are user-independent. Our proof is constructive and defines an algorithm, the implementation of which we describe and evaluate. We also present a second algorithm to compute a Pareto front which solves multiples instances of a related problem using mixed integer programming (MIP). We compare the performance of both our algorithms on synthetic instances, and show that the FPT algorithm outperforms the MIP-based one by several orders of magnitude on most instances. Finally, we study the important question of workflow resiliency and prove new results establishing that known decision problems are fixed-parameter tractable when restricted to user-independent constraints. We then propose a new way of modeling the availability of users and demonstrate that many questions related to resiliency in the context of this new model may be reduced to instances of BO-WSP
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