Process model comparison based on cophenetic distance

The automated comparison of process models has received increasing attention in the last decade, due to the growing existence of process models and repositories, and the consequent need to assess similarities between the underlying processes. Current techniques for process model comparison are either structural (based on graph edit distances), or behavioural (through activity profiles or the analysis of the execution semantics). Accordingly, there is a gap between the quality of the information provided by these two families, i.e., structural techniques may be fast but inaccurate, whilst behavioural are accurate but complex. In this paper we present a novel technique, that is based on a well-known technique to compare labeled trees through the notion of Cophenetic distance. The technique lays between the two families of methods for comparing a process model: it has an structural nature, but can provide accurate information on the differences/similarities of two process models. The experimental evaluation on various benchmarks sets are reported, that position the proposed technique as a valuable tool for process model comparison.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

A Real-Time Method for Detecting Temporary Process Variants in Event Log Data

During the execution of a business process, organizations or individual employees may introduce mistakes, as well as temporary or permanent changes to the process. Such mistakes and changes in the process can introduce anomalies and deviations in the event logs, which in turn introduce temporary and periodic process variants. Early identification of such deviations from the most common types of cases can help an organization to act on them. Keeping this problem in focus, we developed a method that can discover temporary and periodic changes to processes in event log data in real-time. The method classifies cases into common, periodic, temporary, and anomalous cases. The proposed method is evaluated using synthetic and real-world data with promising results

Ruimtelijke en temporele patronen in de diversiteit van de macrobentische infauna op het Nederlands Continentaal Plat

In opdracht van het Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving is een overzicht gemaakt van ruimtelijke en temporele verschillen in de diversiteit van het benthos op het Nederlands Continentaal Plat. Voor de berekeningen werd gebruik gemaakt van de meetgegevens van het landelijke monitoringprogramma MWTL (Monitoring van de Waterstaatkundige Toestand des Lands). In dit rapport zijn de macrobenthos-gegevens van de periode 1991-2005 geanalyseerd. Globaal gezien blijken er in de periode 1991-2005 weinig, hoogstens kleine, veranderingen in de biodiversiteit van de macrobenthische infauna. Fluctuaties in de populatieomvang van een aantal soorten leidden wel tot significante fluctuaties in dominantie, gereflecteerd in de Simpson index

Choreography in IRS-III – coping with heterogeneous interaction patterns in web services

In this paper we describe how we handle heterogeneity in web service interaction through a choreography mechanism that we have developed for IRS-III. IRS-III is a framework and platform for developing semantic web services which utilizes the WSMO ontology. The overall design of our choreography framework is based on: the use of ontologies and state, IRS-III playing the role of a broker, differentiating between communication direction and which actor has the initiative, having representations which can be executed, a formal semantics, and the ability to suspend communication. Our framework has a full implementation which we illustrate through an example application

Merging business process models

This paper addresses the following problem: given two business process models, create a process model that is the union of the process models given as input. In other words, the behavior of the produced process model should encompass that of the input models. The paper describes an algorithm that produces a single configurable process model from a pair of process models. The algorithm works by extracting the common parts of the input process models, creating a single copy of them, and appending the differences as branches of configurable connectors. This way, the merged process model is kept as small as possible, while still capturing all the behavior of the input models. Moreover, analysts are able to trace back which model(s) a given element in the merged model originates from. The algorithm has been prototyped and tested against process models taken from several application domains

Origin of Listeria monocytogenes on meat products

Listeria monocytogenes is a relevant food safety hazard in ready to eat products. Inactivation during processing, prevention of recontamination and control of multiplication are the main instruments to secure the safety of meat products. Intensive microbiological monitoring of products and the production environment are valuable tools to assess the level of control in a meat processing plant. During the course of a year all isolates found during hygiene monitoring at a meat processing plant were stored at -70 degrees Celsius. A total of 94 L. monocytogenes isolates have been analyzed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and were divided into 30 different types